<p>I got in. Is it that great? Is it good for pre med?</p>
<p>Congrats on getting in. Time to put on my broken record. It is an Honors Program, not an Honors College. There is a difference.</p>
<p>Because Tulane is already highly selective academically, being in the Honors Program doesn’t make that much difference as far as the courses you take. It does guide you to certain courses that are honors level and can be great, depending on your interests. They are more challenging and have a lot more discussion, with other students that are “the best of the best” and/or really focused in on that topic. Others are not really all that different than regular courses. I think HP students might get priority registration also, which is a real benefit. Certainly if you do get on a wait list, being in the HP gives you a better chance of getting in the class. You also get an extra adviser so you can stay on track to graduate with Latin Honors (summa or magna cum laude) and also get extra advising for certain kinds of awards like Marshall Scholarships or the Rhodes Scholarship. Finally, it does give you priority for getting into Butler, the Honors dorm if you are looking for a bit quieter atmosphere and being with your HP peers.</p>
<p>As far as pre-med, I cannot think of any real advantage there, but maybe there is.</p>
<p>A lot of honors classes are actually the same as non-honors class, but you have to keep a higher grade to receive honors credit for them. I was really disappointed when I found that out. That’s not to say that there aren’t also good honors classes, or even that those classes that aren’t actually honors-only will be disappointing, but in my experience Tulane’s honors program is much less cohesive than most. However, as a student here, I can also add that I think Tulane’s academic offerings are strong enough that the lack of a separate honors program is not really problematic. I think even the best prepared students will be able to find academic challenge if they’re willing to seek it out.</p>
<p>anechkakith - Do you really mean get a higher grade, or do you mean do extra work? I have heard of the latter, but never the former. Doesn’t mean I doubt what you are saying at all, just checking. You are right, of course, that an Honors Program student can get honors credit for nearly any class if it is arranged in advance with the prof, and the requirements laid out. As I said, I happen to have never heard of the requirement being a higher grade, only extra research and papers.</p>
<p>I have heard they are taking steps to make the Honors Program more extensive than it currently is with regards to course offerings. I know they took other steps in the last couple of years to add to the program, such as hiring someone to help students focus on getting the post-graduate prestigious fellowships.</p>
<p>I know some other schools of Tulane’s caliber don’t do an honors program because they feel their academic quality is so high it doesn’t make sense. I think that is kind of what you are saying as well, anechkakith. On the other hand, I think there can be a place for this kind of structure at Tulane. It will be interesting to see how it develops. Personally I think a stronger program would help Tulane attract even more academically talented students.</p>
<p>I mean the exact same work, but if you get an A- or better you get honors credit. I was in a class like that this semester, and from talking to people it’s not as rare as one would expect. I also think that the unrealistic grade expectations like that (this was an uncurved language class!) are a big problem in causing a lot of people to drop out of the honors program.</p>
<p>edit: I’d also like to add that it’s impossible to know which classes are like this until you show up the first day and get the syllabus, because they’re just listed as separate honors classes on the big course schedule you use to register.</p>
<p>OK, thanks for the feedback. As far as your last paragraph, I think the more usual avenue is to talk to the professor ahead of time. You only need four honors classes (or equivalents) total before senior year as a requirement of the program. I say equivalent because I think the freshman colloquium course counts as 3 credits if you take both semesters freshman year. So just because a professor offers the option of an honors credit for making an A- or better doesn’t mean you have to do it, or that you cannot stay in the program anyway. You just have to take one honors course out of the 9-10 courses most students take in their freshman year. The rest of the requirements are based on maintaining an overall high GPA, and writing a thesis senior year. This is long, but here are the requirements:</p>
<p>
[Tulane</a> University Honors Program / Honors Program Requirements](<a href=“http://honors.tulane.edu/web/default.asp?id=ProgramRequirements]Tulane”>http://honors.tulane.edu/web/default.asp?id=ProgramRequirements)</p>
<p>I think that explains it all pretty well.</p>
<p>What I meant more is that the minimum A- grade is reflective of the honors requirements (3.6 by the end of sophomore year, as you quoted) as a whole. I think many entering freshman don’t realize just how hard it is to keep an A- average in college. At many schools, honors is a way of providing more enriching courses for a certain percentage of the student body who may need them, and usually involves much more of a community aspect. At most of these schools, the requirements for staying in are not nearly as strict too, since the purpose is usually more to make a large school seem smaller and more academically nurturing. However, Tulane’s honors program on the whole feels much more like a more formalized system for Latin honors than a fully developed honors program in the sense that most people might think, and I think that’s a difference that most applicants are not aware of, hence their tendency to give the awarding of honors in their admissions letter much more weight in the decision process than I think it really merits. Especially since the OP originally said honors college and was asking if it was great or not, I feel like it should be emphasized that honors at Tulane will, apart from a thesis that you could also probably choose to do even without honors, have fairly little impact on one’s Tulane experience.</p>
<p>Again, this is in no way meant to be a knock on Tulane or to say that honors doesn’t mean anything. It just means something very different than what most prospective students think it might.</p>
<p>edit: To answer the question in the title, at least in 2009, official word was 10% of applicants are offered honors.</p>
<p>It is also true that any nonhonors freshman who achieves a 3.6+ the first year can join the honors program. In a sense, the honors program is open to all students.</p>
<p>anechkakith - Ah, now I understand, and you are absolutely correct. Technically after freshman year you stay in if you get at least a 3.45, but then you have to get it to 3.6 by end of sophomore year. You are also 100% correct that it is an Honors Program in the sense of graduating with Latin Honors for the most part, with the other benefits that I described. This is one reason I keep harping on the correct term of Honors Program and not Honors College, as you (once again correctly) state the latter implies a greater immersion into a scheme that is more distinct from the rest of the school.</p>
<p>Again, I think Tulane is going to move a bit more towards making the Honors Program a more distinct experience. I know they are still considering various ideas. Before Fall 2009, I traded e-mails with Dr. Luongo (head of the Honors Program) and he told me they were considering making the Freshman Honors Colloquium, a kind of “great books” course, required for all Honors Program freshman. That has not happened, and maybe it never will. But I am convinced that they are committed to beefing up the program to cater a bit more to all students in the program.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about getting into Honors vs. not getting into Honors. I’m in Honors and it’s really not that great. Most Honors sections of classes are graded much more harshly than non-Honors classes (why take a B in Honors Calculus when you can get an A in regular Calculus) and there really aren’t as many Honors sections and colloqiums as one might expect. That being said, as an Honors student you are likely to be informed of and connected to many more opportunities than an average non-Honors student *who doesn’t seek them out on their own.</p>
<p>Most of the people I know in the current freshman class who were admitted to the Honors Program as freshman aren’t even planning on doing the Honors thesis or staying in the program long-term.</p>
<p>Feel free to PM me with any questions.</p>
<p>Oh and I just realized the OP is premed…if I were you I would avoid Honors sections like the plauge unless they are colloquims tought by “easy” profs. I’ve heard too many stories about killed GPAs by means of honors classes :(</p>
<p>I prefer the way UChicago handles honors. Anyone who attains a 3.25 GPA earns College honors, each department establishes it’s own requirements for departmental honors. Departmental honors typically require a higher GPA and an honors thesis.</p>
<p>You can also receive departmental honors at Tulane:</p>
<p>To be eligible for departmental honors, a student must earn a cumulative grade-point average of a least 3.400 and a grade-point average of at least 3.500 in courses counting toward the major, must complete an honors thesis or project, and must fulfill all of the departments other requirements for honors.</p>