UMich Honors Program

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Michigan
1

<p>Can anyone give me more details about the honors program at UMich. </p>

<p>I am a non-michigan resident and I really want the "whole college experience" with sports and parties and all but I also want an academically involved and challenging curriculum and to work with bright people. It is for that reason that I am debating between going to a very selective private school or the honors program at UMich.</p>

<p>How does the honors program stack up to a top private university experience? How is the academic rigor? How are the people? What about the housing?
Is the social life and party scene similar? Would you reccommend joining a frat?</p>

<p>Anyone who could help me out with these questions would be a life saver because I have a feeling this will be one of the biggest decisions i make in my life.</p>

2

<p>I'm in the honors program currently, and I can say that there aren't really a lot of separation between the honors kids and non-honors kids.</p>

<p>As honors kids, you will:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>be required to take GTBOOKS 191 (and GTBOOKS 192 or equivalent), which can be quite boring if you're not into the whole deal with classic literature. I know I wasn't (I'm more of a econ/business person) and GTBOOKS actually hurt my GPA. </p></li>
<li><p>get better housing than other people. Living in South Quad is great, don't have to commute 30 min everyday like those people up on the north campus. If you get Cousins, still pretty good. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>But really, that's it. The majority of your classes you'll take will be with the rest of the college population, and Honors kids aren't all geeks. There are some, but they are usually nice. And of course you'll find the occasional "how the hell did you even get into Michigan?" people. </p>

<p>If you want the whole partying social aspect of it, I'd say go with Michigan. Like I said earlier, there's really not much separation between the Honors and non-Honors kids. </p>

<p>Of course I only know about my school, but my best friend who went to Harvard and came back depressed after a year. She said the academics are just super-cutthroat there, and the classes made her feel so dumb even though she is an exceptionally bright girl by any standard. Also the social scenes there revolved entirely around making connections with important people in the future, and the fakeness just generally exhausted her very much.</p>

<p>But a common trap (even for Honors students) is to lose that academic drive being in such a college with a wide range of student population. I am pretty positive classes will be a lot more demanding at an Ivy college than at Michigan, at least the intro-level classes. Being in honors and joining a frat is not impossible, but those people tend to not do as well academically. Not to say they're not smart, rushing just takes up too much time (in my opinion).</p>

<p>Ok that's my take on this. It also depends on your academic qualifications as well (after all, college is a place to earn diploma)...you'll have a much happier life being a top Michigan student than a below-average Ivy student..that I can almost guarantee.</p>

3

<p>I'm not going to the honors program, but Michigan honors program is known to be prestigious. IMO it would certainly stack up against many private schools, if not against ivies. Besides, it does come with some perks.</p>

4

<p>
[quote]

Anyone who could help me out with these questions would be a life saver because I have a feeling this will be one of the biggest decisions i make in my life.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You're seriously over-stating the importance of this "decision." First, just go with honors, because there's nothing to actually lose. But the actual, real-world impact of being in honors or not is pretty much null. You get a couple of nice perks that you can live without, and that's pretty much it.</p>

5

<p>curious..besides housing..what are the perks?</p>

6

<p>better advising, the title when you apply for graduate school</p>