Rutgers Honors prompt

Applying to College Common and Coalition Application
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Hello-- This is the prompt for the Rutgers Honors College essay. What are they trying to ask? (I guess Im not smart enough for Honors if I cant even help my child interpret the question!)

“Please share with us your concept of an educational challenge that interests you, and how you anticipate meeting this challenge at Rutgers through your involvement in an honors program.”

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To clarify…i think they are asking for a societal problem but why are they assuming every student is interested in solving an issue related to education in their next 4 yrs?? What if they are focused on curing cancer or reversing climate change? Usually the questions are more broad so all students can have an authentic answer.

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My son was puzzled too. After few discussions and brainstorming with me, I think the question is not asking the challenge in education field but the challenge a student interests/seeks when in school.

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Thank you!
She found more detail on the Rutgers website:

  • In the question, the term “educational challenge” refers to a concept you might encounter in the classroom, in a service-based setting, during research or artistry, or in your everyday life; an issue you envision confronting. The choice is yours and you have some latitude.
  • But please note, this question is less about what you define as the problem, and more about how you will engage in an honors program to address this challenge. That is the facet on which we hope you will focus.
  • Please do not restate or iterate your accomplishments or what is already on your resume and application. Use this statement to tell us something about you that we don’t already know.
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As illustrated by the post by @albanat, Rutgers has given a response in a generalized fashion.

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It will be interesting to see if the new Honor prompt (first year they have done it) changes their admission criteria. Recently it has mostly just been GPA (not even test scores).

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I’m also interested in seeing the outcomes of adding an essa!

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so they don’t have essay in the past? That’s why my son’s friend knows nothing about the prompt and she told him she did not have that last year.

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Correct, no essay prior to this year. There wasn’t any Honors application at all, or even checkbox. They either invited you or they didn’t based on your regular app info.

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we interpreted the prompt as what educational challenge you personally feel that an honors program can help you overcome so say someone is looking to overcome the challenge of feeling lost in a big school, being in an honors program gives them access to smaller classes. another educational challenge is access to research opportunities so how would being enrolled in an honors program then allow a student to overcome that challenge?

they are going to get a lot of different answers and various interpretations of the prompt. with this being the first year they are on the CA and even allowing students to raise their hands for consideration into the various honors paths at Rutgers, they still will use scores and grades but just get a better idea around how the student thinks and writes. there is no wrong answer to this prompt because everyone defines educational challenge differently and no one should be judged on what they consider challenging.

also, again, with this being the first year Rutgers is using the CA, this is just another way for them to sort out the applications because they are going to get inundated with even more than they have ever received in past years.