Please educate me on Honors Programs?

Parents Forum
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Hi, I’m new here, at least to posting. First, I want to say thank you as I’ve been reading here for some time and have learned a great deal. I’m still learning the shortcuts so I apologize in advance if I goof a bit.

My son is a senior and in the middle of the big college process. He’s applied EA to a few schools, one rolling and several RD. His ambition is for medicine, specifically reconstructive plastic surgery after watching a specialist repaired two severed fingers on his left hand after an accident. This event, while horrid at the time, really changed everything for him. He was sort of “iffy” about majors etc, until then. Anyway, he’s a good student, and he rocked the SAT. His EC’s are not comparable to most as he has always preferred to work, and has had a job since he was 15.

Anyway that’s the background, now here is my question. He’s been accepted to SMU with a partial scholarship, and to Loyola Chicago with a partial scholarship. SMU is my alma mater, so I am well acquainted with it. However, I don’t recall any Honors Programs when I was applying to universities. Loyola just emailed him last night inviting him to apply to their Honors Program in addition to his admission and scholarship.

I’d appreciate any information on what this means? Does this somehow elevate the program academically? More rigorous? Or is it more toward housing the same students together for the social aspect? or both? Will med schools look on this honors program more favorably?

We’ve got time to make a decision and will be visiting both schools. We’re also awaiting results from several other schools that are RD. DS, knowing what we’ve saved for him, and how much more we can help, is being realistic about cost and the future costs of medical school. The less he spends in undergrad, the more there’ll be for that. With the scholarships, the difference between the two schools is about $10K per year, and it brings Loyola down to what our State U tuition would be. So essentially, as of right now, all schools are pretty even cost-wise. I just can’t get a handle on how the Honors Program at Loyola would compare with the regular program at SMU, which I know from experience is quite good.

Thank you so much for any advice, education.

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Honor Programs have variation from school to school so you really need to read up on the individual schools to see what it offers. Some schools do offer a different academic program only available to Honor students (usually just for the first year) while others may just have a class or 2 (Honors Seminars). There may be special housing just for Honors Students. You may get early registration as an Honors student. You might get research stipends or summer research grants or generally better access to perform research. So read up on their website and contact the Honors College for any clarification needed.

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Thank you!

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Additional and more curated advising is often an important benefit of Honors Colleges. As @Dolemite said, investigate the benefits online. Really, the only potential downside would be requirements to take Honors classes that could, potentially, be more challenging. Keeping his GPA as strong as possible is essential. But generally, universities want their Honors students to do well, and help make that happen.

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https://www.luc.edu/honors/faq/
I would have him read through this and see if it makes sense to him. Think the honors kids live in the same hall also, smaller classes for the honor classes and get to register first for classes. They have to take certain classes also and do a senior capstone project so it’s more work also.

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Honors programs can vary a lot.

Some schools you get an acceptance letter with college admissions, some you have to fill out a separate application and apply to the honors program.

Some possible honors benefits

1 honors versions of general ed classes, major classes, and honors only classes

2 maintaining a specified gpa

3 honors advisor in addition to regular advisor

4 honors programming - some required some optional

5 option of honors housing

6 priority registration

7 honors lounge/kitchen/club etc - perhaps free printing

8 special opportunities like research

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Thank you. I could find nothing on Loyola’s website about the Honors program at first (I’m a bit of a luddite). But googling “Honor’s Program Loyola” brought it right up! Really interesting option. This would be right up my alley, but whether or not it’s up DS’ will require some discussion. Thank you again.

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Frank Bruni has made a living extoling the virtues of public University Honors programs. This article is a good read.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-a-prudent-college-path.html?module=inline
The first thing to understand about honors programs is that they vary greatly. They certainly vary by university, but they also vary in the University based on the students program of study. Certain, almost any student could benefit from taking part in an honors programs but like much in college it depends a lot on what you put in.
Our DD attends UCF and her decision was made largely because of the opportunities presented through the honors college.

