other schools that I could have gotten into that did not fit the above requirements
You don’t know anyone else nor their college search, collegehelp. Your generalizations are baseless and embarrassing. So you want you and/or your kids to chase prestige – that’s fine. Doesn’t mean everyone else has to or wants to.
All honors colleges and programs cannot be lumped into a single category. (The CBH program my ds is in has had numerous Goldwater and Hollings scholars. Since it is an honors program focused on developing research skills, it is producing results in its area of focus. http://uanews.ua.edu/2015/04/four-ua-students-named-goldwater-scholars/ )
Not all students have the luxury of simply attending whatever school they want to based on standardized test scores. (Or even want to pick a school through so narrow of a lens.) I know my very high performing kids have a very limited budget. Their college searches are focused on finding schools that offer specialized programs in their areas of interest for top students. Some of these programs only accept a handful of student per year and those kids receive incredible mentoring and career guidance. In addition, they often offer scholarships.
Fwiw, my ds loves Bama. He is not your typical profile student entering there. He took 400 level classes his freshman yr. Guess what? He has found a great peer group of equally top notch students and has wonderful professors who are great mentors. He has been participating in research since his freshman yr. Excellent opportunities are available across a broad spectrum of schools, not just a handful. It takes researching schools and programs and finding ones that match student goals.
My kids both wanted small private schools. They had the stats to likely get accepted into our excellent top State U’s - but that wasn’t the educational environment they wanted. So the deal was they had to earn enough in scholarship money to keep the cost reasonable.
They do NOT attend the “best” school they could get accepted into. (loosely defining “best” as schools whose names routinely get thrown around on CC and appear at the top of rankings). Why didn’t they? Because they wanted to earn enough merit money to graduate without debt, and we couldn’t afford $60k/year.
They specifically targeted schools with strong honors programs. They needed to be at the top of the stats pool to earn enough money, but didn’t want to be outliers. We spent a lot of time learning about the academic environments and Honors programs/colleges at each school, and yes, there is a wide range of incredibly amazing programs to those that just slap a label of Honors without doing much.
D’s program has offered her trips to nearby major cities to visit museums and see shows, free tickets to cultural events in the city the school is in, special sections of classes only for Honors (while her largest class anyway has been 24 students, she’s had Honors sections with as few as 9 - they lower the threshold for minimum students needed to run a class if it’s Honors). She’s got a separate Honors advisor, and they’ve helped her apply for grants and stipends that have allowed her to spend her summers doing research in Europe. While many might consider her school “beneath” someone with her stats, the education she has had, the amazing challenging peer group she is with, the mentoring provided by the Honors faculty, have all led to her being competitive for funded graduate programs at some of the “prestigious” schools she might have been accepted to for undergrad but couldn’t afford.
We’ll see what S’s experience is - he’s only a few weeks in - but he found a small school with an accredited engineering program that he could attend well within our savings budget. He chose to not even apply to any reach schools - he was very focused on getting a great education without needing to borrow any money.
Back in the day… I was selected for a very small honors program (20 students/year) at a very large state university (>20K)-- coming from a family with no college background, I didn’t understand the significance at all- I didn’t choose it, it chose me (I would have been at the same school anyway). But that program provided me with mentors; opened doors to pathways I never knew existed. As a result, I went on to earn advanced degrees; engaged in years of research and mentored and taught more generations of college students.
My D16 could have gone just about anywhere (yes, she was accepted to and could have afforded some top 20 schools)-- she chose an honors program at an OOS public. Why- the major that she loves; really cool faculty and the opportunity to work closely with them; a great peer group of students from all around the country with a variety of interests… and maybe a winning football team.
Again, thank you all so much for sharing your stories (or your children’s stories). It has definitely opened my eyes to possibly looking at applying for a good Honor’s College in some of my schools of interest when applying next year!
I have been following this thread with some interest as my DD is looking at honors colleges for the same reason some of the above posters kids. she is familair with UA, ASU, and USC. For those that have researched are there any others you recommend looking into for a business major?
@PurpleTitan -We are looking for best merit and academic opportunities. She wants a school with Greek life and football. But we both like the idea of the smaller class sizes and smaller school feel within a big university. She is an excellent student with an unweighted 3.9 and weighted 4.65. Her Sat just misses full tuition at UA but she will get 2/3 and instate tuition at U of South Carolina. Top option is our state flagship for cost but looking for other places to apply out of state and keep COA in par with instate.
Like others have said, there are some definite perks to being in an honors program. I was in one back in the day when I was in college and it was a really great experience (I went to a large public state university). Perks of an honors program often include (but specifics vary based on the school):
priority registration - for example, you might get to register for classes right after the athletes do. This makes it a lot easier to get the classes you need so you can graduate on time. Some required courses might only be offered once/year.
preferred housing - you might get first pick on dorms or the school might house a lot / all of the honors students in 1 dorm that is newer, has a better dining hall, etc.
Honors-only classes - very similar to small graduate-level seminar courses with smaller class size. Can often involve open & really interesting discussions in class w/the professor, compared to sitting in a large lecture hall with 400+ other students & there's no discussion
research project required for graduating with honors - this is a great resume-builder and helps with getting a job after college or applying to graduate school.
makes it easier to meet students who are similarly committed as you are to getting the most out of their college's opportunities.
In my personal experience, it was a really beneficial experience. There were GPA requirements - you had to maintain a certain GPA in order to remain in the honors program, so you couldn’t slack off. But it was totally worth it. I got to take a graduate-level statistics class that was really interesting. Got to help my professors in their research projects, one of which resulted in my name getting added to the professor’s publication in a research journal. For the senior project, you could pick pretty much whatever you wanted…the world was your oyster. You just had to come up with an idea and the professors were totally on board and willing to help & be your advisor. I would totally do it again. If you are able to pursue something like that in college, I would highly encourage you to consider it.
I’ve found an interesting program at a school of interest for me, SUNY Brockport. It is called the Delta Program (https://www.brockport.edu/academics/delta_college/index.html). It is more than an Honors College, in fact, Brockport has an Honors College as well as this Delta Program.
Some may argue that it’s not as academically appealing as an Honors College, because it doesn’t accept people based on GPA or SAT scores, but rather an essay and a potential interview. The program only accepts 75 freshman out of however many that apply, to keep class sizes no larger than 25 people. The professors often teach multiple classes, and therefore you have a stronger connection to your teachers. This opportunity sounds perfect for me, as any major can apply, and it heavily prepares you for your desired career after college, or for graduate school if you so choose.
Also a highlight of the Delta Program is that there are many scholarships available for Delta students, which is a huge plus for me as I am the one paying for my college education, not my parents or both of us combined.