@WineLover, I looked back at my common app and I did not see any questions about Honors. I did see any place where I could have indicated that I wanted to be considered. I applied before Nov. 1 (EA), submitted my essays for the Presidential Scholarship and was accepted to the Business school. I received my acceptance packet in the mail yesterday and it contained a copy of my acceptance letter and some stickers and a banner. Now that my portal indicates I was not admitted to the Honors program (which I never applied to), I am assuming that means I will not be a Presidential finalist. What @appalachymom wrote seems to indicate the same. So, like you son, that means I will not be going to Villanova and feel lucky to have another good option.
Villanova honors it is not easier to get in being a current student. I am not very familiar with the program but I assume it is very small. I know of students with 3.9+ gpa in demanding classes that applied and were not offered admission. I hope someone in the program can chime in and give more details as far as the size and/or mission of the program. I am familiar with honor programs at other universities were representation of all majors is very important. So if you have a small program and you must have representation from all majors, chances are, a lot of great students will be out of the program. Not sure if that is the case of Villanova honors. However, you do not need to be a member of the honors college to take honor courses. Any student with a gpa of 3.3 can enroll in honors sessions. Also the honorās dorm is nothing special and the learning communities dorms (for first year students) are quiet and filled with motivated students. I also know that you do not need to be part of honors to get opportunities such as research, service groups, international experiences etc. At least the motivated high gpa students I know are involved in anything they want.
Lastly for a lot of schools that are getting more and more selective the honors programs are losing the function they used to have. For example Boston College is phasing out their honors college.
Just some thoughts as I am not very familiar with the program.
@marcerino I wholly agree with you that admission to an honors program should be mainly academic. Admissions to a college, however, is typically holistic. I am still really surprised that my son was not invited to be in the honors program. However, I wonder if people who have been admitted to honors program have yet been notified, because nobody has responded to this thread that they were, which seems unusual. If anyone has been invited, please advise and share your stats! My son has not gotten any communication about not being invited as others have.
@RFM1617 Glad to hear you have another good option. My son does as well, and honestly if he doesnāt get into honors or a scholarship at Villanova, the decision is pretty much made to go to Notre Dame. As it is, ND is higher on his list to begin with, but money and curriculum does change the dynamics of the decision making process.
Last year my daughter was accepted EA to Villanova and was not accepted into honors program. We had heard that most of the honors program was filled in the ED round. I do not know if that is true or not, but may explain why the EA students do not get in.
My daughter was notified in July that she was accepted into the honors program. She is an engineering student and had heard once again difficult to Major in honors programs because not a lot of engineering and nursing classes are honors.
She will most likely graduate with a minor degree from the honors program. She does it enjoy it, they have another advisor and do little things for the students.
Honestly, she chose to go to Villanova because she loved the school not for their honors program.
The Presidential Scholarship is almost impossible to get. One student from our HS received and his stats were amazing, but even his stats did not compare to his community service. He comes from amazing family who gives countless hours to refugees. My daughter did not receive any great scholarship, but we had a great package from Villanova .
One year ago I was frustrated like you all so I understand, but just wait there are many great things coming in all of your futures!! This processs is long and stressful !
Good luck everyone
@WineLover Go to Villanova, Questions, General. It was the last question in the General section, right below the question about whether the applicant was applying for financial aid. āWould you like to be considered for the Honors Program?ā It is there in the PDF preview of my Dās EA app. However, looking at my practice account right now, the question is not there - maybe it was only for the early round.
Thanks @evergreen5. I looked at that section of my sonās EA application, and that question is not there. If it were, we would have said yes. The only questions were about financial aid, housing, term, admission plan, and waiver. Did your daughter apply EA or ED?
@WineLover EA. So I just opened up Dās Common App itself (for Villanova), not the PDF, and the question is not there. Strange. (The question is in the PDF that we saved when the app was submitted and it is also in the PDF that generates when I press the little PDF button in the Dashboard.)
Thanks @evergreen5. Just checked the application preview PDF and that question is NOT there. So strange.
