I got off the wait list for the honors program and I wanted to know more about it from possible current students or so. From the site, all I can really gather is that there are a few events and you have to take a few hard classes. I’m questioning whether or not I should therefore accept or wait for Grand Challenges. I hear that it’s “prestigious” but can anyone confirm? A number of my friends have gotten in.
I’m a current Honors Program Tech student! HP accepts about 10% applicants, so it definitely is prestigious. If your friends are in it and you join, you would be guaranteed to live in the same building/in an attached building.
The Honors Program does not make you take hard classes - as long as you don’t take honors calculus, which probably won’t even be offered next year as Tech just redesigned the freshman mathematics program. Honors physics is no different than modern physics (which most students find preferable anyway) and honors CS is a gradebooster compared to regular CS. In my experience, the special topics classes you have to take have been interesting, not hard. I chose between Grand Challenges and HP and am really glad I made the choice I did because I really like the special topics classes. What GC does is put students in groups to solve real-world problems. Note that you can join clubs to solve similar-type problems as well.
Neither program has reached its full potential yet, I believe. HP was established ~2008 and GC in 2012, so they are both pretty young. As of last year, GC has a better sense of community (for freshmen at least) but HP is making changes to the freshman program so I can’t really say what it will be like next year. Both programs have events and field trips for its members. Each would look good on your resume and neither is necessarily better. I found that a lot of the upperclassmen/recent grads I found most impressive ended up being HP students, so these programs at the very least do choose people who stand out on campus and make a difference.
To be completely honest, though, one of the main perks of either program is priority housing. Next year, GC freshmen will live in Howell on East Campus and HP freshmen will live in Hefner and Armstrong on West. My freshman year all HP freshmen lived on East, which I enjoyed. My advice would be if you have been accepted into both programs, then you can weigh the pros and cons of each, but if you’ve only gotten a yes from one, don’t turn it down expecting to get into the other.
@gogeorgiatech How are the dorms and the social life? My friends decided to go to other schools besides GT, so i won’t have any rooming with me. I got rejected for GC so i decided to just accept Honors. Thanks a ton for your detailed response! It really helps a lot.