UNC has an honors program and dorm. It’s not a school within a school like USC and UGA (at least how I think I understand those programs), but it’s got some very nice perks including seminars, honors sections of big intro courses, special advising, honors abroad, etc. Many of the best opportunities you must apply for and some are open to non-honors students. The dorm is a nice way for first-years to bond. It’s only 400 students out of 4000 first-years (I’m sure they invite more but not all enroll at UNC) and since it’s such a competitive school (esp. OOS) hard to know how they select exactly but I somewhat gather it’s based on demonstrated passion for learning for learning sake through teacher reqs, etc. It’s invite only after being admitted.
Oh, and have you checked out the Residential College at Michigan? Not an honors program, but a cool LAC within a large university. My daughter briefly flirted with applying but ended up not applying to Michigan at all.
I’d like to recommend The Honors College at College of Charleston and Calhoun Honors at Clemson. My son attends CofC Honors and I acnt soeak highly enough about the program. It’s a liberal arts based program. There are numerous study abroad opportunities, research opportunities and volunteer opportunities . They require community involvement . My son is Catholic and belongs to the Catholic Student Association. It truly was the best choice for him. He was also accepted at Clemson Calhoun . CofC does.not have football, but does have baseball, basketball, soccer and a highly ranked sailing team.
Michigan State has a fantastic honors program full of serious, high-stats students, with honors dorms and also terrific research opportunities for Honors students, which is important in a field like psych. The school spirit is awesome too. (Go Green and etc.) Added bonus is a good chance of merit money. https://psychology.msu.edu/ UMich can often overshadow MSU in the minds of out-of-staters, but as UMich has evolved into a pseudo-private U with an OOS majority, MSU has evolved to combine all the best attributes of a land-grant U and a flagship. Should definitely be on your list.
UGA is also an excellent option. U of Utah’s Honors College is particularly innovative, with collaborative year-long Praxis Labs; and UT provides not only great merit aid but also a path to establishing residency after a year, which is rare. (Also a rare combination of having both a major city and amazing outdoor recreation at one’s fingertips.)
Someone mentioned Wisconsin, so as the parent of an alum in the Honors program, I can chime in about that. UW does not do a separate “school within a school” Honors program. Everyone admitted to undergrad is invited to apply for Honors, it is not limited to super high stat kids. The idea is, everyone admitted is capable of doing Honors work, but not everyone is interested in it. While Honors absolutely offers Honors sections and Honors classes, there are no Honors dorms or other super elite experience. It is purely an opportunity to delve deeply academically. If that is of interest, then it is a phenomenal school, with great academics, huge school spirit (football, basketball and hockey especially), and a hip, cool town. Greek life is around 10%, there for the taking, but not in your face.
University of Washington’s honors program is not well known, but it offers small classes (~35 students) and plenty of study abroad programs. UW, as part of PAC12, have great school spirit – football, baseball, basketball, every sport is competitive and draws big crowd.
My son will be in the honors program this Fall and taking the “HONORS 205 What We Know and How We Know It” class, the Honors seminar, and the Honors section of Math and Computer Science classes. The program offers Honors housing as well, but it’s optional.
We have a student (rising junior) who is in Honors at University of Kentucky in Lexington. Great city, great school, big, big school spirit. Basketball! She is there on a merit scholarship, initially was not crazy about the school to say the least, and now loves it.
She went to a Catholic HS, and has connected with the Newman Center on campus. She did not pledge a sorority, and still has a social life. She has a nice group of friends; the core group she met freshman year and the circle has expanded.
Large lecture hall classes could not be entirely avoided freshman year. Nevertheless, despite the large class size, D’s research paper was noticed by her professor and the professor encouraged her to apply to an UG fellowship program.
You can always make a large school smaller, and for sure, by time you get to your upper level classes in your major, the classes are much smaller and your professors know you.
She can always scan the professor profiles in the majors she is interested in, and see if their research projects interest her.
$1.6 Billion is a lot of dough… with $1 Billion alone in Medical school. Given the most money is in Health / Medical, I wouldn’t be surprised that Johns Hopkins gets the top dollars.
The farther south you go, the more insanity (in a good way?) over sports. I have friends whose kids went to Tennessee, South Carolina and Ol’Miss. They’ve also been to plenty of games at UGA and GaTech and other ACC/SEC schools. They say by far the tailgating at Ol’ Miss wins.
Also the farther south, the more Greek the campuses seem to be.
My son had a, UW 3.98, 700+ on all sections of the SAT, 7 APs and lots of good ECs. He studied engineering.
The absolute surprise for all of us was the University of Utah. It has many strong majors, the dorms are awesome (built for the SLC Olympics), but the Honors dorm is unparalleled. It was built by the Marriott family. School spirt is crazy. The Mighty Utah Student Section is rabid for all sports, including women’s gymnastics believe it or not. Look up the MUSS. They were very generous with our son offering one year free and three instate. The elephant in the room is fear of the LDS influence. I grew up Catholic in SLC and that concern is overblown, especially now. SLC is less than 50% LDS, has a Democrat mayor, and lots of great restaurants and bars (although the latter sounds like it’s a low priority). SLC is adjacent to the Wasatch and Uinta mountain ranges, two of the prettiest in the country. Lots of outdoor companies like Solomon, Black Diamond and K2 have moved to the region. All in all LOTS to like.
Another vote here for the University of Utah. D18 is headed there with great merit aid, she chose it over Berkeley, UCLA and others. I’d also mention that regardless of merit aid, you can qualify for the (very cheap) instate tuition after the first year, just by spending 12 months in the state, making it a very cost effective option.
She has a nice group of friends; the core group she met freshman year and the circle has expanded.