@Booajo - we were at the Honors day on 4/1 and that certainly was not the reason she liked Pitt. The honors session was very poorly presented but her engineering breakout was great.
@amandakayak – My DD is leaning toward taking all of her 1st semester engineering courses as honors, if possible (calc 1, physics 1, chem 1 and eng analytics 1). Based on your daughter’s experience, would you not recommend this?
Not a Pitt parent, or other expert, but as mentioned above, the honors program at Pitt is unlike most others I’ve visited or read about, and care should be taken when making comparisons. When programs are strong, the need for honors courses is reduced. It’s those other perks that can make it worth it, or not.
@PhilaSkiMom: Has she taken any of those classes as AP before?
@MYOS1634 - she has AP Calc and AP Physics now. Because they are the building blocks, she is hesitant to start at Calc 2 or Physics 2 so she has resigned to herself that she will take Calc 1 and Physics 1 first semester.
No, that’s why I was asking - this is only a sane first semester if she’s already had at least as AP in high school and even then might be overwhelming. I would choose only 2-3 OF the bunch, and take freshman English as honors (typically more fun and not more work.)
@PhilaSKiMom: A Pitt Parent here with a Freshman Engineer (who is very happy at Pitt). My understanding is that Honors Calc is Calc 1 and Calc 2 condensed into one semester. D had a very good AP Calc teacher in HS (80% of the class got 4s and 5s on the AP test, or something like that), and so she did not see a reason to repeat it. She opted to start at Calc 2 and has no regrets. I will say that the advisor she met at PittStart was fabulous, and that her advice to my daughter was spot on for her situation. I’m a fan of the Honor’s program at Pitt because it is so flexible. My D has taken some of the Honor’s options, and she is signed up for at least one Honor’s section next fall even though she knows it will be much more work. It is an area that she wants a greater depth of knowledge. Seems like some classes offer more depth and some just move faster. The advisors should be a great resource.
D also took the Honor’s version of the Engineering Analysis/Analytics class. It is mostly programing, and they breeze past Excel and something else, and focus on the MatLab and C programming in the 1st semester, which is 2nd semester in the non-honor’s version. It isn’t more comprehensive; it is just faster by skipping some of the easier material. And then you have a few options for the Honor’s 2nd semester. My D loves her second semester class. I believe that there are less than 15 students and the teacher is top notch. That said, my D has previous programming experience and I don’t think this would work well for many Freshman Engineers. Just nice that there are a few options to make it work best for the individual student.
@PhilaSkiMom We were there for the 4/1 Honors sessions. To be honest we knew that the Honors Program is structured differently, it is not as exclusive as most other prestigious Honors programs are, even though the entry criteria for freshmen is stringent. I see it as a way of taking honors courses and get guidance from Honors advisers. The most exclusive part is if you qualify (and want to do it) is a B Phil program. They said they have just about 40 students who partake in the program. Also, they do have some special awards for doing research if you are part of honors program.
They said they don’t want to create a group within the college who feel one up over the others. I don’t necessarily agree that it is good (or bad) but just stating as it is.
I must say the Honors advisers seemed to be very enthusiastic and motivated to help.
@PhilaSkiMom Unlike HS there is no GPA boost for honors level classes and my daughter (one who took ochem at
honors level frosh yr after placing out with APs) said while she liked prof and smaller class size, it was a bear on top of all the other core sciences classes - and she wasn’t prepared for ochem2. They spent extra time in depth on certain areas and just never caught up. My dd is planning to apply for phd programs and so that gpa is key. I think as a HS parent your mindset is honors or AP provides your
high-achieving kid with the proper
level of challenge. I just believe that engineering on it’s own is an intense challenge for most of our kids. Adding honors level to that because of how HS is, could be more than they can handle. If they fail courses, they can retake, but that starts eating into an already full timeline. (Fwiw, my dd had a 4.6 hs gpa, top 2%, sat math 800, 7 APs, placed out of chem 1/2, calc 1/2, currently has a 3.78 qpa). And they will tell you at orientation that average qpa of frosh engineers is around 2.8 - and those are kids like yours who have 4.+ hs gpas and 700+ on math sat…it’s just that hard and I think you have to factor in adjusting to college where they must take responsibility for everything - it’s alot. My son struggled freshman year - he just didnt have time mgt skills he should have had. Never really apparent in HS. Anyway, your mileage may vary!!!
Yes, and if they have an academic scholarship, the required GPA is 3.0.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pittsburgh/1161888-pitt-faqs-p1.html
post #2 and #4 on this FAQ gives some input on some of the honors courses.
Yes - the scholarship 3.0 requirement is key, my ds (just graduated last spring) came sooooooo close to losing that scholarship! very stressful - he had a 3.04 qpa end of frosh yr - it was a nail biter!!
I just thought I would add that amandakayak is expressing our experiences better than I could! Thanks for sharing and describing the rigor of the program so well!
We spent a day and a half at the University of Pittsburgh, including the Admitted Students Day yesterday and other than one presentation came away very impressed. As said several times above, the Honors College presentation was very poor,. We attended the 4/8 session. They need to do a better job of having someone that can clearly articulate the program and the benefits of the UHC. It was a rambling, confusing, convoluted discussion. The session was very crowded, maybe 25 or 30 people total. You could look around the room and see that people were tuning out or confused. Unfortunate.
Certainly wont be a factor in my D final decision, especially because everything else was a positive, but it is certainly an area that could easily be improved.
I thought the University did a great job yesterday with the Admitted Students program. We had not visited Pitt before, however my daughter was very impressed and it is now in her top 2.
http://www.honorscollege.pitt.edu/about/faq
I have not been to any Pitt honors college presentations, did they answer questions like this?^