<p>For my college experience, I would prefer to have the sort of smaller LAC environment but I also love the whole "Saturdays Down South" sports atmosphere that prevails at a lot of large public schools, so it seems like an Honors College would be the perfect option. Plus, the financial aspect of Honors Colleges would work out much better that a $60,000 LAC. So, how different is the Honors College at various schools from the rest of the campus at, for example South Carolina Honors. Also, what are some other Honors Colleges that act more independently from the rest of the campus?</p>
<p>Each school’s honors college will be different, so you’ll have to look at each one. My kids enjoyed the Honors College at Alabama. Many, many course offerings, awesome Honors dorms, and priority registration.</p>
<p>ASU’s Barrett Honors College is a prime example of an honors college being separate from the rest of the university. </p>
<p>Other schools with notable honors colleges and good school spirit:
-UGA
-University of Oregon Clarke Honors College
-Indiana University’s Hutton Honors College
-U Michigan
-UVA Echols</p>
<p>Most of these schools won’t give you a substantially large merit scholarship, but they will offer you quite a few perks.</p>
<p>If you’re a California resident, you owe it to yourself to check out UCSB’s College of Creative Studies. </p>
<p>Depending on your financial need, you might want to look into Oxford College of Emory University. It’s a two year separate LAC 38 miles away from Emory’s main campus. Almost all students, including those who’ve received a full ride scholarship (aka the top 1% of students) report that the academics are quite rigorous, and all classes have less than 33 students. Upon completion of the program, students move onto the Atlanta campus. Oxford has its own campus, own sports teams, own clubs, etc. It also offers much better financial aid than most private universities because it sources from Emory’s financial aid pool. However, neither Emory nor Oxford offers strong sports teams.</p>
<p>If you’re interested in Oxford, I’d encourage you to apply to the Oxford Scholars program which is a merit scholarship on top of regular financial aid.</p>
<p>My D has done visit to Oregon. She didn’t specifically go to check out Clarke Honors college but fell in love with the campus, and school spirit, and the context of a very casual campus feel. She got some good info on Clarke while there. Oddly they actually charge you MORE if you get into Clarke. Not much more…i think it’s $3k or so. But of course they guarantee many perks such as class sizes. In addition, the pricetag even with that…it still lower than most LAC’s.</p>