<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>I have a couple of questions about life at Michigan.</p>
<p>1) How hard would it be for someone who kept a ~3.9-4.0 GPA in high school to maintain a GPA of at least 3.8 at Michigan? Is this feasible?</p>
<p>2) Can anyone tell me anything about the RC or the Michigan Community Scholars Program? Are these worthwhile/beneficial experiences?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>One last question: what are the benefits of doing the Honors program?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If you put in an equal amount of effort into your schoolwork at UMich as you did in high school, expect the GPA to drop by about .4 or .5 points. Maintaining something like a 3.8 is possible, but is certainly not easy, especially depending on your major. Here, there are few classes in which you are expected to get an A, so you truly have to work for it. Then, other times, you will work as hard as you possibly can and still won’t get an A. So while a 3.8 is possible, some students aren’t cut out for it and you really have to work for it if you want to achieve it. This is why just about every UMich student was an excellent student in high school, but the average GPA here is approximately 3.2 for LSA.</p></li>
<li><p>I really know nothing about the RC or MCSP. All I know is that there are some strange kids in the RC.</p></li>
<li><p>I am in the honors program, and I can sum it up well with this: it’s really not any different from the rest of the school. It’s understandable considering it’s only a program, not a college, and it doesn’t even really affect anything. I recommend doing the honors program to people, but only because of the guaranteed central campus housing. It’s had minimal impact on my actual educational or social experience here. You live in the company of other honors students, which is actually nice, especially since they are just as fun-loving and entertaining as any student, but perhaps slightly more dedicated to schoolwork on average. My floor is probably one of the most social on campus and we’re all really great friends with each other, so there’s no lack of socialization in honors. Being in honors, you’re required to maintain a 3.4 GPA, take either Great Books or Classic Civ in your first semester here (both kind of suck but they aren’t difficult), a Text and Ideas course in your second or third semester (chosen from a list they give you), and eight honors courses over your first four semesters (a requirement they don’t even pay attention to-- I am for sure not doing it, because having to select honors courses limits your choices). Other than that, you get an honors advisor who is more readily available to you than a regular advisor would be for a non-honors student, and also most likely better at his/her job. There is a nice study lounge in Mason Hall that is specifically for honors students, but I’ve never really used it. Honors holds events for the students like trips to sporting events in Detroit, plays, musical performances, things like yoga classes or writing workshops, etc. They happen just about weekly so if you want to take advantage of those things, it’s nice. So, in sum, I’m glad I did honors, but not really for the educational things. I’m glad mostly for the guaranteed central campus housing (South Quad/West Quad are perhaps the greatest locations to live on campus) and for the access to my advisor who has helped out a great deal. The one time I went to a regular LSA advisor, it was much less convenient and helpful.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>2) Check out the RC website here: [Residential</a> College | University of Michigan](<a href=“http://www.lsa.umich.edu/rc]Residential”>http://www.lsa.umich.edu/rc)
You can also email the RC Admissions lady, Lana Kanitz; she will email you back fairly promptly and answer any of your question about the RC.</p>
<p>Thanks for the information! Anyone else have any input? Trying to figure out which living-learning community to pick, or if I should pick one at all.</p>
<p>Yes, why do you have to have a 3.8? Presuming you are applying to other similarly challenging schools, don’t you imagine earning a 3.8 or higher will be about the level of difficulty among those schools?</p>
<p>entenduintransit sums up what the honors program is, but from a more outside perspective,</p>
<p>Even if honors does not sound appealing to you, DO IT ANYWAY. The biggest advantage that honors has is that they get put up in South Quad (the nicest freshman dorm for both location and amenities). Make sure you don’t do any of the honors reqs first semester (tell them you’ll do them 2nd semester) and then drop the program right before the end of first semester. By then its too late to move you out of the dorm so you’ll get the biggest advantage of honors without having to do all the extra work. From my view, the “honors college” graduate thing on your diploma when you graduate means literally nothing, and it is absolutely not worth the extra work you have to do.</p>
<p>I assume you’re going for a 3.8 GPA for Ross, and if you made it into honors which I’m assuming you did since you asked about it this is highly achievable. Just be careful to not overload yourself each semester and get a good balance of required classes / classes that interest you and you can pull it off no problem. It will take a lot of hours at the library though, don’t forget that!</p>
<p>Minor correction to what Kyle said: honors will be in West Quad next year, not South Quad, as it is closed for renovations. It’s in the same location (right across the street) but still an entirely different building.</p>
<p>D is in honors. And she also believes it was worth it for the South Quad housing. She has, however, stuck with the honors program and thinks it was worth it (although she is not wild about it). I think of her 8 honors courses, 3 were upper division as a freshmen, 3 had a once-a-week discussion session (I believe, but am not sure, that at least some of those 3 classes had a required discussion session anyway, so for those classes it was no extra work) and 2 required her to write a 5-page pass-fail paper, which she can do standing on her head. So for that, she will get the honors notation on her diploma, which while not the greatest thing, certainly can’t hurt.</p>
