I am writing this post because it seems every year there is a lot of confusion surrounding the Honors Program. I think it’s important to get your facts straight so that you can make the right decision of whether it is for you or not. I hope it helps!
Q: What is the Honors Program?
A: Pulled from their website:
“The Honors Program is a four-year program that provides an especially rich and challenging set of academic offerings to talented and highly motivated students in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Through Honors courses, research with faculty, and a vigorous intellectual community that includes Honors faculty fellows, this highly-ranked academic program enables students to identify their intellectual interests and to pursue them deeply.”
You DO NOT have to join the Honors program straight out of high school. It can occur at any time depending on what your major is.
Q: What are the components of the Honors Program?
A: There are two general components to the Honors Program: Lower-Division Honors and the Honors major/Honors in the Liberal Arts. They are separate. As a first and second year Honors Program student you are a part of the Lower-Division part of the Honors Program b**.
What comes after your first two years is the Honors major and/or HLA
The Honors major varies department to department and can be declared by ANY student. A few Honors majors require applications, some require you to take certain classes, and all have a GPA requirement of 3.4. You have to do your own research on your major to figure out the nitty gritty details. To graduate with a Honors degree, you need to be accepted into your department’s Honors Program and write a **Senior Honors Thesis/b, that once again will vary by department. For example, for majors in the natural sciences it generally involves being a part of a research lab and writing a paper about the work that you are doing. For English, I believe it involves writing your own creative work. The only majors that don’t need to write the Senior Honors Thesis to graduate with Honors in LSA are Comp Sci, Math, and Stats
Honors in the Liberal Arts (HLA) is a bit different in that you are required to be a part of the Honors Program for your first two years. Honors in the Liberal Arts generally speaking just involves you taking rigorous classes outside of your major, and you submit a portfolio of your work to a committee who will judge whether you will be granted the HLA. There are other requirements, but I won’t go too much into it. Note that you can do both a Honors major and HLA.
Q: So what are the confusions generally surrounding the Honors Program?
A: The main thing is that you DO NOT need to be a part of the Lower-Division Honors part of the program in order to graduate with honors. In order to graduate with Honors, the most common route is declaring a Honors major (and writing your Thesis). By completing the Lower Division Honors part of the program, that DOES NOT ensure you of graduating with Honors.
Declaring for a Honors major widely varies by department. But when you’ve declared, you are automatically a part of the Honors Program at that point.
Also, the Honors Program is NOT separate from LSA. You are still a LSA student and if you transfer out of LSA to engineering or Ross, you will be removed from the Honors Program since it is meant for LSA students (although I know there is a Honors Program in engineering as well).
However, if you are planning to enroll in Ross and go for a dual degree between LSA and Ross, you can still be a part of the Honors Program.
Finally, you do not need to be in the Honors Program to get Honors Credit for some of the classes. The few that come to mind right away are Organic Chemistry I & II Lecture and/or Lab. Honestly a lot of the time if you ask for permission from the department, you could get override for a class designed for Honors students provided there are open seats.
Q: So… are you saying it’s not worth it to be a part of the Honors Program my first 2 years?
A: Absolutely not. Being a part of the Honors Program your first and second year does provide perks. Namely guaranteed housing on Central Campus (South Quadrangle), classes reserved for Honors students, Sophomore Honors Awards, etc. Also, it is a smaller community that has it’s own advising center, events, orientation, etc. For example in events, they’ll have seminars/lunches specifically reserved for Honors students where a professor or someone well accomplished will come in and give a talk.
You can also convert classes into Honors classes if they don’t have a Honors component. It requires doing a little extra work in the class to fulfill it, but that’s pretty neat in a way as well.
Q: What alternatives exist beside the Honors Program?
A: The Honors Program is a part of a group of programs called the Michigan Learning Communities (MLC). These other programs have different focuses and aims, just like the Honors Program and are worth looking at to see where you could fit in. Just google “Michigan Learning Communities” to find the whole list of them. Be advised that for any of the residential communities you cannot be a part of more than one, but I believe you can be in a residential community and a non-residential one (i.e. Honors Program + UROP was pretty common when I was a freshman).
Q: What do I need to do while a part of the Lower Division Honors Program?
A: The requirements:
-an average of two Honors courses per term for the first four full terms (2 years) of Honors,
-a course load of 14-18 credit hours,
-an overall grade point average (GPA) of 3.4 or better,
-three courses in the Honors Core curriculum, one in each division (Humanities, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences).
Q: Generally how many people get accepted into the Honors Program?
A: In regards to being in it from your freshman year, they generally get around 1900 applications for around 450 spots.
Q: I got rejected by the Honors Program, does that make me non-Honors quality?
A: Absolutely not. You can always join it when you declare for your major, and no one will even know on campus what programs you are a part of without you telling them. No one will question your intelligence if you aren’t a Honors student. I have friends with GPA’s of 3.9 who were rejected from the Honors Program and friends who were admitted into the Honors Program that had to drop out of it cause they couldn’t maintain a 3.4. Don’t take it too harshly if you get rejected, but if you do get admitted, embrace it and take advantage of it.
Q: How do I apply for the Honors Program?
A: After you are admitted, you should get an email that will tell you all the information needed. They will re-review your application to UMich as well as look at a Honors application essay that you will submit to them. The essay prompt/question they ask are usually meant to provoke creativity and unique answers.
The deadlines occur in 3 waves so as to accommodate for RD accepted students. The specifics of it, I don’t know, but I believe the first deadline should be in February? (They will email you with the exact dates).
If you guys have any further questions, comment below.
TL;DR: Being in the Honors Program your freshman year doesn’t mean you will graduate with Honors (and not being in the Honors Program your freshman year doesn’t mean you can’t graduate with Honors). It still has a wide range of benefits regardless and you ought to do your research to find out if it is a good fit for you.