<p>What can I expect from honors programs at colleges? What do the best programs offer their students?</p>
<p>If you are accepted into an honors college, you should be going to a better college. Honors colleges do not impress me.</p>
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I’ll keep that in mind for next time I feel the need to impress you.</p>
<p>My feeling about honors colleges is that they are a way of mitigating the disadvantages associated with a school rather than advantages in and of themselves. In other words, an honors college can be invaluable in providing reduced bureaucratic overhead, increased access to research funds, intelligent peers, etc. but does not change the fundamentals of the school. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since many state Us with honors colleges are really outstanding institutions whose disadvantages primarily lie in arenas under the scope of an honors college.</p>
<p>I like honors programs…</p>
<p>however, it can depend on the school and how they are run. Many have LAC-like classes that are small and more discussion based. They can be like a “school within a school.” Some have honors dorms and other benefits like early registration and classes taught by the best profs.</p>
<p>Honors Programs really provide a number of specialized core classes tailored for select students. Otherwise, these students take majority of their classes with their fellow collegians who aren’t in the program. It’s about mentoring for exceptional students and neat freebies for them.</p>
<p>Honors Program + Full Ride at a state flagship is an understandable choice over non-HYPS schools (i.e., those schools that don’t have exceedingly generous FA programs).</p>