<p>My bad about the housing, forgot SQ was closed next year (West Quad is sick too though, right across from SQ and attached to the Union).</p>
<p>@Michor of course doing honors can’t hurt, but I would argue that if you were to drop the program you would:
<p>The purpose of the honors program is as an outlet for those who need a little extra to feel academically challenged. If you are an academic all-star who would value the smaller classes, more advanced concepts and fire-hose classes that honors offers, I’d recommend the program.</p>
<p>If you fell neatly into the middle 90% of Michigan students and just want the college experience, I would high recommend against it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info everyone!</p>
<p>@finalchild, the reason I ask about a 3.8 in particular is because I was browsing the U-M study abroad website, and apparently the GPA minimum for studying abroad at Oxford is a 3.8. I thought it would be cool to study there, but a 3.8 sounded pretty high to me (at least from what I’ve heard), so I was wondering if it was doable. </p>
<p>@entendu and @Kyle: How is West Quad in terms of food, facilities, etc? Has it been renovated recently, or is it one of the buildings that they are planning on renovating soon? </p>
<p>@Mich, Kyle, entendu: Are Honors classes that much more difficult than regular that they would result in a lower GPA - or is this mainly a matter of opinion?</p>
<p>Also, when I say 3.8 GPA I mean in LSA, not Ross.</p>
<p>@tsl496 West Quad is decent, but still quite far from ideal. It’s up for a 115 million dollar renovation next summer, so you can expect it will be much better soon. For now though, it’s old and it definitely feels like it.</p>
<p>That GPA minimum is because Oxford is one of the best universities (as in top 3) in the UK and also one of the best in the world. That’s a sick goal though, go for it!</p>
<p>West Quad is: Meh in terms of food. You’ll end up there every day still but the food is average for Michigan dining halls, which basically translates to nothing special. The cool part of West Quad is if you’re sick of dorm food, you can jump to the Union (w/o going outside) and get some Wendy’s or Pizza Hut. Also the location is really close to State St. which has over a dozen options for food.</p>
<p>Room sizes and facilities wise West Quad is one of the best, with anything you’d need to do (study, exercise, etc) being very close by. All the other freshmen will be jealous that you’re in WQ next year. It hasn’t been renovated too recently, and probably won’t be for a while.</p>
<hr>
<p>Honors classes, by definition, will be a little more intense than regular classes. Everything is relative, as in a regular organic chemistry class will be much harder than an honors first year writing class. If you have the same class however, such as a POLSCI 101 class, and have one with honors and one without, the honors one will be more involved and challenging than the nonhonors one. If you were to put the same amount of time into both classes, you would get a better GPA / time ratio from the non-honors course. </p>
<p>In the end everything will be what you make of it, but honors classes will take more time to get a higher GPA, and remember that college classes already take a LOT more time than you are used to in high school.</p>
<p>Again regardless of what you think of the program, do honors to get into West Quad, and if you don’t want to actually do honors classes, just drop the program before the end of the first semester. If you do want to do them, more power to you.</p>
<p>@Kron - that’s kinda the impression I got from browsing on CC. As bad as it sounds, I was thinking one of the benefits of doing the RC would be the newly renovated East Quad. (I’m assuming that newly renovated = very good.)</p>
<p>@Kyle: thanks for all the info! And yeah, I suppose that’s why the minimum is so high for Oxford, but hey, I can dream, can’t I? 
Last question: are honors classes significantly smaller than regular freshman intro courses? Say, Great Books or something like that - how much smaller would that be compared to a regular required writing course?</p>
<p>Considering Great Books has 90% of the honors students, it’s definitely not small. In lecture there are about 400 students. In your discussion section, there will be no more than twenty students, but that’s the standard for discussion sections across the board at the university. Classic Civ is the smaller class for sure, with only 40-50 students I believe.</p>
<p>Most intro courses that are honors will just be designated honors sections, i.e. if you take honors BIOLOGY 171, you will have the same lecture as non-honors, but your specific discussion section will be honors-specific. Some classes, however, such as Physics I Honors (PHYSICS 160), will be entirely separate classes from the non-honors class (PHYSICS 140).</p>
<p>Oh, I see. I was actually considering taking Classical Civilization just because I’ve never really studied any similar material, and it sounds decently interesting. Yes or no? I’ve heard mixed things about the class.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that classic civ is the way to go, according to people before me. I took great books and didn’t mind it, and ended up with a good grade without actually doing the reading. What I’ve heard is that great books is more reading, classic civ is more writing, great books is easier to get a good grade in with minimal effort, but classic civ is a more interesting/enjoyable class. The main distinction between the two is that the material studied is very similar, but great books takes a more literary perspective while classic civ looks at it in a more historical basis. So whether you prefer history or literature has a lot to do with it as well.</p>
<p>Sweet, thanks for the info. If you don’t mind me asking, what year are you? How are you liking Michigan so far - overall, is it worth the bad weather, high cost (for out-of-staters), large entry-level classes? (Don’t get me wrong - in general it sounds like an awesome place.)</p>
<p>West Quad is getting renovated after South in 2014-15 and will open back up in Fall of 2015.</p>