This is probably going to come off as a little pretentious, so I apologize in advance.
I was recently accepted into the Honors College. How impressive or prestigious is this? Are students recognized throughout the college and by employers as truly exceptional?
I’ve been told my whole life that the bigger and more impressive the name of the college, the better. I’ve applied to Ivies, other private schools like Vanderbilt and Duke, and state schools like UVA and UNC Chapel Hill. I’m not making a decision now, but I want to know that USC Honors College is as impressive and prestigious as these other schools. I guess I want to know that sacrificing the Harvard or the Yale on my diploma will be worth it. Will I always be naturally less impressive than students who chose to attend these schools?
I am parent and have seen this question come up numerous times. From my perspective, and from the general comments I see here, it is a very smart decision to attend the #1 Honors College in the country for very little $$ and save that money for a prestigious/Ivy graduate program. My sister went to Yale for both undergrad and Law. She a full ride at UVA for Law but chose Yale as it was ranked #1 at the time. She was quite snobby about it, even after graduating and working alongside professionals from non-Ivy schools. She’s about 5 years out now, and is doing just as well as her peers who went to public or “lesser than” law schools. Yes, that degree got her foot in the door, but she couldn’t even last two years at that first job. Despite making good money, she still has law school debt (parents paid for undergrad). In my experience with myself, spouse, and my own peers (I am over a decade older than she is), I would say that a good 90% of us went to small, little-known LACs or public universities. I live in a very affluent area and we’re all doing quite well. I preach this to my kids all the time–I 100% believe that it’s not where you go, but who you are that determines your success. I don’t think that paying extra $$ for a name is going to get you any further in the long run. This is just what I’ve seen over the years. Go to school where you feel you’ll thrive–where you’ll find people like you, where you’ll be comfortable, and yes, where you will have FUN. My sister did not have much fun at all during undergrad or Law school. She was crazy stressed and developed an eating disorder. At the time she didn’t believe in having fun in college. She sees things differently now that she’s been in the workforce working 80 hour weeks and realizing she’s never had a “break” in her life. It was the time she should have let go and had some fun. Too late now. Good luck with your choice–sounds like you’ll have a lot of fantastic options. Visit as many of the schools as you can and get a good feel for what living there for four years would be like. Don’t worry so much about the name or the ranking. You’ll likely end up in a graduate program, so work hard and get yourself to the best program possible then. But the #1 public honors program is quite prestigious indeed!
Congrats on your acceptance. You have applied to a bunch of schools, and will hopefully have some great choices… there really isn’t a right answer to your question. you need to evaluate your financial ability to pay first and foremost. No undergrad is worth $250k in debt. Then you need to look at your intended area of study and how the schools compare for that area. many of the top grad schools admit more Ivy undergrads, but that does not mean that other schools don’t feed them as well. for most people, things even out over time. You are only spending 4 years as an undergrad. It is a stepping stone. Go someplace where you feel comfortable. Where you can excel.
If name is important to you, then you will have regrets if you don’t follow the name. That is o.k., just be honest with yourself. I just wouldn’t recommend going into significant debt or spending your parents money on someplace where you are not 100 percent committed.
My D applied to some of schools you mentioned and was accepted - in the end she happily followed the money to USC Honors. Lots of her classmates (and D) had perfect stats and amazing accomplishments. The did great things in college at USC and had great opportunities. They were challenged, had great interactions with professors and were able to do research. D had overage checks from college that she saved. She is now at Ivy grad program. Many of her friends have grad degrees - off the top of head a couple in med school, couple in law school, several in PhD programs and most others have some type of masters. Great group of kids.
I agree about cost - we determined that the schools she got into without any merit were not worth th extra money. If name of school is what’s important and you can afford it - go for it. Wait until you get all your acceptances and then revisit the ones that fit you best.
It would be delusional to suggest that U of SC Honors College carries the prestige of an Ivy, Duke or Vanderbilt – and I have a kid who goes there!
IIRC, you are from New Jersey. We’re from the Philadelphia suburbs and I’m going to be blunt about some of the reactions that my D (and her dad and I) have encountered.
