What exactly is the difference between the two and how competitive are the two? I want to go biology, biochem, or chem for pre-med and I have a 31 on the ACT (hoping to get my higher grades soon), good essays, and good extracurriculars for the smaller size of my school. This isn’t necessarily a “chance me” question but do I have even a small chance at it and based on being pre-med which one would you recommend me doing? I know dean is more research-based and polymathic is for people with multiple interests (whatever that means) but are there any other big differences? Thank you in advance, I realize that there are a lot of questions here.
Dean’s Scholars is much more competitive than Polymath and although many Dean’s students go onto med school, a high proportion will go into graduate programs and research. My son is in Health Science Scholars, which is the third of the CNS honors programs - HSS is geared towards students who want to go on to work in health professions. He is a Biochemistry major on a pre med track. My son’s freshman roommate was a Dean’s Scholar and the main difference he observed was that he had to take every honors course equivalent of any regular classes. Just to note, this is a very tough schedule to take in order to maintain a high GPA, which of course is essential for med school applications. I’m sure this is one reason why Dean’s Scholars is so selective in the first place. At the end of the day all 3 of the CNS honors programs have students who apply to med school. You need to pick the one that interests you the most and that you feel you can do well in.
Even when I was at UT in the dark ages, honors classes were HARD. And every student in the classes were so darned bright! I had almost a 99.0 unweighted GPA in high school, yet my first college exam grade, in honors physics, was a 45 and there wasn’t much of a curve. I went on to graduate with high honors, but boy, that was a wakeup call.
The only reason that I am not really considering Health Science Scholars is that I am not 100% sure that I want to go into medicine. I am probably just overthinking it but I don’t want to join that honors and then want to change halfway through my college career because I want to be a geneticist or another biology-related job. Would you say that it would be weird for a person on the premed track to do the polymath?
@MaineLonghorn Whenever you were in the honors which program and major did you do?
Honors engineering. I was an Architectural Engineering major.
No - it would definitely not be weird for a person to be Polymath and pre med. Many of my sons friends fall into this category. Also, to be clear, you are not locked into any specific path or career by entering into any of the 3 CNS Honors programs. All 3 groups are encouraged to look at pursuing graduate and research opportunities. A pre med track in any of the Honors groups is essentially the same - you take the required classes as part of or in addition to the core requirements of your degree course. That being said obviously you can take any degree at UT, honors or not, in CNS or not, and take all your pre med class requirements.
The answer to this question is simply based on the experiences you bring to the table along with what you can contribute to those communities. (What do you want to gain from an honors experience).
I would like to point out, that based on your self reported test score, you are slightly outside of the range that admitted DS scholars fall within so it is very important that for whichever program you chose to apply to you make this a focus. What matters most is fit… and that is something that is can be found via your resume and short answer responses that the honors program will review. These are small programs so therefore extremely picky (DS has 150 scholars as a of a year ago).