<p>I live outside the United States (in Asia) and I can’t even begin to imagine when I will receive my letter from the Honors program. I’m thinking that I should just enroll at Berkeley because I am 98% sure that I will be going there, the other 2% being left with the UW Honors program, in the slight chance that I am admitted and in the slight chance that I would still accept the Honors program over Berkeley…</p>
<p>^ Haha did that sentence make any sense to you guys?</p>
<p>Haha yes it did make sense. That’s too bad, they should email you or something instead!</p>
<p>Why would you choose UW honors vs Berkley? i would have thought UCB wins over UW…educate please :)</p>
<p>Just letting you guys know that you should be getting your letters soon because I got my in the mail today. Accepted =) yay! Good luck to everyone else!</p>
<p>@HeavenlyFrozen— did anything change for you in the MYUW pages?</p>
<p>Hmm nope I don’t think so. My unoffical transcript looks the same to me.</p>
<p>Congrats, HeavenlyFrozen!</p>
<p>Just checked the mail–I got in too!! Speedsolver, how do you like the program? Is it really hard?</p>
<p>Congrats, momomomo!</p>
<p>I enjoy the program … some of it. Hahaha, this will require some explanation.</p>
<p>There are some things I take advantage of - Honors advising and scholarship opportunities.</p>
<p>I commute, so I can’t really give an opinion on the Honors floors in Lander and McMahon.</p>
<p>As for classes, I’ve taken a few. Perhaps it is the specific classes I’ve taken/professors, but they do not have a very rigid syllabus/plan - we can go off tangent sometimes, explore ideas that are actually interesting to the students rather than looking through textbooks. I’ve only had one ‘required’ text/reading for all of my Honors classes. Since the Honors core curriculum classes are not prerequisites for other courses (ie. ECON 200 is a prereq to ECON 201), it’s not necessary to actually cover everything the professor originally intended to.</p>
<p>The Honors classes are a lot less work than my other classes (math/engineering field here) and make my work load somewhat lighter.</p>
<p>Honestly though, I might drop Core Honors. We’re required to take 45 credits (9 5-credit courses) and I have other plans for my Areas of Knowledge requirements… things that would help me in the future, ie ECON.</p>
<p>There’s also something called Departmental Honors, which is basically where you do research, hold a 3.5 GPA(approx?), and write a senior paper in your department. This is a completely different application that differs from department to department. I personally think this would be a lot more valuable in the long run, especially for science/engineering majors.</p>
<p>Hmm… what would you like to know, specifically? I think i touched on a few areas of the Honors department.</p>
<p>Also, I don’t know if your letter includes this, but check out the Peer Mentors page on the Honors site. Feel free to contact any of these people; I definitely got to know some of the peer mentors very well and we’re pretty good friends now. Last year, people accepted into Honors were paired with a peer mentor of somewhat similar interest (mine was a double science-major!). I’m not sure if this is the case this year.</p>
<p>Here’s the link: [UW</a> Honors - Peer Mentors](<a href=“UW NetID sign-in - Stale Request”>UW NetID sign-in - Stale Request)</p>
<p>These students have volunteered to answer questions, and it would be very helpful to get to know the opinions of different people, especially if you’re considering more than one field.</p>
<p>i got my letter today and got into honors. i live about 20ish minutes from uw</p>
<p>Thanks, speedsolver! You are very helpful. So you don’t find the classes incredibly hard? What would you say the advantages are?</p>
<p>Humanities - No, I don’t find them hard. I find them a lot easier than my other classes. However, when you pick classes, be sure to pick ones with topics that interest you! Otherwise, you’ll be studying things you don’t really like in depth, and that will, of course, reflect in your GPA.</p>
<p>I think the advantages are the following:
-Honors classes are a LOT smaller. While you take intro (200-500 people per class, maybe more?) courses, Honors are between 11 and 25 people-ish in each class. </p>
<p>For classes such as Honors maths and sciences, they are more rigorous than the normal math, bio, phys, chem courses. You go into more depth, go at a faster pace. Usually people who get 5’s on the AP or 7(?) on the IB can take Honors chem, for example.</p>
<p>Another plus is the community. If you try to get to know other Honors students, it’s not as difficult as trying to know random people from campus (unless you join interest groups, etc). I met a few of my closest friends at… Honors Orientation/Advising, to tell you the truth. Since then, even though I commute, I’ve been able to establish friendships with other students (freshman and upperclassmen!) in the program more easily than I thought. (This doesn’t include getting to know people in the CSE department, but let’s assume everyone is a pre-major here, so there isn’t really a single community to go to besides Honors.)</p>
<p>Final thing I like (that I can think of off the top of my head right now) is getting to know professors. I know professors at a level that is different from your average student’s relationship to professors. For quite a few of them (for being in my 3rd quarter at UW), I know them on a name to name basis, and I can ask them for help in anything, even two quarters after I take a course with them! This is also perfect for getting to know various professors for research opportunities in the future.</p>
<p>Wow, thank you so much!! So is every class that small? There are no lecture classes??</p>
<p>My DS got his letter, accepted~!</p>
<p>I think the Honors math (ie Math 134, equivalent to Math 124/calc 1) is around 50 people or so, but it’s still smaller than the 70+ students in a ‘normal’ math class. Also, by no means are you required to take Honors math. You can take Honors phys/bio/chem, and there are Honors sections for some classes such as CSE 143.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to the requirements - [UW</a> Honors - Honors Core Curriculum (new)](<a href=“The Honors Curriculum | University of Washington Honors Program”>The Honors Curriculum | University of Washington Honors Program)</p>
<p>How binding is honors? If it’s too challenging can you get out of it?</p>
<p>You can always, any time, drop out of Honors. No penalty.</p>
<p>I’m guessing it would have to be done at the end of the quarter though?</p>
<p>If you’re taking Honors classes during the current quarter, yeah I think so.</p>
<p>For example, I’m not taking any Honors classes this quarter. If I wanted to drop out, I’ll just walk into the advising office with my student ID and tell them I’m ‘leaving’ Honors.</p>