Numerous people will assume (if you wind up at U of SC) that you are there because you didn’t get in anywhere “better” – and they might well include schools like Penn State and U Delaware in their list of “better” schools. Or they’ll assume that your parents were willing to pay extra for you to go to school where it’s warm–not realizing that Honors College students gets lots of merit money at U of SC and often pay considerably less than they would at their own state schools, and for an often superior experience.
Some employers (in SC, NC, GA, VA) will recognize that the Honors College at U of SC is highly rated – but some will not, because they don’t know it as anything but a big SEC football school. Even the Honors College designation may have little significance to them, as many schools have Honors Programs that vary in intensity, selectivity, etc. Maybe an International Business major will have an edge, as that is a nationally recognized program. But it’s unlikely that a NYC or Philadelphia employer is going to say, “Wow, the SC Honors College! Let me put this resume for a summer finance internship in with those from the Wharton students” unless they have some personal link with someone who went (or seriously considered going) there.
Now, is that a problem? Not for most of the 400+ kids who enter the SCHC each fall and are intellectually challenged by their classmates and professors in small (sometimes tiny) classes with many opportunities for research, travel, internships, etc. It’s a beautiful campus and the people in the area (students and residents) are friendly and helpful (not at all what my kid is accustomed to). If grad school is on the horizon, choose the prestigious name for that degree and get a great foundation in SC at a really low cost.
But if a major criterion for undergrad is “name” (and that’s OK if it is; everyone weights things differently), you might be happier at a different school (although FWIW, I predict that U of SC name recognition will improve as more kids from the Northeast head down to SC for four years and then come back and perform well in jobs up north).
Prestige may get you the interview, but from there, it’s all on you. Plenty of public school grads (Wisconsin and Penn State come to mind) wind up being CEO’s - and they didn’t pay the hefty Ivy price tags. Look for the school with the best program in your area of interest (and a strong alum base) - not the name engraved in the marble. I’ve known kids that picked schools based on reputation - they got there and weren’t happy because it wasn’t a fit from the beginning. They didn’t transfer because they thought it would look like they couldn’t hack it. Who cares what others think. Do what your gut tells you to do.
My kid got into Univ of South Carolina Honors last year, pre IB major with a Cooper and Lieber scholarship, but he unexpectedly got into Stanford REA and did not submit any other applications after this. We had money saved up to pay for expensive private school. He didn’t apply to any other schools except Stanford REA, top UCs and two Honor Schools, so basically his choices came down to $70k at Stanford, $40k at UCLA/Berkeley and Univ of South Carolina Honors pre IB for around $13k per year. I had the money talk with my kid ( what he could do with the money he saved by going to Univ of South Carolina Honors) but to make the long story short, our kid chose Stanford but it was not 100% about prestige (some of it was, no question about it) because our kid felt Stanford was the best fit for him; that is why he applied there REA. But If I had to go into debt of over $150k to send my kid to another college over Univ of South Carolina Honors, I would not have allowed my kid to apply to that college. It’s true not many people in CA know about Univ of South Carolina Honors, but I have no doubt he would have received a very good undergraduate education from USC Honors. Had my kid decided to go to USC Honors, I would have wore USC t-shirt proudly. My kid took a gap year and he’s abroad studying another language on some scholarship, and I believe (cannot prove it) the fact that he was accepted and going to Stanford did play a role in being chosen for this scholarship worth $50k if you had to put monetary value on it. He would have gone straight to Stanford if he had not gotten this study abroad scholarship. What I am saying is there could be some practical value resulting from the way people perceive your attending certain school. I also believe his being accepted to Stanford also played a role in his getting a nice summer paid internship after his high school senior year at a city prosecutor’s office. The reason I say this is that according to our kid’s description of how the interview went, the interviewing attorneys were so impressed by his resume and the fact that he got into Stanford that they accepted him into a paid internship position even though he was not from the same city, which is allowed but not the norm. I also believe this also helped his receiving 4 or 5 thousand dollars from various scholarship money from two entities including a city library that gives out money based on non-financial basis. Note that I am not saying and cannot prove that he got the study abroad scholarship, a paid internship summer job and several thousand dollars scholarship money because of the Stanford name but I feel the name played a role. But again, there is no way I would go into a big debt to send my kid to any school when he can go to USC Honors; and no question in my mind our kid would have received a first rate education from there. I also think where you want to live is a consideration. I would urge many intending full paying UCLA/ Berkeley kid’s to seriously consider USC Honors school.
