<p>whoever asked about UPITT's honors program - PM me or something because i have plenty of info on it.</p>
<p>TO GHBROWN 08
" the only "leaguer" at your school " as you pointed out--and the one who puts it is your screen name...just checked down a few threads---average SAT at PENN (ranked 4 this yr in those stupid rankings) is 1434, PSU Honors College is 1428. Looking at both applications you will see why I describe Shreyers differently since their reflective questions and essays go beyond "who is your most important person..blah..blah." Try and lighten up and not put down these state school kids with your remarks. Most of these schools offer a very high quality education and many people on this board are not in the 1/10 of 1% of kids who even apply to Ivy type schools. There is a whole board on CC devoted to Ivys for you to make your points or gloat. Given the nature of the original posters querry I would like to summarize that with a few exceptions, to wit ----mentioned above, most people on this board hold these programs in high regard and since cost was described as a factor the overall intention was to give people "permission" to consider a state Honoors program without buying into the myth that they are letting their kids down. There is a large group of middle calss families that do not qualify for financial aid but for whom paying 175 K per child will hurt. Many had their children in their 30s or later and don't have two decades left to work and restore their savings for retirement and would consider it unthinkable to be in a position where their adult children could have to help them out financially later in life. The merit scholarships offered to these hard working students that are accepted into state and other Honors Programs are to be commended not treated with disdain because even if they applied to IVYs some of them may have chosen not to attend or had their "spot" taken by that Affirmative Action program for wealthy white males known as legacy status. There are advantages to being at the top of a state school in terms of opportunities for research, specail projects, internships, etc.--- so don't feel that if a State Honors Program is right for your child they will be deprived of these experiences. The world is changing and as diversity and globalization continues you will start to see differences evolving such as the ranking in the London Times mentioned on an earlier post that put U of Mass above some of the socalled US prestige schools. College should be a wonderful time in a students life and it saddens me to see so many disappointed and depressed young people on this board, even mentioning suicide, because they missed their first choice. I say do away with the terminolgy of dream school. Reinforce that there is a lot to be said for shining in a state school and if thats where you end up, by choice or defaut, be proud, relax, learn, and enjoy the ride.</p>
<p>For what it's worth regarding Shreyer's at PSU, when my son attended their accepted student open house, they made the point that their record for acceptance into medical school was 100%. I have no way to know whether this is true or if there was some fine print associated with this statistic that didn't get mentioned, but if indeed it is true, it is pretty impressive.</p>
<p>On a sad note, lI saw on the news that on Sat.. both parens of a 12th grader attending an accepted student program at Shreyers were killed in a car accident on their way to pick her up. Puts a lot of the boo hooing on this board ABOUT "MY SCHOOLS MORE PRESTGIOUS THAN YOURS" IN PERSPECTIVE.</p>
<p>Ok, I sort of take offense to what you are saying. I am not trying to put anybody down, nor gloat, or any other base actions. Im just telling you that saying the state honors programs are harder to get into is wrong. I don't think many would disagree with that. </p>
<p>I said in my post it is a really really good program. </p>
<p>And since when is it bad to put your school in your screenname? Other than just using your actual name, pretty much anything you put in it will seem silly to somebody. </p>
<p>Maybe you should chill out.</p>
<p>Ok, I couldnt care less ABOUT "MY SCHOOLS MORE PRESTGIOUS THAN YOURS". I was just correcting what you said, which was wrong. Chill.</p>
<p>You are basically committing a logical error. You are accusing me of ripping on quality of state schools, and I wasnt even talking about that. I only said it was more competitive. Competition is not equal to quality. Gah! I give up, I guess I'll just resign myself to CC shunning haha.</p>
<p>Hopefully you read the stats for PSU vs. Univ. of PENN and see that it was not wrong, not to mention what the person wrote right before your last post. I am not sure why you are on a parenst board about state schools if you feel so strongly that they are not competetive despite the stats described in my last post and the 100% Med School admisions just referenced by another poster. In my last post about the child who just lost her parents that were picking her up at the PSU Honors Program you chose to ignore the meaning of that and think that mentioning how silly it was to boo hoo about rejections and get into "my schools more prestigious than you" when something so tragic gives us a little perspective---as somehow having to do with you. Not sure where you got that or why that would stick out to you in a post about a 12th grader losing both parents four days ago. Good luck at Brown. They'll help you chill too.</p>
