<p>weenie - agree with your comments. My s was invited into the honors program at one of the privates he was accepted to. Not much there other than flexibility on course requirements and a few seminars. We had to read the letter three times and we were still confused. I believe he was invited strictly on his GPA and SAT scores.
Saying all honors programs are the same is like saying all universities are the same. They're quite different and vary significantly in quality.
But I agree with Garrity that most DO offer benefits over the regular university experience - some more than others. And a few stand out as models.</p>