<p>Duke has everything optimus prime described.</p>
<p>and Maxamilian. since when has Animal House defined the standard for top tier universities? all you've done is express your viewpoint about prior assessments while trying to pass it off as proof.</p>
<p>a) "Animal House" is certainly not the standard for the top tier universities, but it is a film that is about the social life at Dartmouth. The whole film is based on Dartmouth.</p>
<p>b) I have expressed my viewpoint by providing solid evidence.</p>
<p>Whether it's for a private university at $200 K a head or the honors college/program at a state university, it pays to be a careful comparision shopper. The National Collegiate Honors Council lists some basic criteria for a "fully developed" honors program or college at</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nchchonors.org/basic.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.nchchonors.org/basic.htm</a></p>
<p>Use it as a checklist to compare honors programs/colleges and see how they stack up. For instance, at Texas Tech's Honors College there are
faculty whose only appointment is in the Honors College; two liberal arts oriented majors that are strictly for students in the Honors College; and special entrance criteria for honors students for admission to Tech's Medical and Law Schools, etc. There are excellent comprehensive honors colleges in various regions throughout the country, but there are also many honors programs that are more sizzle than steak, so be a careful shopper.</p>
<p>to quote you</p>
<p>"makes you feel proud for the rest of your life
*Once again, who WOULDN'T be proud of graduating from UCLA / Michigan/ UNC / UGA Honors? Are you HONESTY trying to say that a diploma from Michigan Honors isn't as equally impressive as a diploma from Cornell?</p>
<p>opens doors for grad school or career
*NO one (Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Stanford included) would NOT be impressed with a graduated from UCLA Honors, Michigan Honors, UNC Honors, UGA Honors, etc.</p>
<p>more mature student behavior
*The movie "Animal House." Need I say more?"</p>
<p>nice solid evidence you have.</p>
<p>Animal House appears to be a compilation of three schools:</p>
<p>dartmouth
harvard
washington u in stl</p>
<p>See: <a href="http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/animalhouse/%5B/url%5D">http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/animalhouse/</a></p>
<p>The animal house point about the elites is indeed accurate.</p>
<p>yes, illumin4tus, because the other poster had quite solid evidence: </p>
<p>"makes you feel proud for the rest of your life"
"challenged and inspired to greater achievements"
"less drunkness / drug abuse"
"peer pressure for positive activites"</p>
<p>Yeah, solid evidence right there.
Thanks parent2noles!</p>
<p>There is some drinking and some fun at elite colleges but they are mostly a lot of hard work.</p>
<p>The Public Ivies are excellent universities. I am not trying to belittle any university. Once you choose a college, make the best of it. </p>
<p>My comments were aimed at undecided students. They should not kid themselves into thinking that honors colleges provide an experience similar to an Ivy or a Stanford or a top tier LAC. They should not think that they will be getting a substantially different experience than everyone else at that university. The amenities of an honors college are window-dressing.</p>
<p>Go to the best university or LAC that you can get into and that you can afford.</p>
<p>
[quote]
My comments were aimed at undecided students. They should not kid themselves into thinking that honors colleges provide an experience similar to an Ivy or a Stanford or a top tier LAC. They should not think that they will be getting a substantially different experience than everyone else at that university. The amenities of an honors college are window-dressing.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not so, read lonestardad's post for a more informational take on it. Honors at Michigan, UCLA, Virginia, William and Mary, Texas, Penn, Wisconsin, CUNY and some others are self-sufficient, highly selective programs for outstanding and talented students.</p>
<p>"They should not think that they will be getting a substantially different experience than everyone else at that university. The amenities of an honors college are window-dressing."</p>
<p>Collegehelp and other Readers - Yes, honors colleges in general do not quite duplicate the "experience of an Ivy or a Stanford or a top tier LAC", but to undecided students who do some of their own research they will find that honors programs at many colleges and universities are far more than "window dressing" and provide unique, positive experiences to the numerous students who attend them. The Plan II Program at the University of Texas, the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University, the Scheyer Honors College at Penn State, the honors colleges at Florida State and University of Georgia covered previously in this thread, are but a few examples of excellent honors colleges. Honors College students receiving nationally competitive scholarships at the collegiate level such as Rhodes, Truman, and Goldwater (three at Texas Tech this year) speak of substance and not window dressing. Honors college graduates going on to elite graduate programs and professional schools (both public and private) speak of substance and not window dressing. Dismissive comments such as yours without evidence to back them up are just so much hot air.</p>
<p>Oops - I missed the "r" in Schreyer Honors College.</p>
<p>
[quote]
lonestar dad writes: For instance, at Texas Tech's Honors College there are faculty whose only appointment is in the Honors College; two liberal arts oriented majors that are strictly for students in the Honors College; and special entrance criteria for honors students for admission to Tech's Medical and Law Schools, etc.