My son applied ED this year and as evergreen5 described I too remember seeing that the question about whether you want to be considered for the program on the common app. We were notified shortly after acceptance, via the portal, that we did not get into the honors program
Hello all, I was able to find a hard copy of the application and my son did check yes to the honors question. So it appears they have not notified everyone of their status. He received his package yesterday and there was nothing in there about honors. Perhaps those notifications go out when they notify about scholarshipsā¦or they only consider ED applicants (which would be strange).
Time seems to be ticking on St. Augustineā¦ invitations were meant to be sent āafter January 16ā and in time for students to write and submit a 1 page essay by January 31. Still, no one has replied in this thread about the scholarship. Very odd.
Hi guys! Iām a student who was accepted to Villanova EA. I remember checking off that I wanted to be considered for the honors college on my common app. However, when I now return to review the common app that I submitted to Villanova, the question is no longer there. On my portal, there is no indication of whether or not I have been invited to the honors college. I am very confused because on Villanovaās website, it says that applicants will hear if they have been invited to the honors program within a week of their acceptance to the University. Is it possible the honors program is now full and EA applicants were not considered for admission? Has anyone who applied EA received a rejection notice from the honors program? Thanks!
@WineLover Last year my D applied EA and she was accepted with an additional letter accepting her to honors. She never applied for it, there was nothing extra to do on the common app.
When did she hear from the honors college?
@pinkpony921 I and others are having the same issue with the common app and the disappearing question. Fortunately, I was able to locate a hard copy that we printed out at the time we applied, and the question is there.
From what I can gather, some EA applicants have been informed they were not being considered for honors. However, others have not been informed either way, and nobody from the EA pool that I have heard has been informed that they have been accepted into honors. I am guessing that Villanova is a bit behind schedule in this endeavor and will hopefully be getting letters out soon. My sonās portal has not changed and he received his packet yesterday with no indication about honors. He has high stats, so my guess is he will be getting good news. If I had to guess, if you have not gotten any news about honors yet and you indicated you wanted to be considered, you will be getting good news soon.
Just weighing in here on the speculation regarding the honors program and scholarships, having some personal experience. In past years after a student received their EA acceptance on their web portal, the āCongratulationsā letter arrived in the mail approximately ten days later. Approximately a week after that, selected students then received a letter in the mail with notification that they had been accepted into the Honors Program. I donāt recall if students were required to acknowledge their acceptance into the program, or it was just assumed that they would participate.
Since the introduction of ED last year, things have obviously changed. A previous poster correctly noted that during the application process on the Common App, there was a Villanova specific question that asked applicants if they desired to be considered for the Honors Program. For those who printed off their applications, that question and your subsequent response are clearly shown. I would suspect that the opportunity to present yourself as an honors candidate was probably restricted to either ED or EA candidates, and most likely the question was removed from the Common App portal after November 1 for all remaining applicants ā hence why it is no longer shown online.
It sounds like the school has already begun to communicate program denials to some admitted candidates, and I would suspect others will also receive similar notification in the next several days. The Honors Program is a relatively small subset of the student body, and they have limited space. Yes, many āhigh statā kids will be denied from the program, but if you look at the stats that applicants posted on the EA acceptance thread, Villanova accepted mostly high stat kids during this round. The Honors Program is maybe 10% of an entire student population full of high stat kids, so a significant majority of admits will likely not be asked to participate. There is also a holistic element to all of this, and yes, the AOs do read each essay, teacher recommendation, etc. Contrary to what applicants self-assess and post on CC, most essays and teacher recommendations are not 10/10.
The program has some nice benefits. Honors classes tend to be smaller and discussion oriented, although most classes at Villanova tend to be on the small side anyway, and most, if not all are taught by professors (no TAs). I believe students in Honors can earn an honors degree by taking 10 honors classes and completing some type of capstone activity, or they can earn an honors minor by taking five courses. There are some additional benefits such as special honors housing. The Freshman live in Caughlin, which tends to be pretty tame, whereas sophomores can live in Corr which is centrally located on campus and contains single rooms only ā which is a nice choice. These students also receive additional advising resources, have closer access to some faculty, are invited to special events with guest industry speakers (more like round-table discussions), and are presented with unique educational opportunities including specialized study abroad semesters with focused honors curriculum. There are probably other honors programs that are more dynamic, while others are more superficial. The Villanova program appears to strike a nice balance.
