<p>Thanks @WollScarves!</p>
<p>Sorry for any confusion I may have caused. There are no loans, per se in the OU package. They do, however, assume the student is taking out the $5500 per year in Direct loans when doing net price calculations. S1 was able to budget well-enough that he did not need to do any loans for Freshman year. Now we are starting to figure out where he will live for the remaining years.</p>
<p>@STEMfamily, thank you. We were pleased with the first semester in many ways. As for the Honors College, D took one honors course. I think the max per semester is two. So this is based on limited experience. She enjoyed the class. A lot of reading and writing were required, but not unmanageable. It was a small class, discussion oriented and interesting. She made an A and it was not her most difficult (that was an economics class). She’s taking a second honors course spring semester. </p>
<p>Regarding the NMS package, I forgot to mention earlier the one $5k scholarship. I’m not sure exactly how it will be paid out but D received a check from NMC for $2500 during fall semester. That has definitely helped with first year costs. The estimated costs that OU gave us over-estimated actual costs for first semester. I think travel expenses were included which is an expense we have not had. D is frugal with her spending money which also helps. </p>
<p>We are in-state and the NM office quoted us a freshman year out-of-pocket cost of $3,000, and $4,500 for sophomore-senior. If my student is planning on living in the Honors Dorm, how far off or over are those estimates? </p>
<p>I was wondering how the came up with their estimates and I found this
<a href=“http://www.ou.edu/go2/connect/nationalmerit/nmparents.html”>http://www.ou.edu/go2/connect/nationalmerit/nmparents.html</a>
(this may be from past years but I guess they use the same information from year to year)</p>
<p>If OU’s National Merit scholarship is the only financial assistance your student receives, their annual out-of-pocket expense is estimated as the following:</p>
<p>Oklahoma Residents:
$3,100 for the first year
$4,800 for each of the following three years</p>
<p>Non-Oklahoma Residents:
$5,500 for the first year
$7,300 for each of the following three years</p>
<p>These annual cost estimates include 30 credit hours, along with all fees, books and room and board. The room and board estimate is calculated on the average room and board rate for a double-occupancy room in one of our freshman Towers. The room and board rate for the following years is estimated based on the cost of OU’s university owned apartments, Traditions Square, and an upperclassman meal plan. These cost estimates do not include miscellaneous costs (i.e., student parking permit, personal spending allowance, transportation allowance, etc.). All costs subject to change. </p>
<p>OU’s National Merit scholarship includes a full tuition waiver for five years, and your student may use their National Merit scholarship to study abroad while at OU.</p>
<p>Since Community-Style (Cate Center and David L. Boren Hall) are $826 cheaper per year
(Double: $4,150/semester; $8,300/year) than the towers you can save that from their estimates also the university apartments cost more than Cate and Boren </p>
<p>2014-2015, 9 Month Contract OU Tradition Square
2 Bed/1 Bath: $525/month ($4725 for 9 months) ($41042 semester of upper class meal plan) total $8829</p>
<p>So you can save almost another $500 a year off their estimate by staying in Cate or Boren as an upper classmen</p>
<p>THANK YOU!</p>
<p>There is one thing I don’t understand about these numbers. If the scholarship (IS and OOS) includes $4200 for housing and $2000 for books for the first year ONLY, then how can the subsequent years cost only $1700 to $1800 more per year? Are there extra, one-time only fees for freshman that are as much as $6200 - $1800 = $4400?</p>
<p>I did find an “Academic Excellence Fee” of $60 per credit hour (for 2014 freshman) that apparently is only for the admit year, but for 30 credit hours that is still only an extra $1800 fee for the freshman year, not $4400.</p>
<p>^^ I’ve been trying to puzzle this out too!</p>
@woolscarves could you tell me how many students were in your honors classes?
12 to 25. Average is probably right around 20.
What subjects are taught as honors classes?
There are mostly honors sections of intro level classes. For example: Intro Psych, Intro Philosophy, General Chemistry, etc.
Calculus has honors sections all the way through the calc track and economics has quite a few honors sections as well.
All of these classes for honors count as “honors elective credit.” You need 10 hours of honors elective credit. For example, I took Calc I for honors (4 hours), Intro Communications as honors (3 hours). That gives me 7 hours of the 10 I need to graduate with honors. The other three come from study abroad. If you study abroad at all, you get 3 hours of elective credit.
You also have to take a perspective class and a colloquium class to graduate with honors. Perspective classes are kind of like focused English classes. They are writing focused and have a particular subject matter. They all involve a lot of discussion too. For example, mine was a class focusing on Religion and State in the US. After spending a month doing readings to understand the history of religion in our country, we read a Supreme Court case for every class and discussed it. As you can imagine, there was quite a broad spectrum of opinions and our professor did a good job of moderating those. We had three five page papers for the class, so not bad at all. From what I’ve heard, that’s fairly typical.