[/quote]
Texas Tech may have a solid program, enrolling the best kids and offering them some special honors classes. So its worth looking a bit further to see how it might differ from attending a top LAC or U.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Students must make special application to be considered for admission to the Honors College either as an entering freshman or as a continuing Texas Tech or transfer student. Threshold application requirements for incoming freshmen are a composite SAT score (reading and math only) of 1200 or above, a composite ACT socre of 26 or better, or graduation in the top 10 percent of the high school class. </p>
<p>Students must complete 24 hours in Honors courses to graduate from Texas Tech University with the transcript designation with Honors. These 24 hours generally consist of 12 hours of lower division Honors classes, 6 hours of upper division Honors classes and 6 hours of Honors seminars.
[/quote]
The admission requirements are a bit easier than at the top LACs or U's. And if you look at the course descriptions at <a href="http://www.depts.ttu.edu/officialpublications/catalog/Honors.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.depts.ttu.edu/officialpublications/catalog/Honors.html</a> it looks like there are about 20 classes total offered thru the Honors college; honors students take the rest in the regular U, including those in the 2 special majors. </p>
<p>I think for students attending Texas Tech it is a great opportunity to be in this program; you'll take some small classes with other academically oriented kids taught by profs delighted to be teaching the best kids. The advising and other opportunities are well worthwhile. </p>
<p>But I think you can see it isn't quite the same as attending a top LAC or U where the students come from a more selective pool, where the same bright kids are going to be in all your classes instead of just a choice of 20, and so on.</p>
<p>For what its worth, Schreyers at PSU is a great alternative to schools like Lehigh and Bucknell, but usually a back-up choice to Ivies in the area like Cornell and PSU for kids coming out of most Philly schools (i.e. the students either really love PSU and only applied to Schreyers, or that they were set on a top 10 school and ended up having bad luck)</p>
<p>This is based on people I know.</p>
<p>mikemac - Your information regarding Texas Tech's Honors College is right on the money and your various points relative to elite LAC's well taken. Here are just a couple additions/revisions - from my count there are roughly 65 honors courses/seminars offered for the summer/fall 2006 for approximately 1,000 honors students.</p>
<p>Also, under "Tech Facts" on the Home page says "The average SAT for entering Honors students is 1322, and a freshman retention rate of over 90% indicates a high degree of satisfaction with our flourishing Honors College." </p>
<p>Finally, there are roughly 1,000 undergraduates (both in and outside the Honors College) who are working under faculty members on original "scholarly" research (such as with research sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute) that result in the Goldwater Scholarship type successes and entry to the top graduate programs after college. This type of experience is available in many comprehensive honors colleges around the country.</p>
<p>Expanding on the research opportunities for undergraduates at Texas Tech (and often available at comprehensive honors colleges at large state universities such as parent2noles' daughter at Florida State - see reply #31) which is a nice carrot for top students, here's a "for instance" from the April 11th Voice, the e-mail newsletter of the Texas Tech's Honors College:</p>
<p>"Would you like to team up with a professor and conduct research in a field you're interested in? How about getting paid for research? It's the </p>
<p>Undergraduate Research Fellowship (URF) Program!</p>
<p>Does this sound too good to be true? It's not!<br>