Do I believe 100% that his college choice will turn out to be the best one for him? No. Like most things in life, it’s a calculated risk, taking into consideration your financial situation, kid’s personality traits etc. But it should also be noted he is our only kid. My concern was not so much I would lose money but he be aware of his options and what he could do with the money he saved.
One thing I found out after the fact is that the CA rep for Univ of South Carolina left her position after our kid applied and did not really follow up regarding USC Honors so we did not feel that USC Honors really wanted CA kids. No biggie but I thought they could have done a better person to person marketing.
Stanford Alum with degrees from 3 other schools. Stanford is a special place and he will love his time there. In my opinion it is worth every cent and he will reap the rewards if he makes the most of his time there. Best decision I ever made. Congrats!
School prestige is highly overrated. What’s really important is that you’re in the honors program. That’s something to put on a resume because it shows you accomplished something more than getting a bachelors degree. Those are the kinds of things employers look at. Plus, it’s just a bachelors degree. A master’s degree squashes a bachelors degree any day of the week, even if the bachelors comes from Harvard. In the working world, the thing that matters most is the degree and your major. Once your foot is in he door, it’s all about experience.
@lesjubilants NSLIY Academic Year to live and study another language/culture at no cost (all expenses covered, including air fare, dorm, food, planned activities, host family stay during weekends and holidays and even a small stipend) – imo a fabulous opportunity which equals or surpasses even one or two years at Stanford. Also, it is my opinion that there is no way you can learn a language this fast in a school classroom; language is best learned in that country and when one is young. Our kid has no regret having taken this gap year as he has improved tremendously in this particular language and learned a lot from his experiences. (A negative effect may be that his English writing skill may have gone down due to lack of usage. lol) It should be mentioned that anyone who decides to take a gap year to pursue this kind of opportunity will have a very hard, if not impossible, task of obtaining a gap year deferral decision from UCs and Honors Colleges, which means our kid had to re-apply to UCs and Honors Colleges and also for any scholarships given. For Stanford, it took just 5 minutes to ask and receive a gap year deferral to reserve his spot one year later just by making a deposit of $200. Essentially, once he chose to accept the offer to study abroad for one year, he did not have any college other than Stanford which was willing to give him a deferral admission, i.e., reserve a spot for him, without having to re-apply for both the admission and merit-based scholarships.
Referring to the post above, when you think about it, everything is overrated. An expensive car or boat, houses are all overrated. Health, character, honesty, hard work and having some people who love and care about you — these things are never overrated. I am living in a house which is 6 times bigger than an apartment in which I started my career, and I can’t honestly say bigger house makes me more happy even though I can afford it. A nice bed and shower is much important to me than a nice, expensive house. Coffee tastes the same whether I drink it in a 3 million dollar house or 200k house. It really depends on who I am drinking coffee with.
The most tasty food is the food you eat when you have been hungry, i.e. it’s the person’s heart and appreciation that makes the food taste nice. If you are hungry to learn, you will devour knowledge at any environment.
Referring back to the first post in this thread mentioning SC Honors College vs schools like UVA, my nephew was just accepted to UVA. He’s a great kid! He was also accepted to SC but was not asked to apply to honors. I just found this a little mind boggling that a kid can get in UVA and not be qualified for SC Honors. I think That says something really positive about SC Honors.
@cdluvsvt, if he was not prompted to apply, either he somehow missed it or something very wonky happened. It prompts you when you put in your original application. Perhaps he missed it or didn’t want to do the extra essays?! I know of several kids (my own included) who were prompted to apply to the HC but were denied at UVA. The threshold to apply to the HC isn’t all that high–my DD only had a 30 ACT and less than a 4.0 but was asked to apply.
Agree with g8rmomk8ans. The HC app invite is automatic based on GPA and test scores which are self reported on the application for all applicants who apply early action.
