Honors programs at state universities

<p>"It’s just the narcissism of small differences. Probably lets them feel better about not going to Harvard or even Duke. "
-And this comment is a narcissism of the the greatest degree, considering the fact that the Honors kids (I would say ALL 200 in D’s Honors program) are valedictorians primarily from private (and some from public) HS who would have been accepted to many Ivy/Elite that is if they applied, they simply did not apply. I know that in D’s HS those of the lesser standing that her applied and got accepted to several Ivy / Elite. D simply did not want to, and frankly, Honors was not her goal, she wanted to be part of combined bs/md and she was accepted to 3 of them, the one that she attended had only 10 spots, I do not think that selectivity of this program was far off selectivity of Harvard.</p>

<p>^ But was your daughter one of the people who was sneeringly mocking the non-honors students at her university? If not, she’s irrelevant.</p>

<p>I have met several Honors students at state universities — I taught at one for a long time — who do seem to be afraid of being “lumped in” with all the other students, and were pretty dismissive of them. This was definitely the narcissism of small differences.</p>

<p>“valedictorians primarily from private (and some from public) HS who would have been accepted to many Ivy/Elite that is if they applied, they simply did not apply. I know that in D’s HS those of the lesser standing that her applied and got accepted to several Ivy / Elite.”</p>

<p>You have no way of knowing where they would be accepted. And it’s pretty common for students who get accepted to top-tier universities but can’t afford it to go to their state Honors college. That’s part of the point of Honors - to attract those who would normally be too good for the school. Think of it as a cheap form of merit aid.</p>

<p>S1 is a sophomore at a state school, and D is a freshman in the Honors College, so I have a bit of an A/B test going on. Absolutely, if your kid is capable of the higher level work, take advantage of it.</p>

<p>The obvious perks: priority registration; two academic advisors, one for her major and one for Honors; occasional Honors-only events; separate scholarship opportunities; English and History courses are Honors-only but just about guaranteed As; Honors notation on the transcript and diploma.</p>

<p>The extra work: A science requirement for non-science majors, or a science breadth requirement for science and engineering majors; a foreign language requirement up through Language 4; a global perspectives requirement; 3.2 min GPA; Honors Thesis.</p>

<p>There are some not-so-obvious perks we have been learning. From the beginning, they are taught the ins-and-outs of writing and submitting academic papers in a way not found in English 101. D’s writing portfolio first semester is substantial, probably 5x what would be done in a typical freshman writing class - her final paper is 20 pages (non pre-med Bio major, by the way). She does not live in the Honors dorm but the students in the Honors classes really develop a connection not typical in regular classes. The Honors professors know their kids better and can write recommendations.</p>

<p>If there is any intellectual arrogance out of the Honors crowd, I haven’t hear of it and no way would it come from my D. I know she would LOVE a fan fiction class. She has been writing them for a few years now.</p>

<p>ETA: My daughter was nowhere near valedictorian status and wasn’t ever considering Ivy League (two states away maximum). Her 3.6 GPA nearly disqualified her but a 33 ACT score and good recommendations got her in.</p>

<p>ETA2: Even if your kid wants to avoid the insular nature of honors programs, the English and History courses are way more interesting and the opportunities are larger - more scholarships, more study-abroad options, more access to professors. The reasons I have heard to avoid honors are the extra foreign language classes and the need to write a thesis.</p>

<p>You really have to know what the program offers as it is different at every school. </p>

<p>Two of my children began with the honors program at their private uni but didn’t stay with it. In my daughter’s case, the program was a very poor fit for her specific major. My son simply didn’t like the honors advisor and he literally fled the program after 1 1/2 years in it. He was able to show me that there simply were no benefits for him to stay in the program. I have to admit that he was eventually proved correct. The perks were nice in the begining, but they left the program when it stopped being a good fit for them. Both ended college with a 3.9 gpa, so it was not an issue of college classes being too hard. </p>

