Our D will be visiting OU next month to do a tour and to speak with a representative of the HTC and it’s biology program. I think the program sounds very interesting and the literature describing the program does a good job of explaining what it is and some of the advantages and experiences its students have. What I haven’t seen is a description of the outcomes of such an education. Are students who graduate from the program more likely to become employed, get accepted to graduate school or a better graduate school, or ending up with more opportunities than those outside the HTC? I believe that what one achieves in college is most affected by what one puts into and the opportunities they create. HTC does seem to provide fertile ground for those who are apt to seek out opportunity.
Another question. In a previous post someone indicated that it’s best if someone has a clear idea of what they want to study if they wish to be a part of the HTC. Our D knows what she enjoys in HS and has a direction but not a specific career in mind. She has expressed an interest in Physical Therapy and Genetic counseling both which require graduate work. Is it an advantage for a student in the HTC to have a specific career goal in mind or can those goals be determined through the opportunites afforded by the HTC?
Well I realize there has not been much activity regarding my question. For anyone who might be interested I thought I’d give a brief review of our visit.
Regarding the question of outcomes we were given a list of where the graduates of the biology programs (there are two paths) went after graduation. As might be expected most went on to post undergraduate work especially in the medical fields. I won’t list their names and schools here but I was impressed. The program does seem unique foe an honors program as it encourages students to be involved in research as early as the first semester freshman year and creates an active cooperation between the students, their professor tutors and those on campus doing research and unique studies. Gen Ed courses are not required as to encourage students to work beyond the typical curriculum eve as far as being able to take graduate level courses. The size of the Honors college is the key to this personalized approach as it only accept some 80 to 90 per year with between 68 and 70 matriculating, under 2% of the freshman class.
As to the second question, I was told that students can change their emphasis. It is not something one should often, however, it can be done. You are allowed to apply to up to 2 programs and while double majoring is possible you are required to do a senior thesis so unless the programs are related doing two can be daunting.
We have about six months or so before our D decides where to apply. If she does apply to the HTC I’ll try and give updates on the experience just for those who might be interested.
I’ve read only great things about OU HTC. It is extremely exclusive and difficult to be admitted. S didn’t make the selection. One of the things why we were most interested in was the higher opportunities for research opened to HTC students, but it seems he will have to fight a little to find himself doing research
@otoledo I saw in another post your son is planning on studying engineering. Good luck. I wish I could give you information on whether OU is better than Marquette for engineering but I can’t. I will say that I believe that this was either the first or second year that OU had the opportunity for engineering in the HTC. Our oldest D applied to OU for Engineering in 2013. She ended up at Purdue. Her Ohio choice would have been U of Toledo ironically.
Son felt tempted to apply to U of Toledo just for the LOLS! We have not yet decided, both universities gave us an extra 15 days to decide and we are mostly waiting on Marquette’s Jesuit scholarship, but still after that Marquette tag will be around $3K more than OU, so probably OU will be the one. S first choice was Purdue but their FA was extremely low, $500! I would send him to our state school and save several thousand dollars if it wasn’t for it’s awful infrastructure and poor maintenance, no BME program, government threats on cutting funding, and all the disputes and protests that will bring between students and government. Happens quite often here and sometimes students end loosing a whole semester and sometimes a whole year. That added to the fact that engineering program is a 5 yrs, instead of 4.