A colloquium is basically a more advanced perspectives class. My colloquium is what I’m procrastinating from by typing this post. Colloquiums have quite a bit of reading and writing involved, but I really enjoy it. My professor is great and fascinating. Colloquiums and perspectives are almost always humanities focused.
The last component of graduating with honors is doing research. I honestly don’t know a ton about that, other than that you need to do a semester’s worth of research with a professor. I’m doing mine in the fall with my OChem professor who I loved, so I’ll get back to you after!
Sorry if that was a little more than you asked for. Like I said, I’m kind of putting off some work haha
No, it is tremendously helpful, thank you! My daughter will be coming into OU with enough credits to be classed as a sophomore. Are there honors courses she can still take without repeating material covered in her AP classes?
I came in with enough credits to be classified as junior status and I still made it work. It’s doubtful she fulfilled ALL of her gen-ed requirements through AP testing, so I would highly recommend taking any gen-eds as honors (most have an honors section). It gets difficult to find honors classes at higher levels, so she should really try and get her elective credit done as early as possible. Taking her gen-eds as honors also makes them less boring and awful (I wish I’d taken more of my gen-eds as honors).
I know there is an honors intro to Meteorology class;-) Also I think for one of the Gen ED classes it has to be an upper level Non-western Humanities class, at least for MET majors, I’m not sure if that’s true of other majors. I did see a few of these but I’m not sure how often they offer upper level courses. D has HON 3993 Modern Africa ??? penciled in her ever changing 4 year plan. Also AP music theory doesn’t seem to satisfy the Understanding Artistic Forms requirement so she has MUNM 1113 Understanding Music listed which also appears to be offered as an honors class. I’m sure there are many other classes that would work but she picked this one because it also satisfies a requirement for a music minor.
@HeliMom74 I found these pages very helpful if you haven’t found them yet check them out:
http://www.ou.edu/gened/courses.html
http://www.ou.edu/admissions/credit_by_advanced/advanced_placement.html
@WoolScarves that is great info about about earning honors credit as part of the semester aboard program!
@3scoutsmom It doesn’t even have to be a semester abroad, it can just be a summer like my program.
The HON 3993 Modern Africa class is extremely competitive to get in to, for the reasons you listed. Even with priority enrollment that class is usually filled before those with junior status get a chance to enroll. Non-western Civ colloquiums fill up fast, so those should be enrolled in at the earliest opportunity if you plan on completing your non-western with your colloquium. The non-western humanity requirement is pretty much universal across majors.
Honors isn’t important for upper level humanities courses which are typically quite small and generally much more rigorous than lower div ones. I took a course on the American Jewish Experience. 6 people in the class, discussion style format, about 50 pages of reading each class, and 30+ pages of writing with an in class presentation.
Even better! I wasn’t aware that there were Non-western Civ colloquiums that could be used to satisfy that pesky upper division non-western humanities requirement! Even with your wonderful explanations, I’m still having a hard time with the various honor requirements. This is my d’s list for honors with my comments in ( ) :
Hon 2973 Perspectives on the American Experience
Hon 3993 Colloquim (Non-Western Civ if at all possible!!!)
Hon 3980 Research
Hon 3960 Reading - may be waived (I have no idea why she thinks this may be waived)
9 hours of Honors Electives
MUNM -1113 Understanding Music
METR 2011 Intro to Meteorology
HON 3993 Modern Africa (Can be swapped for credit from semester aboard! Woot!!)
If it’s not possibly to take a non-western Colloquim maybe she can find an upper level music elective that could be used toward a music minor?
Her plan is to take one Honors class a semester until her last semester.
I really don’t think she’s that interested in Modern Africa, she’s been their twice and it was a great experience booth times but I don’t think she has plans to go back.
@WoolScarves, can I ask, since you started with enough credits for Junior standing are you planning to graduate early or are you double majoring or taking a bunch of minors? I ask because my D wants to major in Meteorology, possible double major in Comp Sci, if not a then a minor in Comp Sci, and a German minor and music minor and since it’s only one or two more classes a math minor and do the honors classes too. She will have a boat load of credits from AP and DE courses but I’m thinking she will change her mind once she actually starts college.
@Whenhen I was trying to kill two birds with one stone by finding with a class that was both upper level non-western and honors to fill the Gen Ed requirement of one non-western upper division class. BTW the American Jewish Experience class sound like some my D would be very interested in taking.
Lol your daughter is a high school junior. Just calm down and if she ends up going to OU she can figure out her four year plan with an academic advisor. And remember that even if she does map out her four year plan, it’s almost certain that the plan will change at some point.