My OOS daughter was admitted to FYE and Honors. We are very excited about these opportunities!
We’ve watched the virtual tour where they show the nice honors housing complex. If you’re accepted to Purdue Honors, do you for sure get to live there?
In other words, do all freshman honors kids automatically get to live there if they meet the enrolling and housing deadlines in early May? Or do they run out of room?
Thank you!
Last year, everyone who was accepted to honors lived in the honors residence. Wait listed students, or those admitted to the expansion honors class, lived in another dorm near by (I believe it was Shreve but not positive).
The year prior, there was overflow and honors students were across the street in the suites.
No sure what will happen this year but I suspect it will depend on yield.
Be aware that to accomplish getting more kids into honors residences, singles were made into doubles, doubles into triples, and triples into quads.
My daughter lived in one of the converted triples and while it worked out great, it wasn’t what she was initially expecting.
My daughter was accepted into honors too. I have been looking at the honors housing and honestly, I haven’t been that impressed compared to other college’s honors housing. I know they are new, but they look really small. The closest don’t have doors and there aren’t even sinks in the rooms, let alone shared baths. Then, I keep hearing they are cramming people into dorms not truly able to accommodate the amount of kids and that also overflows into the bathrooms and common spaces. Then I keep hearing many kids leave honors after the first year because it isn’t worth the extra classes and stress. I wish there was more info from actual kids. We will go to PFM day and go to an honors session to see for ourselves. We are OOS so we can not go to one of those separate honors days. It just doesn’t seem to have a lot of the perks of other colleges, a little more work and a much higher GPA demand. 3.5 for engineering can be tough.
@NewSR1 My daughter is LOVING her honors college experience, including in the honors residence. I found her room, originally designed as a triple but now functioning as a quad, to be very spacious. My daughter actually had to buy MORE stuff to fill her part of the room. The bathrooms are plentiful, very new and clean, and she says there is never a wait for a shower. Common areas are versatile for both studying and socializing. There are music rooms in the basement as well. Cosi is also in the north building and they often take meal swipes.
In addition to the residence hall, the honors program has been super for my daughter. She LOVES the honors classes. Says the honors FYE engineering physics and design is worth it all on its own, but the mandatory honors seminar course has turned out to be a wonderful surprise. Professors are super and accessible. She eats dinner with her one professor and his family weekly. He even took a small group of students hiking last semester.
The number of students that stay in honors is increasing every year. It’s not a very new program so there were many tweaks in the beginning. This year, the vast majority of students are staying in honors college. They can’t stay in the residence hall because they make room for the incoming freshman but they had priority in dorm selections.
Speaking of, they get priority scheduling for courses. This is a very big deal for freshman year and they also have their own honors FYE advisors. They carry a much smaller student load than regular FYE and the advisors have been fantastic. My daughter is on a first name basis with her advisor and she’s been an amazing resource.
Honors also has their own FYE group that do activities together. Everything from team building, problem solving, social outings, to visiting companies.
There are also other perks - Honors specific study abroad opportunities (my daughter is going to Italy for Maymester and getting 6 more honors credits out of the way), honors specific jobs and research opportunities (DD already has her co-op), and there are almost daily honors programs, talks, etc… They also have weekly self care meetings focused on reducing stress and increasing support.
Communication from the honors college to parents is also wonderful. We were able to sign up for a parent newsletter and get weekly updates of all that is going on.
Feel free to message me if you have any specific questions. I’d be happy to put your daughter in touch with mine directly.
Thanks for the update. It does sound great. Can you tell me how much the study abroad programs cost for the students? We are deciding between multiple schools (and still waiting on a few RD’s) and trying to estimate ALL costs and are having a tough time getting costs on study abroad programs. My guess is she went to Purdue she would do the Flex Co-op or 3 term, but I know she would love at least one study abroad of a few weeks and it would probably need to be earlier than later, due to co-ops. It sounds like your daughter picked the perfect college for her.
I will PM you @NewSR1
My daughter who is admitted to Honors and I are visiting the campus next weekend. We scheduled a tour of the Honors building, so we are very excited. She is mostly excited to be among the like minded students. We just can’t imagine how big the school is (her brother went to a 1500 student college!) so we are excited to experience that as well. Like I posted earlier somewhere else, I (not my daughter) was a bit concerned about if she could hang among those high stats CS or Engineering students. I appreciate your deep insight @momofsenior1 !
@ichibanmama We were told the average GPA for honors FYE students last year was around a 3.6. My daughter works very hard but finds all of her classes very manageable as do most of her peers. I don’t think the university will admit students to honors that they aren’t sure will succeed :).
I was also very concerned about the size of Purdue and frankly it wouldn’t not have been my first choice for dd on paper. DD, however, was sure Purdue was the best school for her and she was right. She is thriving there and love everything about her experience. Honors makes if feel much smaller. There are only 200 or so FYE honors students and they do a lot together.
I hope you have an enjoyable visit!
@momofsenior1 thank you! My daughter is admitted to Health and Human Sciences Dept with Nutrition and dietetics / Nutrition, health and fitness double major. She is though, excited to meet students from other majors, who she otherwise wouldn’t be able to interact much. We are excited to visit, I just hope it’d be a little warm!
@momofsenior1 So relieved to read your post about your daughter liking the quad honors layout. Several students have reached out to my son to share a double but I’d really like him to be in a quad in case there’s an issue with the fit.