<p>Hey guys,
I was wondering if anyone could tell me about the KU Honors program. I've been accepted to it with a solid scholarship, and I've heavily been considering it and comparing it as a viable option to the other schools I've been accepted to and am heavily considering. I've been accepted to Tulane and uMiami as well, with Tulane being my top choice up to this point. However, medical school is the end goal and I'm looking for the most practical and realistic path there. How does KU honors stack up compared to these schools? what's yalls opinon? any input is appreciated!</p>
<p>Not sure if you will see this post because it’s like 3 weeks later but…</p>
<p>I’m currently a freshman at the KU Honors program, and I think it’s pretty cool so far. There are a LOT of pre-meds in honors, so if you come here you’ll definitely find people with the same plans/goals as you. Lots of pre-med classes, clubs to join, fraternities for pre-meds, etc. </p>
<p>Plus honors students at this school get a lot of perks compared to the rest of the student body. We get to enroll in classes an average of 2 weeks earlier than everyone else, next year the honors program will have an entire dorm (Templin Hall) all to itself… It’s a bit less crazy than the other dorms and the focus is more on academics, though people still do party on the weekends. You can stay there if you want or go live elsewhere if you feel like it. I’m staying there next year ;)</p>
<p>The school offers a lot of honors classes, which are a lot smaller (anywhere from 10-50 people) and more “personal” than the huge lectures (which can literally have up to 800 people). Sometimes honors classes are a lot harder and more in depth than the regular version and other times they are basically the same class but smaller. Just depends on the professor you have. </p>
<p>The honors program also has a lot of events and helpful things that you could go to, most of them are located in a building called Nunemaker that is right across the street from the honors dorm. Nunemaker looks tiny from the outside, but I swear it’s bigger on the inside somehow 
Spiral staircases, lots of artwork, etc. The events inside range from talks given by important people (med school and grad school admissions people, KU deans of various schools, and visiting scholars from other universities) to “how to” workshops about writing resumes and applying for internships, to social events like pizza parties and movie nights and “schedule release parties” where you can hang out and compare your class schedules for next semester. </p>
<p>That’s all I can think of at the moment… If you see this, do you have any other questions about the honors program at KU? </p>
<p>@Aurora132231 Thanks for that info on the KU honors program. I have a son who is considering applying next year in engineering. When you say some honors sections are considerable harder do you mean you will be risking your GPA more than if you had just taken the regular class? Or in other words, are the profs curving you against other honors students but using the same curve definition as regular classes?</p>
<p>Just asking because some other schools have stressed that their honors classes are graded on a higher curve (ie mostly A’s and B’s) so that there isn’t a great risk to taking honors classes even though they still cover more material and more in-depth.</p>
<p>@Aurora132231, I’m also interested in the info that @STEMFamily has asked about - so thank you in advance if you have the opportunity to reply.</p>
<p>Also, I’m very interested to learn more about Templin Hall being converted to an “Honors-only” dorm next year. Back in the stone age, when I attended KU, Templin was not a very attractive dorm. I dated a guy who lived there (ha, ha) and - come to think of it - the dorm might have been male-only, but it’s hard to remember. It’s my understanding that Templin currently has “honors floors” but the entire building is not honors. Could you please elaborate on anything you know about this upcoming change? For me, one of the biggest drawbacks about KU has been the lack of a dedicated honors dorm like, say, University of Arkansas has. </p>
<p>In fairness to KU, my DS was invited to an “Honors Day” for HS juniors to address topics including housing - but DS couldn’t go because he had exams in both of his AP classes that day. It was just not worth it to him to miss school, because he would have been required to take the exams early, after school, which he did not have time to do.</p>
<p>Finally, thanks for your comprehensive write-up re: KU Honors program. </p>
<p>@GoAskDad The KU housing page for Templin seems to confirm what @Aurora132231 says about Honors housing. To me it reads like it is all Honors housing.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.housing.ku.edu/residence-halls/templin”>http://www.housing.ku.edu/residence-halls/templin</a></p>
<p>@Stemfamily:</p>
<p>I didn’t want to make any judgments about honors classes earlier because I hadn’t taken very many at the time. Now with a year of experience, I’ve found that it’s vastly different depending on the professor how seriously they take the whole honors thing. In my personal experience:</p>
<p>Honors Bio 1:
The only difference from a regular class was the smaller class size (40-50 people) and the professor teaching it, and quite frankly he sucked. He just read off powerpoint slides the whole time and he had some kind of weird speech impediment so he was hard to understand. I wished I’d taken the regular version. </p>
<p>Honors Bio 2:
This is what an honors class is supposed to be like. It had a different professor, also an assistant professor to help teach it. Only 40 people in the class. It went more in depth into the material than the normal counterpart, and the tests were harder, but the professors explained the material well and were always available for help, so I did well in it. </p>
<p>Honors Speech:
Taught by a TA who had really high expectations for us and set us to higher standards than the regular classes. This seems like a good thing, but at the same time she made it really hard to give good speeches because she didn’t let us look at our outlines while talking like the other classes got to do. </p>
<p>Oh and by the way, I got A’s in all three classes, but I found them all quite challenging for different reasons. None of the three were really curved, so I can’t make a judgment on that. </p>
<p>@Aurora132231 As another potential honors student (I actually went to Scholars Day for a visit today), I’m a little worried about the class sizes. You said there were only 40 students in your Honors Bio 2 course. At another school I’m looking at, the cap is 15-25 for honors courses. Are you comparing the class of 40 with a large lecture class, or is that fairly normal for KU honors?</p>
<p>Are there any GPA/ACT/SAT requirements for KU honors freshman applicants? I looked through the site and could not find any information for the university honors program. Is the KU honors different from the departmental honors?My understanding of the Business Honors program is that business majors can apply to it in their sophomore year with satisfying GPA and credit hours.</p>
<p>@class2k15 At an honors day I went to there was a joke that stated "If it starts with ‘Intro to’ and ends with ‘-ology’ it will be a bigger class. This is actually relatively small. Last fall on a visit I was told the basic non honors psychology class you are required to take as part of the KU Core can have up to 1000 students. However, in that instance the teacher has a microphone and there is stadium seating lecture halls and large screens so everyone can hear and see. Those huge classes are very rare.</p>
<p>@serenade135 The KU Honors App is viewed holistically. The essay is very important (Blue or Green LOL), and you also have to provide a resumé and upload or send a transcript. KU Honors seems to be a way for the university to cut down on class sizes, give students more support (9 students to an academic advisor) and put more emphasis on Undergraduate research and study abroad. </p>
<p>I don’t know about the Business Honors program. Maybe a current student can swing by and give us some more input or advice :D</p>