<p>Some of the colleges I'm applying to, FSU and Penn State for example, have honors colleges. Are they completely separate from the non-honors campus? Do you just take more advanced courses? I honestly have no idea what the differences are. Can someone please explain?</p>
<p>Each one is different, but the reality is, they are a way of making a large campus full of 3.1 GPA, 24 ACT students more attractive to high GPA, high test score students. Some truly are schools within schools, others are just marketing devices. YMMV.</p>
<p>Honors college students will usually get other benefits like first choice for classes. Classes are usually taken with the general campus. Some may have limited enrollment.</p>
<p>My son applied to Minn and UIUC as safety schools, and was put into their Honors colleges based on test grades and scores - it was automatic, he didn’t apply to them. He toured Mizzou the year before and they had him sit down and talk with their Honors Dean, and it seemed like a red-carpet treatment to me. </p>
<p>Bottom line - it’s as the other poster mentioned - a way for a big school to compete for the high-end kids. You are expected to do extra work, and of course keep up the grades. You can also dorm with other honors kids, so that way you don’t have to clean the vomit off your shoes after every week-end. Well, at least not as often… :)</p>
<p>Honors colleges can be a great choice for those attending a larger school. Honors colleges offer valuable perks and let you meet some of the top students at your college. However they are often oversold with glossy pamphlets implying a small LAC has been set up inside the larger university giving an elite private education at the public school price. On this forum you’ll read posters who also say/imply that.</p>
<p>Depending on the program offerings may range from separate honors classes to taking just one honors seminar per semester. And some of the “honors” offerings may just be a special discussion section of the regular class (at many U’s you meet 2-3x a week in a large class with the prof, then everyone meets weekly in a discussion section with a TA). You really need to dig in to find what a particular school offers.</p>
<p>Keep in mind honors programs typically offer the small classes and hand-picked profs only the 1st two years of college. They can do this because doesn’t take that many classes to come up with a set that will meet the lower-division requirements for most majors. It is rare to find more than a token amount of upper-division classes since the honors program simply doesn’t have enough faculty members to create entire major(s). So the last two years most/all classes are taken with the rest of the students in the regular U’s classes. The teaching of the profs will be geared towards the normal U level, the discussions and student involvement in class will be dominated by the regular students, and so on. Class sizes may balloon, too, if you’re in a popular major.</p>
<p>Peer effects are big, too; when almost everyone around you at school is a strong student you have lots of good student to emulate in class or outside it such as doing research or internships. If the top kids are a few hundred strong dispersed among tens of thousands at the U then strong examples may be harder to see. When it comes to finding a job, employers are less likely to send recruiters to a campus with a limited number of honors seniors when they can get a campus-full at more highly regarded schools.</p>
<p>Honors colleges DO offer some valuable perks, in addition to the classes. Typical ones include registering for classes before everyone else so you get the classes you want (a perk worth its weight in gold!), special counselors, guaranteed housing, special library privileges. They will mark your diploma with special recognition. But I would be dubious about attending a college for its honors program in place of a more highly regarded U if finances are not an issue.</p>
<p>and also exist in some LAC’s (or smaller National Universities that are really LAC’S) and they are truly extraoardinary experiences. </p>
<p>They are often extremely rigorous and demanding of your time and energy and intellectual prowess. They are very prestigious in the 'intellectual camps." </p>
<p>At Fordham, for example, the Honors College is about 25 students. They live in the same dorms as everyone else, though most are in one particular dorm, and they take some of the same core courses, but most of them are intensified and the experience is awesome, but not for the meek or disorganized.<br>
The diploma at graduation for those who successfully complete this Honors College all say, In Cursu Honoris. They tend to be admitted to the very best medical, law and graduate programs. Its a very, very intense liberal arts curriculum.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.fordham.edu/academics/colleges__graduate_s/undergraduate_colleg/fordham_college_at_r/academics/honors_program/index.asp[/url]”>http://www.fordham.edu/academics/colleges__graduate_s/undergraduate_colleg/fordham_college_at_r/academics/honors_program/index.asp</a></p>
<p>What an “honors college” actually entails varies from school to school.</p>
<p>Note that some schools have honors courses that are not part of an “honors college” (which they may not have).</p>