Merit scholarships are also an important topic given the cost of attending a school such as Villanova. Many schools of this caliber have been moving away from merit for some time because they simply do not need the provide incentives to attract the high caliber students they are seeking. Again, several years ago the primary merit programs were the Presidential and the Villanova Scholarships, the latter since replaced to some degree by the St. Augustine Scholarship ā although not a direct correlate.
The Presidential Scholarship is obviously significant, and it will attract over a thousand applicants if not more. Iāve read some previous posts regarding scholarship nomination and its importance in the admission process, which doesnāt hold much weight because given the eligibility criteria it doesnāt take much to ask a guidance counselor to ānominateā and submit online paperwork. Yes, there are eight essays and it can be arduous work, but one should expect that such effort be required given the accompanying award if successfully chosen. Again, doing some simple math, I believe they invite 40 to 50 finalists to interview for the 24 scholarships, so if only 1,000 apply (and itsā probably much more), you are still looking at only 4% to 5% of applicants being chosen as finalists, and thatās probably a generous estimate.
Does applying for the Presidential help candidates get admitted to the University? Probably not given the deadline to submit was only 11 days before EA acceptances were announced. Does applying for the Presidential help candidates gain entrance in the Honors Program? Again, probably not given several years ago candidates received their Honors Program invite before the Presidential applications were even due. Does applying for the Presidential help make you a candidate for the St. Augustine Scholarship? That I cannot say, but I do know in past years that many students in the Honors Program had also received Villanova Scholarships ā which had varying award levels. The St. Augustine Scholarship appears to be more structured than the Villanova Scholarship from an award standpoint. I would suspect that some of the Presidential Scholarships finalists (not winners) will be the recipients of some (not all) of the St. Augustine Scholarships as a consolation.
In past years selected candidates for the Villanova Scholarship received a letter in the mail approximately four weeks after their admittance to Villanova informing them of their status as a finalist for that scholarship. That process included a typical alumni interview, and candidates received their award notifications in late March, probably about the same time FA award notifications were sent.
I hope this has been helpful information. Obviously if you are a student who has been accepted EA to Villanova, you no doubt have many other fine college choices, and this dimension is just one of a number that you will consider when you make your final choice on May 1. Good luck to all!
Last year, my daughter heard about her acceptance to the honors college very soon after she got in EA. Canāt remember exact date but it was between, 12/14 and 12/23.
@WineLover thank you so much for this encouraging information! I wish you guys the best of luck! 
@WineLover I remember my S did answer a question about interest in being considered for Honors Program on the CA. And when he received his EA acceptance on the Villanova portal, there was a notice on the right side of the screen saying that the Honors Program was full but he would be considered later if a spot became available. He asked for reconsideration, and was told the same thing.
From what I remember of last year, others on CC reported that there was no mention of Honors on their portals, and at least some of them WERE invited to Honors. S may have been invited later if he had enrolled but there was no way we would consider paying so much for Villanova without some extra perks.
As I mentioned before, I was surprised that S was not initially invited as I thought that Honors programs were for the most academically strong students, which based on grades, scores, and rigor, my S would have been at Villanova. One thing that may have worked against S (besides the fact that he would be a stereotypical Villanova student and V is trying hard to improve diversity) is that he is not the strongest writer. Heās fine but not great: very good with the mechanics of writing but not much insight. But he also came from an average public HS that didnāt require much writing.
Looks like we have a piece of mail coming from Villanova today (informed delivery). It is a medium sized envelope and at the bottom left corner of the envelope it has the website honors.villanova.edu. So I guess it is safe to assume that my son was invited to honors. Someone else on the other thread got an envelope yesterday. So if you havenāt gotten notified of being declined from honors, you may be getting something today!