I have to say that I’m not impressed with the organization of the website for OU’s Scholars Program and Honors College. I think I’ve pieced together how it works, but I have some questions:
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Do all of the National Merit students automatically get accepted into the Honors College?
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I’ve seen that students take about 1/4 of their courses in the Honors College. Is that correct? What courses are these? How do they relate to any other general ed requirements the school has?
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How does housing work. I’ve seen something about a particular floor of a dorm being reserved for Scholars, but I’ve also seen something about a special dorm entirely reserved for Honors College students. I’m confused. And is all of this housing just for freshmen? Does there continue to be separate housing for upperclassmen?
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I see something on OU’s site about “Residential Colleges” coming in 2017. Does anyone know what that means and whether it will specifically affect the Honors College?
I’ll take a stab at answering your questions but I hope others will correct me if I’m I wrong!
- you have to apply to the honors college, it’s not automatic but I think all NMF that apply are accepted
- here are the requirements to graduate with honors
http://www.ou.edu/content/honors/apply.html
there are honor classes offered in a variety of majors. My D is a meteorology major so she plans to take METR 2013: Introduction to Meteorology I (3) (Honors) this satisfies both a required class for her major and and honors requirement. She also plans to take MUNM 1113, Understanding Music (Honors) (3) this satisfies a requirement for a core course, an honors course and a required course for her minor. Picking honors class is a bit like putting together a jigsaw puzzle!
- There is an Honors dorm but anyone can sign up for it and it’s not just for freshmen.
- Historically many upperclassmen move off campus after freshman year (it’s much cheaper!) The residential colleges they are building is an effort to keep more upperclassmen on campus. You do not have to live in the honors college dorm to be in the honors college. My D will be on the NM floor of Walker tower for a dorm freshman year. She plans to look into a job as an RA as an upperclassman but if that fall through I will strongly encourage her to look into the new Residential College dorms as I think they are a great idea.
@3scoutsmom did a good job of covering it most but I’ll add my insight, as an upperclassmen NMF.
1). You have to apply but you don’t need to write the essays. Literally just write “National Merit” in those boxes and you are accepted.
2). 1/4 is not an accurate number. I’d say maybe 10% of classes are related to honors for me. You have to take roughly 3 classes of honors that are typically just better versions of gen-eds. I took honors calculus, but there’s bio, english, etc. These are just generally a more intimate, slightly more challenging version of the general sections. Then you have your perspective and colloquium courses, these are each one course and are a humanities course taught within the Honors College. They have almost 10 options for both of them every semester and they vary widely. I really enjoyed them. Then you have your honors research requirement, which isn’t really a class. It’s just working on a research project with a professor. Let me know if you have more questions about this, because it can seem daunting at first, but let me assure you it isn’t a big deal to complete these.
3 & 4 are covered very well by 3scoutmom. I lived on the National Merit floor of Walker my freshman year and enjoyed it tremendously.
Based on my son’s experience (current freshman):
1 - You have to apply to the honors college. The Scholar’s office told my son during our visit that all he had to write as an answer to each question on the app was “I am a National Merit Finalist” - but he wrote sincere answers anyway. As a matter of good scholarship and humility, I would suggest any applicant do the same, though it can’t hurt to start or end with the other other sentence.
2 - There are a variety of honors classes that count within majors and/or as gened requirements - agree with @3scoutsmom that it does resemble a jigsaw puzzle. My son took MUNM 1113 as honors this year, which counts as a course for the honors program and his artistic forms core requirement. Don’t know yet what he plans to do for the rest, but I suspect he’ll choose a few honors version of other core requirements and a few honors versions of classes for his major/minor.
3 - Ditto 3scoutsmom’s answer
4 - When the students sign up for housing, they rank their housing type preference. The preferences include the honors dorm, and NMF housing. NMF housing is various floors in Couch/Walker/Adams where at least half the residents will be NMF. My son put that as his first choice, and is on an NMF floor in Couch. His suite mates are all NMF from various parts of the US. He’s going abroad next year, so I don’t know what the plan is after that. If he wasn’t going abroad, he’d probably be going in with his friends who are renting a house off campus (half the group is NMF kids, half not).
The Scholar’s office has been very helpful for us, always willing to answer questions. Do give them a call if you need clarity on anything - and definitely sit down with them if you are able to go visit campus.
Regarding 4) Generally “Residential Colleges” means on-campus housing where you live (and dine?) with the same group of students for multiple years, sort of like the Houses in Harry Potter. At OU, I think it means living with the same group and from sophomore through senior year since it is upper class housing. It also means there is a faculty member with his/her family in residence.
Regarding 1) above - while I love the intent there is a practical matter involved. Since all NMF are automatically accepted, it saves the staff doing the selecting a bit of time if you skip writing the essay. My hunch is that once they determine, through whatever means, that they are reading an NMF ‘essay’ they move on.
The only thing we did not like about the NMF floor was the fact that it was the 10th floor…for move-in day it meant a lot of stairs…had I known I may have started ‘training’ for the move-in sooner (no pun intended).
OU has greatly improved their move-in process. When DS moved into Walker 10 last fall, we didn’t really do anything at all. We checked in at the Noble arena parking lot (never had to get out of the car), followed the established route from the parking lot to the dorm, stopped in the designated lane outside the dorm, opened the hatch, and then watched while volunteer students unloaded our car into a bin. We then drove the car back to the arena parking lot, took a shuttle back to the dorm, and waited in his room until the students delivered the items from the bin directly to his room. Unbelievably easy. We did drop his bike off at the dorm the evening before so the bike rack wouldn’t be in the way.
And this was even though my son moved in a week early for marching band. It was still a designated day because several programs start the week before classes.
Note that this does depend on you moving in at the appointed day and time.
Our D is a NMF going to OU. She applied to the Honors College but hasn’t had a response. How long did it take to hear something back? Do students get an email or receive something in the email?
@WImom94 I was looking through my e-mail archives and can’t find any notification of when I got accepted into the honors college. Have you gotten the official OU acceptance yet? It might be included in that. Either way, if you’re concerned just call the National Scholars office and they can give you an update and probably push the process along as well.
Thank you, @WoolScarves! Our D applied to the Honors College after receiving her OU admittance and advancing to NMF. That’s a good suggestion to call the National Scholars office. Thanks, again!
@wlmom94 They are 2 separate postal mails. In our case, first admissions office sent a postal mail on 11/3. Then second postal mail came on around 11/30 from Honors college office about this admission. Though interesting to note the letter head had a date of 11/3/2011! Wish my D is graduated now so that I can retire!
Thank you, @GoldenRock - very helpful!