My son applied a few weeks ago to the Engineering Honors program at TAMU. It was an easy app - 1 page asking for very little information - check if you are top 10%, check if you are National Merit, etc. Today he got an email saying he needed to complete the application, but it was a totally different application requiring an essay, rec letters, transcript, resume, etc. Did anyone else get this? Has anyone been accepted this year with the simple app? Just wondering what’s going on since we thought it was automatic acceptance into Engineering Honors if you were top 10% and had the required SAT scores, National Merit, etc.
I will check with my son. And yes, it was supposed to be an easy application. Now he applied after his first semester at TAMU and didn’t apply early. We could not see any advantage to being in Engineering Honors freshman year. University Honors seemed to be plenty.
@Beaudreau, my S2 applied after freshman year, and it was a different process. S3 applied with a simple app as an incoming freshman. It was the app TAMU emailed him when they encouraged him to apply. But after not hearing anything for over a month, he now has a link to another app that is more involved. A friend called TAMU and was told that they had so many apps this year for Eng Honors that the applicants all now have to submit extra paperwork, so I guess I got my answer! Thanks.
@Barfly - I still am unclear about the advantages of departmental honors over university honors. My son intends to keep plugging along in U honors, but to be safe, he has also applied for Engineering Honors and Aerospace Engineering Honors. My impression is that these are also evolving along with the new Engineering admission process.
I don’t see any advantage one over the other. One of mine stayed in University Honors all 4 years and did not do Engineering Honors. He was not trying to graduate with the University Honors distinction, as it would not have worked well with his major, but he loved his honors classes so he stayed in the program, but that was years ago when the requirements were much different. My next son started in University Honors, but dropped it and joined Engineering Honors. It fit better with his course requirements. The main thing at least for my kids was that they liked their Honors classes a lot, so it didn’t matter which program they were in, as long as they could take any Honors classes they wanted, they were happy. They didn’t care at all about graduating with the distinction. They just liked the classes. But in order to stay in the program now, you do have to be progressing along.
@Barfly, My son used the simple app and was admitted back in the fall. I think they ask for essays, etc. if your school doesn’t rank. You might email and ask. I talked with the Engineering Honors advisor and she said there would be EH offerings for Math 151 and Eng 111 this fall. I had heard Physics, but she seemed unaware of that.
Thanks, @lee6666. My son’s school does rank and he has the rank and SAT he needs. But he applied in March or February and never heard back. According to A&M, they are now requiring all applicants do the essay, etc., due to so many applicants. Too bad he didn’t apply earlier!
@lee6666 and @Barfly - If your sons are in University Honors, they also can get into the honors sections. The Math honors sections go at least through Math 308 (Differential Equations). My son has enjoyed the honors sections of Math 253 and 308.
One thing to start thinking about is which Physics track to take. There was a lot of angst last fall about Physics 218 and the extremely low grades students were getting on tests. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/texas-m-university/1672559-physics-218-advice-p1.html I think most students survived fine, but there is a lot of good advice in the thread. One early decision is whether to take the “Don’t Panic” Physics track ( http://www.amazon.com/University-Physics-Modern-13th-Edition/dp/0321696867) or the “University Physics” track (http://www.amazon.com/University-Physics-Modern-13th-Edition/dp/0321696867). Don’t Panic has more math, but is more conceptual. University Physics is more formula/calculation driven. FWIW, my son really liked the “Don’t Panic” approach and thought that Dr. Tatiana Erukhimova was a very good teacher. He thought that the Don’t Panic approach was more similar to the approach his high-school teacher took, more like “understand the fundamental relationships and derive everything else.”
(My son did not have AP Physics in HS, so disregard this advice if your sons have already decided to take their AP Physics credits. In 9th grade, my son had to choose between taking an AP Chemistry or AP Physics track. He did take his AP Chemistry and his AP Calculus BC Credits.)
Thanks, @Beaudreau. I have 2 others who did University Honors so I am familiar with it. They loved their Honors classes. And all are engineers, so my youngest will get good advice on Physics (I took the same track of math and physics at another U, so I “get” the physics issue!)
My son will finish the app for Engineering Honors also, and then can decide if he wants to stick it out in either, neither or both. Freshman year, there are no requirements for Engineering Honors since they have now dropped the short-lived freshman seminar, so there is no harm in signing up for it.
