Honors/Scholars Class of 2023

My D (admitted in mid January) received notification today that she was placed into her 1st choice for scholars (Biological Sciences). Very happy girl here! Also got merit scholarship letter on Tuesday–National Buckeye + Provost.

We are OOS. D’s stats are 1480 SAT, 3.65 UW GPA, 4.25 W GPA. Lots of sports, work, leadership, and service.

Son was accepted in November, Honors College, School of Engineering, Computer Engineering. He was offered the Maximus Scholarship (3K per year) and the National Buckeye Scholar (13.5K per year). We are out of state so I am not sure if this is enough to entice him to attend. Any chance more scholarship money will be awarded?

@MarcieC Probably not right now. The School of Engineering does not typically award scholarship money to incoming freshmen. Most of the scholarship money goes to “retention” scholarships for those who do really well. My 2 nephews (one in mechanical engineering and one in computer engineering) basically got straight A’s and got these scholarships. One of them also got a large scholarship for minoring in business.

Just got this email from the Honors/Scholars department. It’s frustrating because we are going to Accepted student event the end of March and do not know whether to go to the honors session. We also don’t know whether to apply for honors housing when the time comes.

Congrats to your son on his acceptance to OSU, we are excited that he in interested in our Honors program! Once he was accepted to the university, his application materials were sent to the Honors and Scholars department, which then sends them out to readers across the university. Once that reader is done with your son’s application they report back and we wait until we have a sizable group of decisions before sending them out. These waves are not scheduled, so I can not give you a specific date, but I can confidently say that you and your son will hear back from us by mid-April.
If some of his peers have heard back, there is no need to worry! This is a result of when they were accepted, how quickly their reader got back to us, and what wave they ended up in.

I hope that this helps but feel free to respond if you have any other questions!

Great information. I am still not impressed with how OSU processes honors applications. The admitted students honors day is in March! We visited Purdue yesterday and my son committed to Purdue last night. He promptly declined OSU, so I guess we’ll never know if he made honors! Frustrating, and a quicker response from OSU could have made a big difference. We’re quite happy he chose Purdue, but would have been fine with OSU.

that is truly frustrating…wishing you the best of luck!

So, our daughter was admitted for the Class of 2023, and into Scholars. Would it be crazy to decline scholars? She does not like their required dorm assignment at all. That may be a crazy reason. It is Baker Hall East.

@homejodi I recommend joining the “Ohio State University (OSU) Parents” group on Facebook. There may be parents there with insight into the living situation at that specific dorm.

@homejodi I don’t think that’s crazy at all. My son didn’t apply to any programs that required having to live in a specific dorm or living/learning community. He wanted to be able to choose who he lived with and where.

@homejodi the thing that’s best about Scholars is that it can give the 18 year old something smaller and more manageable immediately inside of the enormous institution of Ohio State. Hopefully, those kids have similar interests and will take some of the same classes as your son which is also great. I’d talk to kids currently in that Scholars program and have him join the Social Media accounts of next year’s freshmen for that program before he says no.

@Homejudi My son was accepted to the Scholars program, but this particular program wasn’t his first choice and the designated dorm (on the West campus) wasn’t one he wanted to live in, so he ended up declining the invitation. For what it’s worth, I fully supported his decision. OSU dorms aren’t exactly the best to begin with when compared to other schools he’s gotten into, so it is important to him that he have a chance of getting into the North or South campus dorms with AC. He realizes that with OSU’s quirky dorm selection process he might still end up in a West campus dorm, but he wants to keep his options open.

@homejodi Your daughter needs to weigh the benefits of the scholars program with the fact that she will have to live in an old dorm with no air conditioning. Depending on when her acceptance fee is paid there is a very good chance that she could still end up on South campus in a dorm that has no air conditioning without the benefits of the program. Whichever way she chooses I hope it works out for her. My daughter is in the Humanities Scholars program but she realized going in that she’d be housed in Baker East.

My son was admitted to STEM exploration and i think the highlight is that it is in Houston House which is brand new and really nice.

My son applied for Business Scholars but only got MMC Scholars and dorm in Morrill tower. Knowing that’s an old building, I am assuming it’s not a great dorm to be in?

Hi all. I was looking on this forum to answer some questions for a friend and I thought I could offer some insight.

I am currently a freshman at OSU in the MMC Scholars program. I am also a Honors & Scholars Ambassador. MMC was a first choice, which does not seem to be the case for most of the kids on this forum. However, I know a lot of kids in the program who did not have MMC as their first choice. Honestly, I think it is definitely worth it to stick with the program anyways. The program is only as much as you make of it. MMC consists of project groups where you learn different softwares and skill sets, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Public Speaking, Professional Development, and many more. Project groups meet once a week for an hour and you can take as many as you would like. I have learned a lot through the program, especially career-related wise. In my first semester, I learned how to market myself with the perfect resume, I got to interview and industry professional, and I learned softwares that make me a competitive applicant.

Even if you are not interested in Media, Marketing, or Communications, this program is a great way to network and build your professional image. In Scholars programs, you all live on the same floor, so you are automatically with a group of kids who share similar interests. This is really special compared to kids who go in random. Having that automatic community makes the transition into college so much easier.

As for declining because of housing (ie. living on West), I do not think that is a good enough reason. I currently live in Morrill Tower, and although it is not the newest place, it automatically fosters friendships and community. Living in a suite allows you to have immediate friends AND Morrill has everything you need inside. Sure, it sucks being a little far from everything, but you have a dining hall, a c-store, and plenty of study rooms for when you don’t want to have to brace the cold.

For those wanting to experience better dorms over being in Scholars, I can say that no matter the situation, it is extremely hard for freshmen to get in the new renovated dorms. Actually, I do not know of any freshmen who are not in a Scholars group being in the newly renovated North campus dorms. Most people live in the older dorms that do not have A/C. So I would not bet on getting a nice, new dorm if you reject the Scholars invitation.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask me!

I got accepted into Scholars STEM this morning. The email said I would be in Houston Housing. Does each Scholars program have their own housing building? I’ve heard Houston is fairly new, does anyone know if it’s a nice dorm?

My daughter just got accepted into STEM today too. The dorm is amazing and new! I’m trying to help her figure out the next step of finding a roommate. Does anyone know where they can do a scholar stem specific roommate search? Also, she is a business major. I’m wondering what other majors people who have gotten in are focusing on?

my son just got an email about housing. He wants to submit it ASAP to get best chance of getting room type choice, but he’d like to find a roommate, rather than it being completely random. Does anyone know of a group like Facebook, or snapchat, etc. to find an honor roommate?

has anyone is honors engineering received anything about orientation yet?

I heard that honors dorms suck: no a/c