<p>Anyone out there who is in it and what can you tell us about it? My daughter wants to major in classics- she has a real burning desire to study it. She applied to both Plan II honors and Liberal Arts Honors. Which one would be better for her since she has a specific concentration in mind. BTW- here stats are in state- NMF, 2310 SAT, 4.0 unweighted.</p>
<p>Plan II is FAR superior to Liberal Arts Honors, although its less focussed in the first two years.</p>
<p>There are PLENTY of Plan II/Classics majors. There is a lot of flexibility in doing double majors within Liberal Arts, and a lot of folks do it. The Plan II World Lit class covers a lot of classics in translation. But no matter what, Plan II the freshman year is just 12 hours so there is quite a bit of room for you to take any classics courses you want.</p>
<p>LAH is just honors sections of some of the regular classes for frosh/soph year and a single hour honors seminar course. It's universally accepted that Plan II has much better courses for those years. They are also much more well-rounded, as they are not exclusively COLA courses. P2 kids can take higher-level and special sections of math and science courses, while LAH kids are stuck in with everybody else for those. Plan II has little coursework junior and senior years. LAH for those years is a departmental honors program and Plan II kids can participate in that (just not the freshman honors program). For her P2 thesis, she could just write a Classics honors thesis and use it for Plan II, and that would work well. AND they say that if you are particularly strong in a Liberal Arts area, the advisors will often let you register for the LAH course if there is no Plan II course in that area.</p>
<p>I am planning on dual majoring within the COLA (either Linguistics, Classics, Spanish, or Latin American History). I don't think I will have very many problems doing so at all.</p>
<p>I'd say if she gets in to both do Plan II. She sounds very well qualified and would likely get in if it were based on stats alone. But it isn't. Stats are just 20% of the criteria (and you haven't given a rank, which is included, while GPA isn't). Essays are 40%, so they make or break you. The resume is 20%, and all other extraneous criteria are 20%.</p>
<p>Good luck and let us know what you choose.</p>
<p>Check out this thread for more info on Plan II (I'll admit it's a little biased): </p>
<p>Can a person be accepted to both Plan II and liberal Arts Honors and do both? Or do they generally only admit to one or the other?</p>
<p>No, you may not do both. You must choose one.</p>
<p>However, you need to make a distinction between Liberal Arts Freshman Honors and Liberal Arts Departmental Honors.</p>
<p>Freshman Honors and Plan II Honors are mutually exclusive. You may do one or the other, but you may not do both. In a few limited circumstances, you may be permitted to take a class or two for the other, but you cannot complete both curricula (I believe because you couldn't do that many credits and still fulfil you core requirements). LAH Freshman Honors lasts 2 years, I believe.</p>
<p>Departmental Honors is offered by each department, and is usually more advanced upper-division courses for successful students in the major, and usually is completed with a thesis that could later serve as a platform for a masters thesis or a doctoral dissertation.</p>
<p>Almost all students accepted to P2H and LAH choose Plan II. Many/a majority of these students end up completing another major, many of them complete that major in the COLA Departmental Honors program.</p>
<p>I'm new to CC by the way, but...</p>
<p>From a student's perspective, I would DEFINITELY choose Plan II Honors over LAH. (I applied to both as well as BHP.) When I received my acceptance from P2, I contaced someone and found out that basically means I got into LAH. (From that itself, you can tell which one to choose.)
Reason #2: Undergraduate Generalization - More employers prefer it (at an undergraduate level). In an increasingly specialized world, many employers are seeking undergraduate students with a breadth of education that would better be provided by a 4 year honors program than a 2 year one that focuses on a certain subject of choice. This seems to have the opposite trend in graduate schools, as employers recruit from the schools reputed for having the most specialized disciplines.
Reason#3: Resources. Plan II - regardless of discipline - may not have more specific-to-the-field resources, but DOES have MORE resources in general from the intangibles such as Prof Links but also Research Opportunities.</p>
<p>Not to say that LAH is bad (because it is NOT), but P2 is the clear choice. Hope that helped pipmom.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. Plan II seems to be the winner in the prestige and desirability departments. Alas, got word today that she didn't get in to Plan II honors. Any helpful words on LAH would be appreciated.</p>
<p>How long does she have to respond to Liberal Arts Honors? Are they pushing her to decide whether to join or not?</p>
<p>Plan II seems a lot more open, and I've heard really good things about it from everyone I know who has gone to UT. I haven't really heard anything about Liberal Arts Honors though.</p>
<p>I think May 1. No- they are not pushing her to respond. I was just wondering how LAH was perceived in relation to P2. And wondering how LAH fares as a program since that is the one she will now consider, despite having heart set on P2.</p>
<p>Look in the course catalog for COLA and use the prefix LAH.</p>
<p>It will give course descriptions of all of the liberal arts courses. A lot of the courses I'm kinda bummed are restricted to Plan I students because they seem very interesting.</p>
<p>They have also developed a new line of courses called "Signature Courses" for all students throughout the university to take. These have been created by Dr. Paul Woodruff, former director of Plan II and current Dean of Undergratuate Studies. Dr. Woodruff is a great scholar and from what I've heard a fascinating teacher and if you can take his class I'd say to do so. I believe he no longer teaches for Plan II and this saddens me.</p>
<p>Plus she can take as many classics courses as she wants, and when she goes upper division (or maybe earlier), she can take the departmental Honors track and do an Honors thesis.</p>
<p>There are a lot of advantages to LAH. Just as a future Plan II-er, I'm obviously going to spin stuff toward my program. LAH is a great addition to a UT education, and I would strongly consider it even if I didn't end up in Plan II.</p>
<p><em>just a little caveat</em>
Dean Woodruff is actually planning on teaching a Plan II Philosophy course in 2-3 years.</p>
<p>I met him a couple of weeks back...and he's just an amazing person overall. A little intimidating at first...but he's really down to earth. Definitely go out of your way and meet him!</p>