<p>

Do you think capturing those students improves or contributes to the university in any way other than simply raising the statistics of the entering class?</p>

<p>^preamble1776: it may be explainable if there’s a large difference between the Honors College students’ achievements and the “regular” students’ achievements, both wrt admission to the college vs. to Honors College (typically 250-300 pts or more on the SAT, regular vs.AP course rigor, B-weighted vs. 3.7 unweighted…) and in outcomes.
It doesn’t mean the Honors students should be jerks about it, but at some universities, there really IS a gap and it can be a minus in many ways.
Sometimes, there IS a huge difference - and that makes it harder for some students to relate to others (then again, students don’t socialize with everyone if the university has, say, more than 3,000 students :p).
There ARE students who go to college primarily for the freedom, the parties, etc, and for whom learning is incidental. If you have a group of driven students with specific college goals, it’s not difficult to imagine that they wouldn’t relate to each other too well.
Being jerks isn’t reserved to Honors students though - there’ll be similar comments from Engineering majors about Humanities majors, from some groups about athletes, etc, etc…- but a passing comment should not be miscontrued as representative of the College. In addition, I’d say it’s an uncommon attitude at most flagships as far as I know. </p>

<p>Overall, though, if one qualifies for Honors, I don’t see the downside of trying it for one semester. (No one’s required to “stay” in Honors against their will after they got admitted and tried it for a semester).</p>

<p>

I try to take every opportunity to let parents know that research opportunities are available for undergraduates nearly everywhere there is a research laboratory.</p>

<p>This is how it works; you walk down the hallowed halls of the ivory tower sticking your head in doors and ask if anyone wants a lab assistant. If you’re really sharp and have some time, you can go to the university departmental web site and look at the investigator profiles until you find someone doing something interesting to you, then you target that lab. They might talk to you a little bit and then, if you pass muster, you get assigned to a lab worker like a Research Associate or even a graduate student. For a few weeks, you might do mundane work like washing glassware, stocking shelves or cleaning and labeling things. They want to make sure you are trustworthy and reliable. Before long they have you setting up an experiment or even doing some of the scut work that everyone else finds tedious. Soon, you are setting up your own experiments and collecting data. By the end of the quarter, they are anxiously asking if your schedule allows you to come back next term.</p>

<p>Many labs also have unassigned work study funds which they are more than happy to apply to someone who has proven themself useful. So, you can go from wasting time working in the university copy center to doing something you are really interested in and GET PAID for it.</p>

<p>I disagree with mamalion’s post #13 entirely. </p>

<p>A professor should realize what the role of the public U’s is. It is to educate the students of the state. This includes a large number of typical college students but also the elite (and yes, elitism needs to exist in academics to serve the gifted and very bright) students who do not attend elite private schools. Flagship U’s such as Wisconsin and Michigan (and others) do NOT lure students to raise their profiles. In fact, UW does not offer any of the merit scholarships based on grades or test scores some top private schools offer to lure top students. A flagship U is really two schools- one for the majority of the good students and the other for the very best. </p>

<p>It takes no more resources to offer challenging Chemistry, Physics, Calculus, Biology, Liberal Studies or other sequences students would be taking anyhow. I do not consider it the job of any student to contribute to any university- that is the job of faculty.</p>

<p>As I stated before, Honors varies greatly from school to school. Also be aware of the concept of a PROGRAM and a COLLEGE way of conducting things. UW avoids an “us and them” with its program concept instead of separating students by housing and all courses.</p>

<p>Intensity is a good thing, a good trait most of us physicians have. It is different than competitiveness. Miami… you only know what your D reveals to you from her at the moment perspectives. You only have vicarious knowledge of her college/medical school life. What she does not consider intense is such compared to the average college student’s expectations- she lived in the upper echelons most likely without knowing what true average is.</p>

