<p>@dieselengineer, Great posts and helpful information from the real world. In this mad dash to finish line its easy to get caught up in the non real world of academics. Another question for you: do engineering recruiters/decision makers typically pay any attention to “honors” courses or honors college? I own my own business and have done recruiting of college graduates for 25+ years in an area other than engineering. We give little, if any weight on that and just wondering if engineering may be the same. On the surface it seems like a lot of extra work just to say you did it and for personal gratification. It also seems like the engineering program is plenty rigorous on its own.</p>
<p>On the subject of Honors College mentioned in a couple of posts, my son did receive an invitation to Honors (which is why I am asking the first question) but not one dime of scholarship money. Others received a scholarship but no Honors. Go figure.</p>
<p>@collegedasx4. I think the only real advantage for Honors College is scheduling priorities and living in the college dorm. I would rather be awarded the merit scholarship than being selected for honors college to be honest with you. I think that it would be highly unusual that one is selected to the Honors College and not received a Trustee or Presidential merit scholarship. I understand that Purdue Engineering was limiting the Honors College for engineering to only about 100 freshman. </p>
<p>We are in the same boat of no scholarship but got an Honors College invite. Very frustrating and disappointing. Also curious to hear about the worth of Honors College vs. the extra work it entails.</p>
<p>My D got the same chatting invitation that mentioned the honors college too. The chat is on 3/12, so we will find out more about that.</p>
<p>Purdue’s Honors College is quite new. In June 2013, Purdue hired Rhonda Phillips, the Associate Dean at Arizona State University’s Barrett Honors College, to head Purdue’s new Honors College. Purdue’s Honors College enrolled its first students in fall 2013.</p>
<p>Barrett at ASU is one of the very best honors programs in the nation. I have toured it a couple of times and it is special. The honors students have dedicated dorms, and their own cafeteria, class rooms, beautiful work-out facilities, and convenience store. The entire area is secured from the rest of campus and only honors students have access. I know many students there from my son’s high school, and they love it. If Purdue can create a Big 10 Barrett, they will really have something special.</p>
<p>Here’s some information that I received from the Purdue Honors College:</p>
<p>Here at Purdue we have structured the Honors College to provide enhanced learning experiences for our students, across all disciplines. We are the university’s only residential college and living spaces for freshmen are in Shreve Hall. Upper division students have choices including the new Third Street Suites. We are building a new complex with dedicated lab, classroom, social and living spaces for the Honors College by the Fall of 2017. </p>
<p>We offer small classes with professors teaching each one in the Honors curriculum, as well as study abroad and domestic study visit options, and a variety of curricular and co-curricular activities. One of the notable features of our college is that we encourage a strong connection among students to build a community of scholars. We have 700 students enrolled in the Honors College and provide much opportunity to engage with faculty, staff, and other students. Our goal is to reach 2000 students total in the college, to provide students with high levels of service and a smaller college feel within the university structure. The majority of students in the Honors College and at Purdue are in the STEM disciplines so we oriented towards the student with interest in these areas while also providing cross disciplinary engagement. </p>
<p>It is our goal to provide our students with the very best experience and to be recognized in the top ten Honors Colleges nationally, befitting Purdue as a top 25 Public Research University and an AAU member University (only 62 are in this prestigious group of universities nationally which include privates and a select number of public research universities). Given the basis on which we are building, Purdue’s Honors College will provide high capability students with the support and challenges they need to thrive and succeed. </p>
<p>My son appears to be in the $10k/yr scholarship, no Honors invite position. 3.9 gpa, 35 ACT, FYE.</p>
<p>I guess none of it makes sense to me since in my mind, if you’re good enough to get a merit scholarship, you should be good enough for honors college; also, if you’re good enough for honors college, you should be good enough for a merit scholarship. That’s how it is in other schools where my son applied & was accepted. So it appears that they have something other in play here (just really curious as to what it is) so even if one is the highest achieving student possible, nothing is a given at Purdue. </p>
<p>I’m thinking that since this is the first year of the common app participation for Purdue, they may find themselves with many undistributed scholarships, and honors college spots. Even though they say they don’t re-distribute scholarships, my friend’s daughter who initially got no merit aid from Purdue last year, got $8000 awarded in mid April. I’m not sure if that’s how they’ll handle things this year, but time will tell. </p>
<p>Just received the official Honors College invitation.</p>
<p>@Collegedadx4…my son is in the same boat…invitation to Honors, but not a dime of scholarship money. We just don’t get it, but I highly suspect that with their move to the common app, lots of kids applied with no intention of going there…and so those $ go back in the pot, whereas my son only applied to other schools besides Purdue to have a backup plan…and no $. The two kids he knows who got Purdue scholarships don’t plan on going there…</p>
<p>Oh well, those are the breaks.</p>
<p>On the subject of Honors…as an engineering recruiter, I can honestly say I never, ever use it as a consideration for internships or full-time offers. In my opinion, taking the honors route should be done because of the perks that come with it, not because you think it will give you a leg up come interview time. GPA and practical experience is important…in fact, I’ll look at a 3.5 with practical experience before I look at a 4.0 with none.</p>
