<p>Do you get selected during admissions, but have an opportunity to apply later in your freshmen year (like Northeastern)? Do you have to have a certain gpa? Do you need to be the top something percent? ect...</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>If you don’t get selected during the admissions process, you can still take honors courses with permission. The only perk for the Honors College is the honors housing. It is not like some of the other honors programs where the students get to register early, create their own curriculum etc.</p>
<p>If you are not initially accepted in, I believe you can apply for the Honors College with a minimum 3.25 GPA after Freshman year. You can check the Pitt Honors College website, it should be listed there.</p>
<p>Actually my son did get register early. He was given the opportunity to register at Honors day back in April.</p>
<p>To be eligible for Forbes honors housing freshman year you need a 1450 on your SAT’s. To be able to take honors classes first semester without permission you need a 1450. To get the letter admissions sends saying you are “in” the honors college so you can put it up on your refrigerator you need a 1450. </p>
<p>Otherwise SAT’s don’t matter. All you need after first semester to be fully eligible for everything is a 3.25 GPA. Even that doesn’t matter, really. Anyone can get permission to take an honors class and I have never heard of it being denied. If you want to live in Forbes Craig it will matter though.</p>
<p>To be really in the honors college all you do is participate and then you are part of our community regardless of indicators like GPA, SAT, etc. Even if you have the SAT or GPA if you don’t participate you really aren’t in the honors college (in my view) even if you do get that letter from admissions.</p>
<p>Here are some ways to participate.</p>
<ol>
<li>Come to pizza and plays (a pizza eating/play reading group that meets once a week)</li>
<li>Come to SHAC activities (bowling, dances, picnics etc)</li>
<li>Come to Mess (Friday night movies)</li>
<li>Just hang out on the 36th floor and drink free coffee</li>
<li>Get advice on classes from mike and nate the advisors. </li>
<li>Apply for a summer Brackenridge research fellowship</li>
<li>Write for one of our publications </li>
<li>Take an honors class</li>
</ol>
<p>I am sure there are a million things I am forgetting but that should give you some idea both of what it means to be in the UHC and what our community is about.</p>
<p>I want the housing though. CuttingEdge, are you saying that acceptance into the housing depends on SAT scores? Well, I have a 30 ACT, is that good enough?</p>
<p>actually, if the rooms aren’t that nice, maybe I won’t care about going to it and I’ll just register for the classes. In Northeastern, their honors building have free laundy, a fitness center, and rooms with their own bathroom and as big as a hotel room. IS Forbes like that (especially its own bathroom. That’s really all I care about)? </p>
<p>Also, are their any benefits to being in the honors program? I mean, sure I can take classes, but do honors kids get research opportunities, something on their diploma that says they are in honors, more internships, ability to take more honors classes than everyone else, or anything like that?</p>
<p>Donnamom: That must be a new thing as my son did not get to register early as a freshman and as a sophomore he didn’t get to register early. Most of the honors programs I have looked at: the students get to register early every semester, guaranteed housing for the 4 years and lots of other perks. </p>
<p>I don’t believe laundry is free at Forbes – if it was, then ALL the honor students including those not living at Forbes should have gotten that perk!</p>
<p>MTNest - becasue we had already enrolled when we signed up for the April (I think it was) Honors day they sent an e-mail that we could also enroll for classes that day if he wanted to. He met with an advisor for about 90 minutes and came out all enrolled in his classes. Was a good feeling to have it all done so early, and he got all the classes he wanted to take. I don’t think it will happen in future years, seemed to be a perk at that particular time.</p>
<p>The other thing to keep in mind about the honors program is that there may be more changes with a new dean. Since its inception, the program has always been run as an inclusive rather than exclusive program, but who knows what will happen?</p>
<p>Shadowzoid–My daughter chose to live in a learning community rather than Forbes her freshman year. From her observations, she thought that Forbes was a bit quieter than her dorm (Sutherland) and she had the impression that kids studied more in the Forbes dorm than where she lived. She also thought the Forbes rooms were a bit larger, but she was looking at a young man’s room that may not have had as much stuff as her room. I do not think Forbes rooms have individual bathrooms. One disadvantage to not having a common bathroom is that you have to clean it (the eight-person suites in Sutherland have two baths and the suitemates have to clean them, for example).</p>
<p>My son chose to live at Towers on the Space floors. He thoroughly enjoyed himself and made some great friends (they roomed together sophomore year and will again in the fall). Since they were all engineering majors – they studied but had fun too. He took a couple of honors courses but didn’t participate too much within the honors community.</p>
<p>I would agree that having the common bathrooms cleaned is a perk 
Of course, they don’t clean on the weekends :(</p>
<p>MD MOM: tell me this, would you rather have to clean a bathroom that two (Northeastern’s honors program dorms) or four (NYU everyone’s dorm) people share, or to not clean one that you share with a whole floor of 16 people? Yeah, give me the clean your own room anyday.</p>
<p>Ok wow that is a lot of comments. </p>
<p>The eligibility that I talked about requires a 32 SAT score.</p>
<p>If you are in the honors college for tangible benefits (other than merit scholarships) it will disappoint you. The honors college students do not get treated differently in the vast majority of cases. Those who interview or win a chancellors scholarship get UHC advising and to go on a retreat in August but that is the only case i can think of.</p>
