<p>I applied EA to Northeastern and was accepted into the Honors Program with a major in Chemical Engineering and received $18k Dean's Scholarship. I researched the Honors Program and it says that I need a 3.0 GPA by the end of my first year to stay in the program. I also tried looking for the requirements of maintaining my scholarship and I think I read something that said I need a 3.0 GPA to renew it after the first year. My dilemma is this: I want to be able to maintain a 3.0 to keep my scholarship and I'm not sure if I will have a hard time doing so if I end up enrolling in the Honors Program. I am a hard-working student and I have done well in high school, but obviously courses are more rigorous in college (especially in an honors program) so I am just worried if I will be able to keep the required GPA during the first year.</p>
<p>I was wondering if there is anyone who is/has been enrolled in the Honors Program and could give me some advice from their experience? I would really appreciate it!</p>
<p>Just to make sure I understand your question: you’re concerned that honors courses will be more difficult and thus you might not be able to maintain as high grades to keep honors standing and your scholarship.</p>
<p>In most cases, honors classes are not any more difficult. Mostly you get the benefit of being in a smaller class, perhaps getting the better professor, and getting special attention. In rare cases, such as Fundamentals of Computer Science I that I took this past fall, the honors section is designed to be harder, but I believe that course also implemented a more lenient grade weighting system to account for the difference.</p>
<p>Yes, college coursework will be more difficult, but I generally wouldn’t be concerned about honors vs. non-honors. Maybe someone from honors in chemical engineering can offer more specific guidance.</p>
<p>I’m a business student which is waaaaaay different than ChemE (clearly) and I got an A in all of my classes this semester- 2/4 of my main classes being honors sections, and 1 of those being a 2000 level class. If you’re smart enough to be in Honors, you can definitely handle the workload with a 3.0.</p>
<p>The Honors sections of classes are meant to be smaller, more intimate settings- not necessarily harder or more rigorous. NU doesn’t make being an Honors student an uphill battle, I promise.</p>
<p>It explains Northeastern’s GPA system and trends a little. To summarize, in 2014 the standard for graduation with the lowest GPA honor of "cum laude” was raised from a 3.25 to a 3.50 because NU found that in the class of 2009, 54% of graduates had a GPA greater than 3.25. Therefore, they decided to tighten the criteria of the “cum laude” “magna cum laude” and “summa cum laude” honor. A 3.0 isn’t as high as it used to be, especially at Northeastern.</p>