@Beaudreau, Good information. My son did not apply for University Honors (for housing reasons) – only Engineering Honors. We will read the old threads. @Barfly, I was told the 1 credit hour course (which I think you’re referring to) is required second semester of freshman year. That’s what the advisor mentioned.
Does anyone know how grade averages compare between honors/non-honors courses?
I guess this means admission to Honors is selective now? Damn you Texas A&M, every year its getting harder.
@lee6666, we were told the 1 credit pass/fail course for Honors Engineering was required Spring semester of Sophomore, Junior and Senior years,then they recently added it for Freshman year, but now they have dropped the Freshman year course. It’s quite possible that either I misunderstood the answer or the woman answering the questions for us at A&M misunderstood the question, but I think we were all talking about the same thing. It was the Eng 281, 381, etc., courses. We were concerned that the Honors freshmen requirements plus the 1 hour engineering Honors seminar would be too much with an otherwise heavy load, but that’s when the woman from A&M told us the Engineering seminar is no longer required freshman year. Like your son, my son was also thinking of only doing Engineering Honors so he would not have to live in the Honors dorms, but his siblings liked the Honors Dorms.
@KievanRus, I assume you mean Engineering Honors, as University Honors has always been selective. As for Engineering Honors, it sounds like it really won’t be much more selective. So I’m not sure why they are adding the additional requirements. In fact, I’m still not 100% convinced that the additional requirements are for all applicants. Seems like there might be a mix up because the website sounds like only applicants who attend high schools that don’t rank have to do the extra work. But on the phone they said all applicants, even though when my son applied a while back the app A&M sent him was the simple one. In any event, much of the info on the new app is “optional”. So you can always take the risk and not submit it. But the essay is not optional.
@lee6666 and @Barfly, It looks like the “new” course for Engineering Honors, ENGR 181H, still exists. The third course, the “old” ENGR 381H still exists, too. What’s apparently gone now is the “old” ENGR 281H!
For those who are new to A&M, Engineering Honors students used to take just ENGR 281H and 381H in the spring semesters of two non-freshman years. Then, very briefly (only last year, maybe?), Engineering Honors students had to take three seminars to be in the program, including the “new” ENGR 181H. So, for what I think was just one year, kids were slated to take ENGR 181H, 281H, and 381H in their spring semesters.
Now it’s just ENGR 181H and ENGR 381H in two different spring semesters.
ENGR 281H is apparently gone.
I presume that students entering Engineering Honors in their freshman year can take ENGR 181H in the Spring of their freshman year, and students entering Engineering Honors in, say, their sophomore year, can take ENGR 181H in the Spring of their sophomore year. And so on for juniors. (which would mean @lee6666 's son’s advisor was correct)
This year’s change in the program (inadvertently or not) addresses the question my son and I had (to each other) about currently enrolled students’ eligibility to take Engineering Honors. When they changed the program, ever so briefly, and brought the requirement up to 3 ENGR Honors Seminars, they essentially wiped late entering current students out of the game. Students would have had to sign up for Eng Honors by the Fall of their sophomore year, before Spring course registration, or their eligibility for Eng Honors would be off the table! Which my son and I thought was weird.
When my son applied & enrolled in Eng Honors, at the beginning of his sophomore year, we were under the impression that most students delayed the decision to apply to Eng Honors until some time past their freshman year. Because there was just no advantage to enrolling as a freshman. The first available Eng Honors course was offered in the Spring of everybody’s sophomore year at the earliest.
And so, it occurred to us for last year, when they made changes to a pretty long-standing Eng Honors program and added ENGR 181H to the list, that maybe they were trying to encourage Freshmen to enroll. Still … they then, possibly inadvertently, discouraged currently enrolled students from applying – because how were current students going to finish 3 Spring Seminars with less than 3 Spring semesters remaining in their program?
Anyway, their most recent changes to the program seem to address both issues: Freshman may feel encouraged to enroll with the availably of ENGR 181H in their Spring semester; and Currently Enrolled students may feel encouraged to enroll because most are available to complete 2 Spring seminars, but not 3.
And @KievanRus , If my memory serves me, I think the eligibility rules for Engineering Honors are pretty much the same as they have been for years, EXCEPT (as @Barfly pointed out), they added new requirements for “students from high schools that don’t provide rankings or that have very small classes, home-schooled students, or students with other circumstances.”
Those new requirements should be required for ONLY those students. But @Barfly says that, on the phone, they say ALL applicants must comply. I’m just guessing that this contradiction is typical “new program in a big school” confusion and red-tape.