To learn more about the URF Program or to apply for a fellowship for the 2006-2007 fellowship season, go to <a href="http://www.depts.ttu.edu/honors/urf/info.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.depts.ttu.edu/honors/urf/info.html</a>. Applications for the 2006-2007 fellowship season are due April 14th at 5:00 p.m. Applications can be printed from the website above. Students from all majors are eligible and encouraged to participate in this program! Check out this website for a list of professors interested in working with a student through the URF program: <a href="http://www.depts.ttu.edu/honors/urf/mentor_info_results.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.depts.ttu.edu/honors/urf/mentor_info_results.htm</a>. If one of the professors' research interests you, feel free to contact that professor about applying to the URF program. For questions about the program, contact Joel Walker at <a href="mailto:joel.r.walker@ttu.edu">joel.r.walker@ttu.edu</a>."</p>
<p>Again, these research opportunities are far more than window dressing at comprehensive honors colleges, and - in some respects - perhaps may be more available than at elite private universities because the competition for these undergraduate research spots is generally less in the state universities for the available research openings (i.e. the undergraduate students at the elite privates are also in competition with the elite grad students).</p>
<p>Northstarmom commented in another thread, "Can Top Students Really Be Happy at 3rd Tier Schools?" (reply #43), that from her experience in teaching at second/third tier institutions excellent students may have even more advantages than at elite schools. Here is her entire post:</p>
<p>"When I taught at a second/third tier, I had some top students who clearly loved the school. That's because they took full advantage of the opportunities to run with ECs (most students were not that interested in taking advantage of EC opportunities, so for students with vision, there was a clear field to leadership positions) and to get mentoring from the many professors who loved to teach and mentor. As a result, those students got opportunities that they may not have gotten at a much more highly competitive college where there were hordes of students vying for leadership positions, and where professors tend to be more interested in their own research than in mentoring students.</p>
<p>Some of those students -- who could have gone to top tier colleges undergrad-- ended up getting fellowships like Fulbright and Truman ones, and going off to top law and professional schools. They also had the benefit of being considered the stars of their undergrad schools, which opened lots of doors when it came to alumni connections (and even third tier college can have very connected alum)."</p>
<p>Yeah, I was looking at Pace University as a safety, and read somewhere that they have 14 Fulbright scholars since 2000. Impressive for a 3rd tier school.</p>
<p>To everybody:
Would you recommend the same thing to someone who plans to go to medical school? Wouldn't it be wise to go somewhere for free as an undergrad so you would be able to pay for med school (with less debt)? Is an Ivy worth it in that case?</p>
<p>finances are always an important step in college planning, a step that is often overlooked until too late. You should sit down with your parents and discuss finances, also have them fill out one of the online calculators to get an estimate of what colleges are going to expect them to pay.</p>
<p>As for "is an Ivy worth it", you're jumping the gun a little bit! Given that the odds of admission to an Ivy are so small (unless you're the President's daughter or something) I wouldn't be assuming the tradeoff is Ivy vs honors college, but private U or LAC vs honors.</p>
<p>mikemac, see the note from my first post (I use "Ivy League" generally here)... I'm definitely not assuming I'm in at an Ivy League. =P</p>
<p>mary.loves.you - Send curmudgeon a private message. Curmudgeon and his daughter (who is pre-med) just completed a very exhaustive and successful college search including visits to Ivy League schools, a number of LAC's, and flagship state honors colleges. His daughter was admitted to almost all the schools (including Yale, Amherst, etc.) to which she applied. Curmudgeon is high not only on some elite schools, but also flagship state honors colleges, and excellent but less-well known LAC's. Pick his brain.</p>