<p>If my dream is to be a surgeon- going to med. school- would it be unwise to do their honors program? I heard their curving is more harsh in honors; is that true? Also, if it is harder to achieve a high GPA will med. schools take that into account?</p>
<p>Hi! There are a few threads here about honors if you want to search it up. I’ll give you a TLDR version though.</p>
<p>Background on me : Entered UW in Honors // decided to drop out after 2 years because it didn’t help me // computer science major // started UW pre-med</p>
<p>Is it unwise to do the honors program?
Honors isn’t for everyone. The whole point of the honors program is to get students who are “interdisciplinary,” which means you take two disciplines (or fields) and kind of … combine them. For example, journalism and medicine. Computer science and art. By applying, you aren’t losing anything. You can always drop out if you feel Honors isn’t for you. </p>
<p>Is curving harsh?
It depends on the class. Usually the science courses, such as Honors Chem, is extremely difficult compared to the non honors counterparts. They go into a lot more depth and at a faster pace, so students are more likely to fall behind if they’re not up to it. Yes, these classes can “kill” your GPA if you’re not careful. </p>
<p>However, I found that a lot of humanities honors classes are huge GPA boosters! 
So it really depends on which Honors classes you take.</p>
<p>Med school take into consideration GPA?
I wouldn’t count on it. I started out as a pre-med student and did a lot of research on this. Most top schools won’t really care as much for “honors” or “non-honors” as they would with a solid GPA, teacher recommendations, and ‘extra curriculars,’ including but not limited to: research, working at a clinic/hospital/etc, and internships. Don’t overwhelm yourself if you can’t guarantee a solid GPA (ie. deciding to take Honors chem instead of regular chem) because if that class goes badly, that shuts some doors in terms of top medical schools. :</p>
<p>i wouldn’t recommend it. Just focus on your actual classes. if you feel that you are doing well and you can handle extra work without affecting your grades, then go for it. FYI , you can still get excellence recognitions and or scholarship regardless of you enrollment in the honors program. </p>
<p>this info based on my personal experience, being enrolled didn’t help me at all, i just had headaches from doing extra research that is not vital to my field of interest. Good Luck</p>
<p>Disagree with the previous poster. Here is my two cents’ worth:</p>
<p>From what I know from myself and friends in the program, honors classes tend to be GPA boosters. However, the honors science classes are not for everyone. Depending on what your background is and what you take, they can be brutally difficult, but they are also curved higher: the averages are usually set between 3.1-3.6 instead of the 2.8 range. However, you don’t have to be in the honors program to take honors science classes, so I wouldn’t consider them an important part of the program.</p>
<p>In order to graduate with college honors, you would need to fulfill certain requirements, but you can participate in the program without fulfilling all of the requirements (in other words, there’s no penalty if you start the program and choose not to graduate with college honors). It’s not uncommon for someone to start out in honors, take advantage of some of the fantastic classes/professors they get exclusive access to, and then decide not to fulfill all of the requirements, because they can be tedious. </p>
<p>In my opinion, there’s really no downside to being in the honors program. All being in the program does is open doors, and it’s completely up to you which opportunities you decide to utilize. The honors program can do a lot for improving your college experience. I don’t know how much you’ve browsed the website/how much of this you already know, but offhand, here are some of the perks you get from being in the honors program:</p>
<p>1) Ability to apply for the Bonderman Fellowship: $20,000 to travel the world. No joke. Honors and graduate students only.</p>
<p>2) Smaller class sizes: Trust me. This is huge for getting a better classroom experience. And on the practical side, it will also help you get better letters of recommendation. You’re thinking of med school, right?</p>
<p>3) Certain liberal arts classes/professors available only through honors are fantastic. And you can only take these if you are in the program. (Be warned though, there are certain ones you’ll want to avoid.)</p>
<p>4) There are certain study abroad programs honors students get priority consideration for. These are listed on the honors website, and change a bit every year. THEY ARE AWESOME.</p>
<p>5) Access to a smaller, closer knit community within UW. Granted, there are a plethora of ways to find these on campus.</p>
<p>6) Priority registration for certain classes. Signing up for honors seminars paired with hard-to-get classes (like intro biology) gets the honors program to preregister you.</p>
<p>Overall, I would say the effort you put into writing essays for the honors program application is a small price to pay for all of the potential benefits of the program. If you get in, you don’t have to make use of everything available to you… but I would highly recommend that you do so.</p>
<p>SophieGerman is 100% on the money.</p>
<p>Although the students in honors math/sciences are more competitive, don’t take that as a reason to say that you could do better in the the regular series, because you may not. Needless to say, from what I’ve heard, the more liberal arts honors courses will make up for your GPA.</p>
<p>SophieGerman, the averages may be higher in the honors math/science courses, but that does nothing to protect one from a low grade. In an honors math/science class, you are competing with among the most prepared and highest motivated 15 to 50 students, vs the 1000+ other students (both per year) that are taking the corresponding regular intro course. Many more than 50 of those 1000 taking the regular class will exceed the average grade of the corresponding honors class. In fact more than 50 will probably have 4.0.</p>
<p>For example, if 3.3 is the average in a given honors math/science course, it will be <em>much</em> harder to achieve that 3.3 in the honors course or section compared to the corresponding regular course/section. </p>
<p>You will be unlikely to do well in any math/science course if you don’t spend time doing many practice problems, but don’t take the honors courses on the assumption that they will somehow boost GPA. Take them because you want more rigor and a deeper understanding of the material.</p>
<p>Note that this doesn’t relate to the Honors Program per se, as being in the Honors Program is neither a requirement nor sufficient to enroll in honors math/science courses. But for Interdisciplinary Honors to be practical for an Engineering major, they will have to take at least 4 honors math/science courses for the prerequisites of their major, as only 5 of the 9 required Honors core courses can be used for their 24 credits of distribution requirements.</p>
@SophieGermain @speedsolver @AndySmith88 @propro Just wondering, I was curious if being in the honors-only dorms jeopardizes the social life at UW. If you have any information, it would be super helpful!
@jackisawesome same question!