Hello, so today I was admitted into the University of Washington’s honors program. While I’m excited I’m not entirely sure what the honors program has to offer. I read on their website a little bit about it but I’m still not getting the big picture. Can anyone who’s more knowledgeable on the honors program please fill me in on what differentiates it from the regular admission? Also, is the U dub honors program (for someone in state) a worthy competitor against schools like UC Berkeley? (I was also admitted here so I’m trying to decide) Thank you for all responses!
http://depts.washington.edu/uwhonors/apply/freshman/faq/
Your fellow Honors Program students will have an academic profile similar to students at UCB.
I suggest you contact the Honors Program office with specific questions. They will probably have orientation meetings in April as well.
Congratulations and good luck!
There are two types of Honors programs - departmental honors (specifically with your academic department), and interdisciplinary honors (general honors).
Since you apply to do departmental honors separately (and later on after you’re admitted to a department), I assume you’re asking about interdisciplinary honors. I was admitted as a freshman, but dropped it after a couple of years since it didn’t align with my goals (interest in bio/neuro, but not enough to take enough coursework to almost double major with computer science).
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what differentiates it from the regular admission
Interdisciplinary Honors focuses on interdisciplinary studies, which combines two different fields. For example, biology and computer science is a pretty common pairing. The program ‘forces’ you to take a number of “honors” classes in various areas, such as humanities, sciences/maths, etc.
competitor against schools like UC Berkeley
Interdisciplinary Honors isn’t really the same thing as other honors programs at different schools. Departmental honors or taking specific honors classes (e.g. honors ochem) is definitely on par with other schools’ advanced/honors classes. If you’re looking to go to grad school, I’d advise taking whatever classes will give you a better GPA. The humanities honors courses are pretty easy to get a high GPA, but do involve a deeper understanding of the material compared to other humanities courses I’ve taken. On the flip side, some courses like honors ochem have an expected median exam score to be in the 20%-30% range and isn’t curved beautifully.
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I’d ask to talk to current honors students to get an idea of what the program is like now and if it aligns with your interests.