Pace University's Honors Program

<p>I am a rising senior and I was wondering about the Honor's Program and how hard is it once you get there, any advice/idea/ or anything???</p>

<p>Honors colleges are often oversold, the glossy pamphlets giving the impression a small LAC has been set up inside a larger university. Honors colleges do offer some very valuable perks and let you meet some of the top students at your college. But when you’re thinking of honors colleges the pitch is often that you’re getting an elite private education at the public school price. Regrettably this isn’t really the case.</p>

<p>Depending on the U’s program, what they offer may range from taking separate honors classes to taking just one honors seminar per semester. Some of the honors offerings may just be a special discussion section of the regular class (at many U’s classes can have 100-500 students, then everyone meets once a week in a smaller group with a TA). You really need to dig in to find what a particular school offers. And keep in mind honors college programs typically offer the small classes and top profs the brochures promise during the 1st two years of college, because it doesn’t take that many classes to come up with a set that will meet the lower-division requirements for most majors.</p>

<p>It is rare to find more than a token amount of offerings upper-division since the honors program simply doesn’t have enough faculty members to duplicate an entire major or set of majors. So the last two years most/all classes are taken with the rest of the students in the regular U’s classes. The teaching of the profs will be geared towards that level, the discussions and student involvement in class will be dominated by the regular students, and so on. And class sizes may balloon, too, if you’re in a larger public U and a popular major. Peer effects are big, too; when almost everyone around you at school is a strong student you have lots of good examples of how hard to work, of extras like doing research or internships to get a leg up for post-college. If the top kids are a few hundred strong dispersed among tens of thousands at the U then good examples may be harder to see. When it comes to finding a job, employers are less likely to send recruiters to campus with a limited number of honors college seniors compared to the campus-full they’ll find at more highly regarded schools.</p>

<p>Honors colleges do offer some valuable perks in addition to the classes. Typical ones include registering for classes before everyone else so you get the classes you want (a perk worth its weight in gold!), special counselors, guaranteed housing, special library privileges. They will stamp your diploma with some indication of honors college or make a note on your transcript. But I would be skeptical of attending a college for its honors program in place of a more highly regarded U if finances are not an issue.</p>

<p>Ohhh okay thank you for your advice, it was very helpful. I highly appreciate it.</p>

<p>As I understood, Pace Honors program gives out large sum of scholarships, some times close to full ride. They have to do this to compete with NYU’s inadaquate FA programs. But they have a curved rating system, so if you falling behind in certain percent of the honors class, your scholarship maybe cut. You need not to be ivy caliber candidate to be admitted, but better be in the 3.6 gpa level and over 2000 sat’s, I am guessing, do not quote me on it.</p>

<p>If you can keep your scores up in Pace and graduate from the program, its just as good as graduating from NYU, for accounting anyway.</p>

<p>This sounds great, I don’t think I need an SAT score in the 2000s, I saw their website and it specifically said a minimum of 550 in Reading or Math, but they both have to average out to a 1200. I think this is easier than other programs such as Macaulay, but I know people who got into Macaulay with less than 1800 on the SATs.</p>

<p>@Chriiboyy16 : HI ! I know that this thread is an old one but i would like to know what you have finally chosen ?? If you are in Pace, how is the Honors College ?
Thank you very much !</p>