<p>To further the prestigious examples of Honors College. University of South Carolina Honors has a 100% Med School acceptance rate and 90% first two choices of Med Schools. I know that this year out of the class of 150 or so, there are several going to Johns Hopkins and some going to Harvard. Not bad....</p>
<p>SATs arent the only indicator of competitiveness you know. Some schools could really raise their SAT averages if that was the only factor they based admission on. </p>
<p>Yes the med school statistic is pretty nice. It still has nothing to do with making the school more competitive though, it yet again just means the program is good. </p>
<p>I actually was typing my response as you were sending in yours about the accident, so maybe it appeared to be me acting like an ass, but thats not why. </p>
<p>I would again like to emphasize that I never ripped on anybody's program, I was just saying that it isn't true the programs are more difficult to get in. You would think THAT would be disheartening to people wanting to go to state honors schools, telling them they had a better chance to get into harvard, dont you?</p>
<p>Im sorry you can't seem to understand my point. I have tried to emphasize it several times now. Im not an *******, I was just trying to clear up any misconceptions.</p>
<p>Here is the way I look at it. State Honors Colleges accept more qualified students based on quantitative factors, while Ivy League School admissions are very random and made to form a diverse class.</p>
<p>Excellent point in your first paragraph. Many lower scoring accepted students to so called prestige school get in beacuse of legacy status so the playing field is unequal. I am not talking about competiveness based on scores although I noted the PENN and PSU scores are the same since you argued it was untrue. What you see in my posts is that the depth of the application and the questions asked and essays required shows a committment beyond numbers. There is little relevance in the current admissions process when there are 20 qualified applicants for each spot almost all of whom deserve to be admitted but may not due to arbitary reasons or the fact that they weren't ready/willing to triple their chances by applying ED. No one in my family is in a state school, Honors or otherwise, so I have no vested interest in this in that regard, but I respect the people I have met who have graduated from such programs and the students on this board who have been accepted. Kudos to all of you. I am not surprised about the last two posts about 100% Med School admnisions. USC is a fine school.</p>
<p>I applied to Harvard (Deferred - Rejected) and Duke (Accepted) and I can honestly say that the USC Honors application was SO much more indepth and took so much more time because you don't spend time trying to frame yourself with a hook or anything like you do for Ivies. You just have to be honest and think deeply about the questions they ask.
For the USC App we had to write 3 pages in response to a Marcel Proust quote.</p>
<p>I totally respect them too. Seriously. I would be at PSU honors right now if I didn't go to Brown. Many factors influenced my decision to go to Brown other than prestige. One of the major ones was I wanted to go somewhere farther away from home, and didn't want to be with all the kids I knew from highschool. Plus I wanted to be in a smaller school. </p>
<p>Anyways, sorry for any perceived hostilities!!! I dont want to fight or hurt others, honest!</p>
<p>Congrats to all rising college students and good luck on your final choices.</p>
<p>Well knowing how Brown has a reputation for being the most sincere and non-snobby of the Ivys I always figured you were a cool kd who may have just as easily ended up at a state Honors Program and been happy and successful either way--there or at your Ivy. Which is probably true for most of the kids described in this thread. Go Brown!</p>
<p>I agree. Brown is the most normal of the Ivies. To be honest, a lot of Honors College kids would love to have the opportunity to attend a great school like Brown, but I know in my case, I knew that the financial package would be much better at a state school. Thanks for the kind words!</p>
<p>Much love guys. That meant a lot to me.</p>
<p>Now, I think I should be getting to bed, because Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto" combined with latin translation totally fried my brain.</p>
<p>Peace.</p>
<p>BCgoUSC- My earlier post should have clarified that Clemson overall has a higher ranking than USC and I still think the engineering and sciences are more challenging. I agree that the honors program at USC is as equally impressive as Clemson. I think the honors program at Clemson is more engineering and science related. If I were interested in any business programs I would choose USC honors because of Moore college. My D is into Biochem/Biotech/genetics (OK she is a biogeek). Good luck to you next year and now in making your choice between Duke and USC honors. That is a tough choice to make.</p>
<p>Can anyone give an opinion on Schreyer Honors College at Penn State vs. Tufts? My son really likes Schreyer and has visited several schools but not Tufts. He'd be happy to accept Schreyer but I wonder if we should just visit one more.</p>
<p>That'd be a hard call, imo. Tufts is one of the most LAC-like colleges, being one of the smallest universities and the location, compared to Happy Valley, rocks.</p>
<p>I'd visit but then D visited her #1 choice twice and her #2 choice before making a final decision...A Bit Obsessive 'R Us.</p>