Okay so I’m planning on attending Baylor as a bio/premed student. I was wondering if I should apply to the honors college and if it would benefit my chances at med school. I have read that the honors college gives you priority for classes and more guidance from advisors. Although I have also heard that maintaining a high gpa while in the honors college and pursuing med is more difficult. Any input or insight would be much appreciated!
Bump? I would really appreciate insight as many have said the honors college is great but could hinder gpa for med school.
@Nick36245 Unlike in high school where colleges look at honors as increased academic rigor and give advantage to those who do well in the rigorous courseload, in college it’s different. Because colleges–especially the top 100 national universities of which Baylor is within, are for the most part, rigorous. Med schools don’t care as much about honors. Premed is difficult enough without honors. GPA in premed courses is paramount as well as overall gpa. Advantage of honors is priority registration and possibly Science research opportunities (which Med schools do like) that may not be available to non-honors students. You will need to look into that because each honors program is different. Honors priority registration can help freshman get into certain courses that they would otherwise have to wait until sophomore year for. Honors offers more in-depth and your peers who are all top students. You may be more motivated by that. Some professors in honors courses actually give higher grades because they know the class represents the top students. However some honors programs are more grade-deflating. It depends on the school and you will need to ask around. Hopefully someone else at Baylor can chime in here. You can try honors for first year and then back out. IMO the extra work involved and time that cannot be devoted to your other courses makes doing Honors (and eventually an honors thesis) not worth it.
Thanks for the input! Is there any current Baylor Honors students (preferably Pre-med) that could shed light on the topic?
Bump?
Im not a current honors student but my DD has been accepted into the honors program for the Fall and is in a similar position. Its really hard for us to get a good idea if the extra rigor/time etc is worth it at this point. We spoke with some students in the program during a campus visit (about the workload) and they said it was tough but manageable. These were admittedly top students in their engineering programs but not pre-med that I can remember.
The challenge has been at each level, from junior high to high school, etc the feed back was that the next level is considerably harder, don’t expect to handle the same load, etc. That never really materialized at least academically and DD has just adapted to keep grades up (all high A’s 4 years of HS, top 1%). So not sure how rigorous it will be. The other aspect is some of the courses run counter to applying AP credits for English, etc. The purpose is to take the advanced English courses not place out of your English requirements, etc.
You can review the honors college handbook and specifically page 8 where it talks about the specific courses required for the program. https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/28720.pdf. Possibly see if these classes look like the type you would enjoy/excel.
Ultimately DD hopes to get sold on some of the additional benefits during registration next month…
I’ll try to get my DD to respond. She is a pre-med honors student currently living in the honors college. She is very happy with it. If you are pure pre-med, I have heard great things about the Health Science residential college having study sessions, a lot of students in the same classes, and even some classes that are offered in the dorm. But my daughter likes living with very bright students who are not all pre-health. It’s up to you.
My son is there and told me he would lose it if he had to do all the honors college stuff. He is a math/science guy and the thought of writing a million papers and being touchy feely almost made him break out in hives. At other schools, honors means a more rigorous program in the area you choose. At Baylor it seems very liberal artsy and he has said he would have been horribly unhappy if he had gone that route. I guess it depends if you like reading and writing…a lot.