<p>Regarding the labs. Instead of spending the 15 weeks (in my day it was 16) doing the same “cookbook” experiments Honors students spent their lab time in grad labs- each assigned to a different research group to either work more with a previous experiment (Organic- my assignment eons ago had me making an organometallic out of my compound from the lab portion, and PChem had a friend dealing with microwaves while I was dealing with properties of DNA alongside the RA for a few weeks- in the early 1970’s the physical chemists were still delineating its properties). This is totally different than research opportunities now available at the same U as extras, outside of required labs.</p>

<p>Resources should not be devoted to maintaining the status quo/mediocrity/average. The best thing for a state is to educate and keep its students. The way to do this is to offer an education that fits the needs of top students as well as those in the majority. There are public U’s that are elite- with students comparable to those at the elite privates. There are public U programs that are far better than many at those elite schools- especially when undergrads can take the grad level courses that rank in the top 10 or 20 nationally.</p>

<p>I could continue, but more than enough words for this post. </p>

<p>^I guess it depends whether mamalion works for a flagship or a directional or non selective college, and where. </p>

<p>The difference between “typical student” and “Honors student” is also very important to evaluate the issue. Being in the top 10% is fine if the university has 20,000 students. Being in the top 99.5% of that university is very different.
For instance, the average SAT (CR+M) in the CUNY system is 983. The average Macaulay admit has 1400. Macaulay better go all-out to keep its students interested and challenged.</p>

<p>Just as all Honors programs aren’t the same, not all flagships are similarly well-funded or similarly selective, nor do they have students who had good secondary schools, who don’t need to much remedial instruction.</p>

<p>UWisconsin’s average student is not ASU’s or UNLV’s average student for instance. If there are only 2 students who understood the reading, the discussion will be very different than in a class where most students completed and understood the reading, and a good number actually have things to say about it beside who/what/when. </p>

<p>“Flagship U’s such as Wisconsin and Michigan (and others) do NOT lure students to raise their profiles.” </p>

<p>Dream on, wis75. 1781 SAT is the average at Wisconsin, and it is 1756 at state school where I teach and where I know they’re looking to raise the profile through honors. </p>

<p>I fully acknowledge the upside of honors in my earlier post, but given the abilities of the “average” student and the fact that most classes aim, and should aim, to help the average college student succeed, many honors students are underserved. </p>

<p>Whoa- I maintain my position. I hear of many flagships (and private schools) where gpa and/or test scores above a certain level result in lower tuition. Not so at UW at all. A complaint from some is that. btw- how fair is it to use SAT averages at ACT schools? Perhaps the average would be even lower if all applicants took the test. But- some top students who know they are going instate won’t bother with the SAT. I wonder if one can-some apples and oranges that trying to work around can’t work.</p>

<p>UW and Mich do not need “hooks” to get the top students- their academic reputations work for them. If UW did admissions strictly on test and grade stats instead of holistic considerations the averages might be higher. Also- the Honors Program at UW was begun in the 1950’s because of student requests (there was an article in the UW alumni magazine recently), not in recent years to boost the school’s profile. </p>

<p>Schools like UW are effectively two tiered. The top students are given the opportunity to succeed at their level instead of the average for the school. This is why Honors programs exist. To meet the needs of the elite students without overwhelming the above typical level college student at the flagship (the average college level student will be at the other state schools). </p>

<p>Your post seems to be a change from your earlier one. I agree that many schools do not do a good job at serving the top tier students. Some schools do- such as UW.</p>

<p>I’m in my school’s honors program and it’s very similar to preamble1776’s program.</p>

<p>-Separate academic and scholarship advisers
-Better dorms
-Priority enrollment
-Extra scholarship money
-More in-depth work
-A balance of lower and upper division courses
-Small classes (5 to 15 students in a class)
-Ability to receive honors credit for a regular course with instructor permission
-Special honors events and treats</p>

<p>I haven’t experienced any elitism so far and many of the honors students I’ve met have been very friendly. </p>

<p>Students seem to come from different economic backgrounds but I will admit that there aren’t many minority students in the program. However, as a minority student I’ve never felt mistreated. I consider the honors program lounge my safe zone. </p>