The webpage is clear:
And the webpage’s FAQ’s are clear:
A guess: Maybe, since according to the website, you have to call to discuss your case with Nancy Amato if you’re in one of those categories, Nancy Amato’s line has a recorded message saying that “ALL applicants must do a, b, and c?” That would cause some confusion.
Anyway, my guess is that if you are NOT in one of those categories, you do NOT have to do the extra work. You will be admitted to Engineering Honors based on the other criteria listed on the webpage.
^ Other than the students who find themselves in the categories above, here are the eligibility criteria for Engineering Honors. (They are pretty much the same eligibility criteria from many years past, if my memory serves me correctly.):
*Incoming Freshmen, after receiving confirmation of admission to Texas A&M, in engineering majors (yeah, they wrote that sentence kind of funny, imo) …
–must have 1350 (Critical Reading/Math total) or above on SAT (31 or above on ACT)
–AND be ranked in the top 10% of their class or be National Merit/National Hispanic/National Achievement finalists.
*Currently Enrolled engineering students …
–must have a cumulative GPA of 3.50 or above.
*Letter of recommendation is not required.
If you meet the eligibility requirements above, it is my educated guess that nothing else is required beyond the basic and very simple application.
If you meet all of the eligibility requirements above except the Top 10% criteria (because you were not ranked, or you had very small classes that skewed the percentages, or you were home-schooled, or “other”), then you have to do the extra work.
That’s my take on it.
Requirements are listed here: http://engineering.tamu.edu/academics/certificates/eh, which include 18 hours of honors credits. We were told that freshman year, my son could take honors offerings of ENG 111 and MATH 151 with much smaller class sizes, and presumably additional offerings sophomore year. They also mentioned a 1 credit hour course second semester of freshman year. Perhaps this will all be clarified at NSC.
Yeah, that’s one of the things I was trying to address in my long posts above. I agree. It looks to me like freshman who are enrolled in Engineering Honors can take the first Eng Honors seminar, ENGR 181H, in the spring of their freshman year.
And yes, the rest of the Requirements listed on the webpage remain the same as they’ve been for many years, except for the fact that they’ve changed around the Seminar requirements twice in the past two years.
For many years, only seminars 281H and 381H were required. Then, for last year I think it was, they added a third seminar, 181H. But now, it appears that they took away 281H and brought the requirement down to just 2 seminars again – 181H and 381H. (Which I think is better, if I mattered at all … which I don’t!)
The rest of the requirements listed on that webpage are the same as they have been for years.
And, yes, there are a number of general Honors courses a student can take to fulfill that 18 hour Honors requirement. Your son’s advisor was correct: ENGR 111 and most, if not all, of the “early” MATHs are available in Honors sections.
In fact, ANY Honors courses across the entire university will count towards the 18 hours required for Engineering Honors. My son took a Shakespeare Honors class to satisfy his Core requirements. It counted towards his 18 hours for Engineering Honors. AND it counted towards his University Honors.
This is STILL true for all students today.
Students who want to do both programs, University Honors AND Engineering Honors, can count ALL Honors courses towards BOTH distinctions.
Oooh! I think I may have just discovered something else in reading the Engineering Honors FAQ’s! Something else that may be contributing to all of the Honors Applications confusion!
THIS:
So, MAYBE, some of this year’s confusion is arising because some people are getting honors applications from their departments!
My son didn’t apply for any “departmental” honors program. I’m not sure if one existed or exists. But maybe those of you who applied to Engineering Honors have now been invited to apply to Departmental Honors??
I don’t know. It’s just a guess.
(There wasn’t all this confusion when my son applied. Maybe all the confusion has been created by all the rapid-fire changes.)
Not sure what all this means, but A&M Engineering Honors clearly said yesterday that ALL applicants must now do the more involved application - not just those from schools that don’t rank. Our HS does rank, and my kiddo has the rank and test scores needed. If he had applied earlier, he would have been accepted without extra documentation or an essay. But now ALL applicants must do the new app. Apparently this is due to the huge number of applicants for Engineering Honors.
Also, the sophomore course last year was Engr 281 and it was pass/fail, and the freshman course the year before was actually Engr 289 for a grade. It was not Engr 181. Weird. So this year’s juniors in Engineering Honors, who did have the requirement of taking the 1 hour course each Spring Semester including freshman year, did not ever take Engr 181. It was Engr 289. :((
In other words, I think the website is just out of date.