Good point @bluebird91. He is starting as a film major and does have some AP credits and dual enrollment credits but don’t know how accepting U of U is of those.
@Twoin18 that is always a possibility! We could make all sorts of decisions and arrangements assuming he will want to come home his first summer but if he has a great first year he will probably want to stay anyway!
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My son got credit for all his AP and dual enrollment classes. Here is the link for Utah’s AP policy. If you click on the equivalency link it will say what score is needed and what class it will count for.
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The U gives a lot of AP credit, D18 started with 58 semester credits from 9 APs (8 5s and a 4). That was great for getting her priority registration. But she only used about 16-20 credits worth to get out of GenEd. In particular, you can’t waive the required Honors courses which cover a lot of GenEd requirements anyway. And a BS or BFA has no language requirement unlike some colleges (only a BA includes a language requirement but many social sciences give you a choice of BS or BA and 80-90% choose BS).
So she only used AP English language, AP USH and AP Calc (and the latter wasn’t strictly necessary). In the end she actually took about 150 credits at the U to get an Hons BS and BFA combined (80 BFA, 50 BS and 20 Honors, with some overlap). Fortunately it was all free with her scholarship and they didn’t enforce the 18 credit per semester maximum.
However a single major (especially a non-Honors) student could benefit much more and easily graduate in three years if they have plenty of AP credit. A lot of people do drop the Honors part when they realize how much extra effort is needed, I think there were about 250 Honors grads in D’s year out of ~600 who started in Honors. It’s particularly rare amongst BFAs because they have a heavy course load already.
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I was thinking about this. My son was accepted to the U and to the Honors College. My son has no interest in extra requirements for the Honors College, but it was the only way to be eligible to apply for the Eccles scholarship. My guess is if he does not get the Eccles (and it’s certainly a long shot he would get it, especially as an out of state student), he will drop Honors, as it seems to be loads of extra work that would not be rewarding for him for limited benefit. Another school he is considering seems to just roll the red carpet out for Honors students, giving them more (instead of less!) flexibility with their Gen Eds, which resonates for him.
Honors is probably worth it for freshman year, given the better housing options. Then you can decide. There are definitely some nice features, like the summer study abroad (eg Ecology and Legacy) and the Praxis Labs.
Good point. The housing issue is very important. The others wouldn’t be a priority for my son. But housing – yes yes yes, indeed.
Anyone else planning to attend the admitted students day on March 18? I’ll be there with S23, before heading off on a road trip to visit ASU and U of A (and Horseshoe Bend/Antelope Canyon on the way).
How is the housing deadline at the U (if I’m reading this right) April 3rd (for LLC, etc, placement) when students have until May to figure out where they are going to go for college? Ack! I’m stressed! Is Honors housing handled differently? I don’t predict my son is going to have things ironed out in early April…
Honors is one of the LLCs (and Eccles is a separate LLC all by itself), so the deadline for application is April 3. You have to pay the enrollment and application fee at that point. Then you’ll be advised of which LLC you are in around April 14, you need to accept that by April 19. Then you get a date and time to choose which will be in the week of April 24-28 (you pay the housing deposit after actually selecting the room). Once you know about your LLC you can reach out to other students in the LLC who you might want to share with. I believe you can form a room group and the one with the earliest registration time will pick for the whole group, though my D never actually did this with the people she was sharing with.
They have actually pushed back the housing it used to be in the beginning of March. My son had to reserve housing before he had found out decisions for all the colleges he applied to. Honors housing does not have a different deadline. This change plus requiring enrollment confirmation and the $300 non refundable enrollment fee should help the housing process be smoother. He could confirm his enrollment and pay the housing fee and then get a reservation time for housing. If he then decides he want to go elsewhere, he can let the U know he isn’t coming. Of course the $300 isn’t refundable so that can be a problem for a lot of families but it would give him more time to make a decision.
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This is incredibly helpful - thank you! It sounds like it is worth potentially flushing $300 down the drain just to be on the safe side. The U is an excellent match for my son, but he’d be moving from the midwest and would absolutely need housing!
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Thank you so much - this is incredibly helpful (and stressful!)!
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