<p>At Purdue, I think the perks are staying in a certain dorm and study group, and priority scheduling. But you also take tougher classes and have extra projects…all good and well, but as mentioned elsewhere, I feel it should be done for personal satisfaction/challenge…YMMV…</p>
<p>@ThisLoudMorning…really interested to know if your friend’s daughter had already accepted at Purdue, and then got the merit aid, or had she not accepted before receiving the $8K? Did she contact Purdue between the time she realized she wasn’t getting any merit and the April award?</p>
<p>I’m not sure that I want my son to accept at Purdue until the deadline, or they may figure “hey, we don’t need to give him any merit $, he’s coming here anyway!”…but maybe I’m being silly…!</p>
<p>@DieselEngineer My friend’s daughter did not accept the offer prior to getting the 8k and she didn’t contact Purdue. This was the school she wanted to attend, so the parents were just going to pay full price until the pleasant surprise in April. </p>
<p>I’m with you regarding waiting until the last minute to accept, since you never know what could happen or how things really work in admissions. We have not committed to Purdue yet either. Waiting to see the full financial aid package, and probably won’t commit until end of April.</p>
<p>Hello, I’m new to this area, but wanted chime in. My son got the presidential scholarship in 2011 for Engineering at Purdue. He’s a bright kid, and let me tell you Honors engineering classes kicked his butt in the beginning. A huge number of kids don’t make it past that first year in “regular” engineering classes, let alone Honors. It’s just something to think about. Our family is from Southern Cal and I know of at one firm HERE that only hire Purdue engineers. I love. love. love Purdue. I think it’s worth every penny. My CA kid loves it too. Congrats to all you heading that way. Boiler up!</p>
<p>@ThisLoudMorning…thanks for the info…sure hoping we get an April surprise also! Good luck to your son!</p>
<p>Has anyone from Instate received notification? I am surprised that I and many people I know have not heard anything. I have a 3.9 UW GPA at a competitive high school, 35 ACT, 800’s on Math II and Chem SAT II Tests and got an invite to the honors college. Really surprised that other people with similar stats are not receiving anything</p>
<p>So, for the record I’ve been a closet CC voyeur for a few months now….THANKS! I’ve learned a ton.</p>
<p>I HAD to finally join in, since I recently went to the Purdue Admissions Office and asked the question, “If scholarships offers are declined, do they go back into the pot and does Purdue work its way down the list and award to the next person?”</p>
<p>The response I received was, “We have math statisticians that figure out how many scholarships we can offer. The formulas they use take into consideration that not all scholarships will be awarded. We know this and offer many more scholarships than will be accepted.”</p>
<p>With that in mind I, once again, looked at the Purdue Admissions website</p>
<p><a href=“Scholarships - Undergraduate Admissions - Purdue University”>http://admissions.purdue.edu/costsandfinaid/scholarships.php</a></p>
<p>and have to wonder about the 939 Presidential Scholarships that were “Disbursed in 2012-2013”. I wish I would have thought to ask that question when I was there. Webster’s definition of disburse is to pay out. Leaves me wondering what Purdue’s definition of disburse is……are these actually offers-made (knowing that they won’t be “disbursing” all of them……or, were there actually 939 Presidential Scholarships “paid-out”?</p>
<p>That is the question and it leaves one to wonder…hummmmmm!</p>
<p>So, I read my post again, and I didn’t make clear the actual answer to the “do they redistribute” question…the answer is NO! Purdue does NOT redistribute based on the above rational.</p>
<p>@Inquisitive1, I had understood the same thing around re-awarding unused scholarships. However, with the move this year to the common application, I wonder if their “math statisticians” might be off since they would have no prior year data to use in their statistical calculations! One can hope they’ll re-consider their position if they get a lot of declines…</p>
<p>Good luck to all!</p>
<p>@DieselEngineer Or, it could work the other way around… more students that have been awarded Presidential scholarships in fact elect to matriculate to Purdue… This happened last year in terms of Honors College invitations. More students offered the Honors College invitations decided on Purdue than their “math statisticians” estimated!</p>
<p>So, sounds like some discussion took place, during a webcast last night, about Honors College pros/cons and Scholarships. Did anyone ask the question about how many Presidential Scholarships are actually paid-out?</p>
<p>Here’s why I ask…if Purdue is saying they have “Disbursed” 939 Presidential Scholarships in 2012-2013, when in reality many students who have been offered scholarships have been statistically eliminated from that process, then Purdue may only REALLY be “paying out” a fraction of those 939 Presidential Scholarships.</p>
<p>Are we being marketed to? Being given the perception that there are nearly 1000 scholarships “disbursed”?</p>
<p>If so, we work through this process thinking our student has a pretty good chance of getting a Presidential Scholarship, proceeding accordingly with visits, hopes…but, in reality are there only a fraction of those 939 Presidential Scholarships actually “paid-out”…due to the “math statistician formulas” and the reality that Purdue does not “redistribute” any declined scholarships?</p>
<p>Call me a cynic…just wondering/feeling like I may have been played!</p>
<p>Your thoughts?</p>
<p>To me, the definition of disbursed is to pay out from a fund, so my hope is that there were actually 939 presidential scholarships paid out. According to what I’ve read, around 15% of Freshman class get scholarships. Freshman class last year was 6283. 939 Presidential plus 161 Trustees is 1100. 1100/6283 is approximately 17%. </p>
<p>What’s interesting to me is that it says on the Scholarship page that up to 100 Trustees Scholarships are awarded per year, but on the bottom it says 161 were disbursed. Maybe they had more students go to Purdue than expected who were offered Trustees Scholarships.</p>
<p>So, in my opinion, disbursed actually means paid out, but of course, I could be wrong. </p>