  1. Honors classes.

    Most honors programs have honors classes. To graduate with honors students are often required to participate in several honors classes during their college career (8 is a common number). Honors English is often a requirement.
    These classes take different forms…
    A) small sections of existing classes with selected facility. For example, “Honors Calculus I” which is an honors only section of Calculus I that largely follows the existing material but may have some extra content or requirements. At UCF many honors classes have a volunteer component.
    B) dedicated honors classes. They are often unique classes taught by facility passionate about something specific. For example, from UCF, Honors Cultural Traditions Of India.
    C) Some schools allow students to take non honors classes and fullfill an honors requirement by doing something extra (like an extra paper)
    D) Most schools have an “introduction to honors” class that serves at an introduction the college and also provides space for the honors program to feature interesting lectures.

  2. Honors advising / registration
    Many schools provide advising and registration benefits to honors students. This has been a huge benefit for our daughter who came into college with 63 credits and is trying to double major in engineering and a science. Her advising has been excellent and that’s often a real criticism of large schools.

  3. Honors research
    Most honors programs offer opportunities to get involved with research. The support varies but can include assistance finding opportunities, sponsoring stipends for both students and researchers who support students, and forums to publish and present. UCF (and I think all Florida schools) have an “Honors in the Major program” which provides a formal support structure for undergraduate research.

  4. Honors Housing
    Many schools give Honors students prefer in housing. This varies greatly and can include early registration, dedicated honors housing, 4 year on campus housing priority, etc. At UCF on campus housing is a hot ticket and the honors perk of guaranteed housing for 4 years is a nice perk.

  5. Focus
    Our DD is involved with both honors and a couple of specific programs with high expectations. In general, I think this is a good thing. She understands that her world has these grade, schedule & behavior expectations and what she needs to do to keep up. Keeping up with this is the “Cost” of participating in honors.

  6. Access / food
    Our DD has benefited from a number of honors events where she has, met a doctor she will likely shadow, met a professor she’s mentoring with actively, was for some reason given $200 dollars in additional scholarship money for a poster presentation, eaten lots of free food, and general been socially and intellectually involved.

Since I’ve referenced them a bunch this is a link the UCF honors program. They have a great program and hit all these buttons.
https://honors.ucf.edu/advising/courses/

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My daughter is in the honors college at Purdue. Agree with the posters who say programs vary widely school to school. Purdue’s HC is fairly new and it’s evolving so what we heard about it two years ago is not true today.

Here’s some of the benefits at Purdue, which I’ll list as food for thought for when you are comparing your son’s honor’s options:

Honors College Residence Hall - at Purdue it’s the newest dorm on campus and amazing. They had a housing shortage this year so it was really nice to know that DD wasn’t going to have issues. It’s for freshmen only but the HC students had priority registration for housing for sophomore year.

Priority scheduling - at a large school, this is an enormous benefit. Not only was DD able to get the courses she wanted, she was able to get the professors and sections she wanted as well.

Honors advising - DD has two advisors - an honors advisors and an honors engineering advisors. They have smaller “case loads” and from what she’s heard have been way more accessible and helpful than the regular advisors.

Honors classes - DD has a specific honors section of her first year engineering course, which while more difficult, has amazing profs teaching the course. She also has smaller honors seminars (less than 20 people).

Honors research and study abroad - Honors students are guaranteed honors research because it’s part of their graduation requirements and there are specific study abroad trips for honors students.

Making a large school much smaller - DD lives and has some classes in her residence hall. The honors advisors and admins’ offices are in her building. She has developed a great relationship with some of her profs and routinely eats dinner with one. Each floor has a faculty member advisor who is very present and available.

Some of the challenges:

Minimum of a 3.5 GPA to remain in good standing. If you drop below for one semester, you are on “probation” for HC. If you fall below two semesters in a row, you are out.

There are 24 honors credits required to graduate with an honors degree. This was touted as a big negative when we toured but Purdue switched up what counts as honors credits and now it’s getting easier to obtain. By the end of her freshman year, DD will have 20 of the 24 honors credits and will have the final 4 by first semester sophomore year because she opted to do a collaborative leadership certification which combines both the communication/english requirement with honors leadership/mentoring.

Originally DD said she only cared about staying in HC for freshman year for scheduling but now that she’s in the program, she LOVES it and wants to see it through.

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Thanks very much HappyDad and momofsenior. Very helpful!

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Priority registration is a typical and significant benefit of most schools’ honors programs or honors colleges. This is especially important for students at large state universities who want to graduate on time.

It would be helpful to know your son’s SAT score & intended college major (otherwise I’ll assume bio/chem and related majors) if you want more tailored suggestions & advice.