<p>Otherwise it is all about the intangible benefits. If you are looking for a community of intellectually interesting people to think, hang out, and pursue various shenanigans with then the UHC is going to be your thing. Otherwise it won’t be. </p>
<p>There is no special distinction. There is no membership. There are very few perks. There are a lot of honors programs that offer that so if that is what you are looking for I suggest you look elsewhere. </p>
<p>The dorms are nicer than Towers but worse than Sutherland.</p>
<p>Most bathrooms that don’t get cleaned by staff are huge horrible scary messes but you can not believe MD Mom if you want. Personally, i had a bathroom in Forbes last year and i would take having someone else clean my bathroom in a second. </p>
<p>Dean Husted is totally on the same page as Dean Stewart was in terms of the inclusive/exclusive debate so I don’t think there will be any changes.</p>
<p>Shadowzoid–I would rather use the common one that is cleaned by a professional on a regular basis with commercial cleaners than one shared by however many (2, 4, 6, 8) that is poorly cleaned by the girly girls who live there. </p>
<p>I was simply pointing out a difference, and if you prefer to clean the bathrooms, go for it. Unfortunately, if you are the only one who cares, you may be doing a lot of toilet scrubbing. From what I saw this year, none of the seven girls my daughter lived with were too particular and I would add that mine wasn’t too fussy either. TOTALLY grossed me out.</p>
<p>Happy to hear your assessment of Dean Husted, CuttingEdge.</p>
<p>With regard to Post #5 - Sorry Cutting Edge, D2 did not have a 1450 SAT and she was still admitted to the Honors College this year. If she had decided to enroll at Pitt and had completed the application for the honors housing, I expect she would have been at Forbes this year. Two years ago, D1 did not have a 1450 and was still admitted into the Honors College and did stay at Forbes her freshman year. In addition, if you are in the honors college, you do NOT need additional permission to enroll in an honors class - there is no SAT score minimum.</p>
<p>In D1’s opinion, Forbes was a better dorm than Sutherland - IN HER OPINION. By the way, D1 was in one of the “midget wings” or “pods” and had a shared bathroom. It was never an issue with her.</p>
<p>I can recall talking to her numerous times on the telephone during her freshman year and there was a lot of noise in the background that did not sound like studying going on. Incidentally, her roommate (who is still her roommate two years later) had (and still has) a guaranteed medical school acceptance and another girl (who is another apartment roommate this year) in the “pod” was a Chancelor’s Scholar. D1 is starting her first year in the School of Pharmacy this August. The honors college students can party AND still study. I think Forbes was a wonderful fit for my daughter. YMMV</p>
<p>“If you are in the honors college, you do NOT need additional permission to enroll in an honors class.” This is only true first semester. For honors physics, my daughter had to get permission before enrolling in the second semester class this past year.</p>
<p>My daughter deeply regretted her decision to live in the learning community in Sutherland instead of Forbes for her freshman year. She is in honors housing for her second year.</p>
<p>^^^^^In D1’s first two years, she never needed permission to enroll in any honors class. She was in honors classes all four semesters. (Admittedly, she did not take honors physics, if that is a special case.) She took honors chemistry, biology and calculus courses.</p>
<p>IMO, Forbes is the best housing for serious freshman students at Pitt.</p>
<p>By the way, D1’s room in the pod wing was HUGE!!</p>
<p>Perhaps physics was an exception. She did not take other honors courses second semester, and I don’t think she has any planned for fall.</p>
<p>Actually the honors college website does say 1400 so i don’t know what the actual cut off is and if it exists. I have actually never heard talk of it in the UHC itself. </p>
<p>Quiet type, Your post seems to imply that I am committed to that cut off and some sort of UHC elitism. I want to clear that up. As I have said many times in the past on this board, I am against any kind of cut off, I am against any kind of membership, I think the letters are misleading, and I want the UHC to be as inclusive as possible. </p>
<p>I don’t know what you mean about being “in” the UHC. To quote the UHC advisors, “the only way you can be ‘in’ the Honors College is to be physically on the 35th or 36th floor of the Cathedral of Learning”.</p>
<p>The letter you got merely says you are eligible to fully participate. </p>
<p>Forbes was a great fit for me too. </p>
<p>The way the computer now works is that if you have a 3.25 you can enroll for honors classes and otherwise you need a permission number. That may be new as of self enrollment which started last spring.</p>
<p>CuttingEdge - I do recall that the UHC website does say something about a 1400. Quite frankly, I was surprised when D2 received her letter indicating that she was (I do not recall the exact wording) admitted or “eligible” for the UHC. This was a separate letter, with the UHC letterhead, received about three weeks after her initial admissions letter to Pitt, indicating that she was (again, whether the correct terminology is admitted or eligible, I do not recall) admitted to the Honors College at Pitt. What bothered me about your earlier post was your comment about requiring a 1450 SAT score. Quite frankly, your statement about your opposition to a cutoff score is irrelevant - it only matters what the Pitt admissions committee thinks. My daughters’ experiences with Pitt are that there are no precise SAT or ACT score minimums for “admissions” to the Pitt University Honors College. (By the way, that extremely trite comment by the Pitt UHC folks about only being “in” the UHC if you are on the 35th floor of the Cathedral has now become very annoying - and you are, by far, not the first person I’ve heard make that statement) </p>
<p>Now, if we are to discuss merit scholarships, that’s another story - D1 and I were informed directly by a Pitt admissions officer, that there were minimum SAT scores for Pitt merit scholarships.</p>