<p>What’s the theory behind giving the Honors students “better dorms”? That can’t go down well with the hoi poloi at the same university.</p>

<p>The idea is that the Honors students won’t spend all their time partying during their first year and may even want to get together as a cohort (in fact some honors dorms have classrooms in them).
From a practical point of view, less vomit in the bathroom and guarantee you can sleep because there won’t be loud parties on TUesdays and Wednesdays tend to attract a certain type of students. However because colleges can"t say that, they advertise “better dorms”. Not to mention kids nowadays have often never shared a room and a bathroom and since the colleges can"t remodel all the dorms they focus on the dorms where they put the students whom they want to attract.
In my observation, there isn’t much resentment - everyone knows that to get those dorms, the students had to do something pretty awesome in high school, which many “typical” students felt wasn’t worth it.</p>

<p>wis75, I am so happy that you think your university is wonderful. With an 87% acceptance rate, I can see it is very competitive.</p>

<p>I don’t think a lot of these comments pertain to the original college or honors college in question. UTD isn’t known to be a party school. That’s not to say there isn’t partying, but I think even if my son doesn’t apply to the honors college, he’ll have a decent dorm or apt. Further, he’ll register with the disability office (he has t1 diabetes and a math disability), and may end up getting priority registration anyways. </p>

<p>Still not sure he’ll apply, but the comments have been interesting. </p>

<p>My D’s school has a dynamic Honors program that creates a sense of community within a very large student body. The social aspects of it start with a Freshman dorm where the kids are mentored by Sophomore advisers, but involve many other activities. The benefits of early registration in a big school are great, also. I guess the actual Honors classes are more in depth but I’m not sure. The Honors dorms aren’t “better” facilities though. They are the same as other nearby regular dorms.</p>

<p>“You have no way of knowing where they would be accepted”
-I knew very well where they WERE accepted, not would be. I know this very well because D. was the only one in her HS class with GPA=4.0 uw, she also had probably by far the most of other thing on her application, simply because there is no way one can be accepted to combined bs/md without all those EC’s, high scores,…etc. So, if some in her class were accepted at Ivy/Elite and every single #1 before and after her was accepted at Harvard (almost a traditiona), why she would not? On the other hand, she was similar to others in her Honors program, many went to UG for free and many (especially pre-meds) graduated from UG with straight As. And how I know that - the Summa Cum Laude requirement in D’s department was 3.96. It is impossible to have with a B. D. had 3.98 with 3 A-. So, here you go. Having this college GPA almost ensured acceptance to the Med. School.<br>
But again, as I mentioned previously, some other majors / fields of study amy require UG name recognition.<br>
What I am debating is that there is no reason to have your nose up for acceptance into Ivy / Elite or even an Honors college, many can accomplish that, if this is the goal.</p>

<p>@mamilion – my student is at UW and, regardless of the acceptance rate – high because of its mission as the state flagship – the educational opportunities are extraordinary. My student has had, in both regular and Honors courses, incredible faculty who are leading researchers in their fields, and are engaged with students. My student has met with faculty at coffee shops to discuss papers, gotten emails back over the weekend (which I thought was crazy, as a professor myself), when he asked about a paper topic, and developed close relationships with faculty who have written recommendations for him for internships etc. </p>

<p>@wis75’s point about places like UW and Michigan is that, despite the appearance of so-so education if one only looks at incoming student stats and admissions data – the education happening on campus is top notch. UW does not use reduced tuition rates to lure high state OOS kids because those families already know that UW is a great education at a relatively bargain price, compared to full pay at privates. For the motivated student, a place like UW or Michigan is a wealth of opportunity. Lots of east coast and west coast kids go to UW precisely for that reason. </p>

<p>I think the academic curriculum should be outcomes-driven. Effective placement testing and prerequisite enforcement should eliminate the need for any ‘honors’ program or courses.</p>