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Weigh the pros and cons. My kids needed to keep a high GPA for merit scholarships. I had one who declined the honors program and graduated summa cum laude. Graduate programs and employers did not care if he was in the honors program or not.

Another is currently in an honors program and may or may not continue with it - it depends on the availability of upper level honors classes. The early registration makes it valuable the early years, and the honors housing was beneficial.

Some schools put a lot of extra requirements on honors students, and those programs I would avoid.

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Some universities offer higher grades in honors sections (as there tends to be no mandatory curve grading & students tend to be more motivated & engaged in the subject matter).

Honors programs & honors colleges tend to be either front loaded or back end loaded. Other than for capstone thesis projects, I do not understand the benefit of back end loaded honors programs as most majors offer honors recognition within that specific discipline.

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3.8 GPA, 1510 SAT, 720 Math Subject Test. Well respected public HS.

Thank you again for the comments. Loyola is not a large State school, and he’s only been invited to apply to their honors program, so we’ll see. He plans to major in either Biology or Chemistry, hasn’t really made up his mind there. But he’s applied Pre-med everywhere, and wrote his essay about the experience with the surgeon.

So far he’s into VCU, Loyola-Chicago, and SMU with merit aid. Several more schools still outstanding, but is sure is nice to have some acceptances under your belt!

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My son laughed at me when I suggested the honors program. He’s at Michigan for engineering. He said why would I want to make a difficult program harder… What would the benefit be? He gets all the classes he needs at the times he wants them. . Did research with a known capstone program his freshman year. Got a stipend. Got two grants for a tech club he help found and $15,000 for it. Etc. I think it really depends on the kid. My son looked at it as busy work and would take away from his other actives like work. He is also planning a tech conference for the spring. He wouldn’t have the time to do that if he took honors at his school.

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He should be admitted to Loyola-Chicago’s honors.

Several large Southern state supported universities offer substantial benefits to honors college students–including honors housing, priority registration, special advising & substantial merit scholarships. The University of Georgia, University of South Carolina & the University of Alabama all have well established honors colleges. Arizona State University & the University of Mississippi are other honors colleges to investigate in an effort to better understand the benefits of honors college participation.

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As others have said, perks very widely. One of mine did honors college and her perks were: early registration, bumping rights for a class, faculty check out privileges at the library, honors lounge, honors dorm floor (freshman) and honors dorm, and 2 seminars a semester, no additional charges for class overload. After 2 years you applied for the high honors scholar where you spent two years doing a masters level research project with a faculty advisor. Some of her requirements were 3.5 minimum GPA each semester, 30 hours of volunteer work each semester, campus leadership (leadership position in a club or organization). Freshman in the honors program were also eligible for the top scholarship of a four year free tuition ride. If you didn’t continue after 2 years or drop honors you had to pick up the gen eds unless your seminar counted for some of the gen eds. There is also an organization for schools with honors colleges.

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One of our kids is in the honors program at a big OOS public flagship. She says the only perk is priority registration.

Her freshman year, she did live in the Honors Housing, which was very nice. However, she made friends with a bunch of kids who were living in the Engineering LLC in another dorm, and thought their dorm was just as nice and maybe “more fun”. Sophomore and Junior year she opted to live off campus.

Very few of her classes freshman year were in the honors section, and now that she is knee deep in her major, none of her classes in her major are in honors. She says she needs to take a few “extra” classes to fulfill the honors requirement. She thinks it’s just extra work and isn’t thrilled about having to meet the requirements, but she thinks it will look good on grad school applications.

Her university has many paths for academically motivated students outside of the honors program, including an undergrad fellowship program which offers a lot of perks.

As others have said, it really varies from school to school, and each student is going to have their own perspective re: whether it’s worth it or not.

Going in, she thought the school would be unbearable if she didn’t get into Honors, now she wonders why she thought it was such a dealbreaker back then.

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I found this book to be really helpful to me in our search: Inside Honors 2018-2019: Ratings and Reviews of 50 Public University Honors Programs. It is available on Amazon. Author’s name is John Willingham.

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I just ordered a profile of the Mizzou Honors College from John Willingham. You can order single colleges for $4 through his web site at PublicUniversityHonors.com. It came on email within minutes.