<p>Just a general thread I guess, but I have a couple of questions: 1. Does anyone have the admission statistics (average GPA, SAT and ACT scores, etc) and 2. What is the workload like compared to a normal undergraduate degree? Is there time to enjoy the wonderful campus and sports teams, or would I be locked in my dorm all day studying?</p>
<p>If anyone else has any questions about the program, feel free to ask it in this thread</p>
<p>I believe the avgs are 3.9 gpa and around 1400 SAT. Time depends more on major.</p>
<p>is it suicide to combine honors and premed (time-wise, that is)? or is it actually an advantage?</p>
<p>As we have learned, there is a deadline that has already passed for this – five months before matriculation. </p>
<p>(A ridiculous red tape rule, but the very rude message we received from LS Honors made it clear that they won’t bend it. Apparently it’s more important to the Honors folks that they have their index cards lined up neatly than risk that great students will choose other college options.)</p>
<p>Nu-uh.</p>
<p>My e-mail:
</p>
<p>(I was admitted late—around mid-March—by the way)</p>
<p>Apparently there’s a “rolling” application period for LS Honors that is time-related to the time of admission. My son was accepted in January and simply missed the honors e-mail in the barrage of hundreds of e-mails from colleges. When we realized this my son was ready to prepare the honors app immediately, but he contacted Honors first and they e-mailed him saying he shouldn’t bother because it would be “egregiously” late!</p>
<p>Given that they are still reviewing Honors apps from later accepted students it’s obvious there’s no real structural impediment to considering honors applicants at this point. It would just be inconvenient for someone to bend the rule. </p>
<p>I don’t expect UW to hold a kid’s hand, but they ought to at least hold the door.</p>
<p>You can join the Honors Program second semester, or any semester thereafter. You can take an Honors course without being in the Honors program, but those in the program get first pick- if it is full you don’t get in. I’m sure deadlines are there for more than “paperwork”. If a student is interested in it they should be purusing the website and paying attention to info. Many opportunities are missed when ignoring mail- lesson learned. “Hundreds” of emails- that’s what happens with many applications. Have to deal with the consequences of success in applying.</p>
<p>Milw- if your son really wants a specific Honors course, such as the calculus, chemistry or physics sequences he should work on getting into them. This can be done by first learning about them from the L&S catalog then contacting the dept chairman for the course- they can let him in. No big deal to miss the book (if they are still doing it) and he can sign up to receive the weekly Honors email. In recent years they extended the offer of joining the honors program to all accepted students, hence the late admissions student’s offer after the deadline- a bend of the rules.</p>
<p>Premed students. Physician with a UW Honors degree here. Take the most rigorous courses you can. This means Honors courses when appropriate. It means taking the above math/science if they suit you and/or your major. The “H” on your transcript will mean something when someone else has the same gpa. You also will be learning as much as you can plus be used to more rigorous work. Consider the Biocore sequence instead of other biology courses. If you need easy courses to get good grades you shouldn’t be planning on medical school. Not all courses are graded on a standard curve- especially the honors ones. Your senior honors thesis can reflect your interest in medicine regardless of your major.</p>
<p>Regardless of yor post college plans you can spend as much or as little time studying. It all depends on your ability. Just as in HS, there will be those who breeze through difficult classes and those who struggle/work hard for their grade. Go for it. You will never know unless you try. If you find you need to switch to an easier course than can happen. You can talk to a professor early on in the semester and get switched to an easier version.</p>
<p>MilwDad-</p>
<p>Haven’t you learned yet? This is the Wisconsin board, where loyal alums will not tolerate the slightest knock at their institution? What happened to your son couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the bureaucracy inherent to a behemoth institution! It’s all because your son is a slacker!</p>
<p>The UW Honors site included this very clearly highlighted note:
<em>“A specific deadline will be provided in the invitation message or letter.”</em></p>
<p>Sorry but that’s crystal clear and took 2 seconds to find. So if I were interested in Honors I would have been looking for that notification. </p>
<p>[L&S</a> Honors Program](<a href=“http://www.honors.ls.wisc.edu/SiteContent.aspx?id=269]L&S”>http://www.honors.ls.wisc.edu/SiteContent.aspx?id=269) </p>
<p>As Wis75 pointed out, there is always next term to apply.</p>
<p>It’s quite clear. We missed that little phrase just like our son missed the e-mail. Shame on us. Good thing the honors time police caught us. You wouldn’t want the UW to make it more attractive for great students to attend by being flexible and allowing a good faith extension to a high school kid who just missed an e-mail, would you? Particularly when there’s obviously still more than enough time for them to process an application – as long as you are in a different stack on the desk. No, better to respond to a polite request for an extension with a snippy e-mail.</p>
<p>Seriously, do you know what would happen to administrators at private universities who would make that calculus? In an ultra-competitive environment why would you enforce a ****ant regulation – a clerical convenience – at the risk of losing exactly the kind of student state flagships too often lose to top private universities? I’m asking that question seriously, not out of pique but out of genuine amazement. Great students are the lifeblood of great universities. </p>
<p>The UW is a great university that I love, and I would love my son to attend it, for many reasons. But its bureaucracy can be maddeningly myopic. My son has a visit next week at a private university and they are falling all over themselves to provide any assistance he needs. It is a stark and utterly unnecessary contrast with the way this Honors issue has been handled, and it has made an impression.</p>
<p>Well I know for a fact that the UW admissions staff is the smallest of the public B10 schools by half. That goes for many admin slots. People are over-worked and taking pay cuts. Angry folks who can’t take time to read emails are just not their highest priority during admit season. When they have time and a really unique situation not based on missing a deadline I have found the UW pretty easy to deal with. You think Michigan would have been more sympathetic? I doubt it.</p>
<p>The consequences of missing this deadline are minimal. There is limited space/materials for some of the freshman honors activities and planning needs to be done in a timely manner. Letting your son in means potentially needing to let hundreds more in with the same problem. You can work on the problem of getting Honors courses- work on that. It may even be possible to try to get a SOAR Honors advisor (doubtful as their schedule will likely be filled with Honors students for advising sessions). Your son can email the professor of an Honors course to get in it and sign up for the emails. My son got the book but never chose to attend any of the special events. No big deal.</p>
<p>If you really want something it pays to pay attention to the fine print. Encourage your son to pursue the courses he would take for Honors. If he chooses not to make the effort it isn’t that important to HIM. All you can do is offer him these suggestions. It will be up to him to want something enough to go through extra effort needed to get it. Parental encouragement can help him learn to deal with the system and get over feeling intimidated by it. Most HS seniors haven’t learned how to act as adults in dealing with schools. This is an opportunity for him to do so.</p>
<p>I know from experience that I couldn’t make my son do anything he didn’t want to. Some application deadlines were purposefully missed. Your son can find a way to get what he needs first semester. Sometimes the smartest kids do not pay attention to the simple everyday tasks- this is an example of why even the mundane has importance. Earth to son…</p>
<p>i got accepted to the honors program today within 12 hours of submitting the application… i wonder if they even read my essays??</p>
<p>I would expect it to be easy to quickly read through well written essays and determine the student actually wants to be in the Honors Program. It would be easy to “fill in the blanks” on an application for something parents wanted you to go for, but the effort of putting out a decent essay shows true interest.</p>
<p>I sent my application months ago and never got anything back. Maybe it never sent… kind of sad…</p>