<p>My DD has great stats and is looking to applying for ChemE. She wants to shoot for the honors route and I'm all for it, but at the end of the day I'm left wondering - What is the real benefit of going the honors route?"</p>
<p>Is the benefit of the honors dorms, slightly smaller classes, etc. worth the potential hit on a GPA? I work in the energy industry and in asking our HR people if it matters to them, they say "No, If a student gets a 3.7 in a regular program but a 3.3 in an honors program, we consider them the same."</p>
<p>Any thoughts?</p>
<p>I suspect it helps if you are going to apply to MIT or Caltech or some such tippytop school for postgrad/Ph.D. If you expect her to get a job right after, probably not a lot of difference based on what you are saying. Something to remember is that honors is a lot more selective and people do opt for it to show that they are in the cream of the crop of admittees.</p>
<p>If she is doing ChemE, onething to check is how many are usually in the regular program vs honors. If you end up in classes of 100 vs 15, is nt that something to consider?</p>
<p>Right now, the benefits are getting to live in the Honors Quad (certainly beats Jester) and getting an honors scholarship. But you do have maintain a 3.5 to stay in EHP.</p>
<p>But you don’t even have to take honors classes as a part of EHP, it’s just an option you can have if you want to challenge yourself/have smaller class sizes.</p>
<p>How much is an honors scholarship?</p>
<p>Ranges from $1000-10000/ year</p>
<p>How do they determine the range? Should nt it be all the same if they are all honors students?</p>
<p>Also, honors quad is not “certainly better” than Jester. I know plenty of honors students who didn’t like the honors quad and chose to live in other dorms such as Jester.</p>
<p>One other point is that after the first year of classes or so, there are typically no “honors” sections for engineering classes.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it’s still this way, but honors physics was REALLY hard for me. The guys (and few girls, of course) who were in there were SO smart that there wasn’t much of a curve. I had been first in my class in high school, so I was shocked to get a 45 on my first physics exam!! I ended up with a C for the semester. I thought my life had ended, lol. I ended up graduating with high honors, but that was a rough start. If I had had it to do over again, I would have signed up for regular physics. Honors calculus went OK, though.</p>
<p>All of my friends who have taken honors courses have told me that the professors teaching those sections are terrible. I personally believe that the best professors enjoy teaching regular sections, not honors sections.</p>
<p>I’m in engineering honors / EE right now and the most meaningful benefits so far were the scholarship and ability to stay in the quad. The scholarship is based on merit from what I can tell, I got 5k / semester and a more qualified friend got 10k / semester. The quad is amazing, I wouldn’t consider staying anywhere else.</p>
<p>Another thing honors offers is an “Honors Thesis”, info about it here:<a href=“UT Cockrell School of Engineering”>UT Cockrell School of Engineering;
I have quite a bit of time until I would choose to start the thesis so I can’t really give more info than that link about it, sorry.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your responses, it’s good info four our dialogue. My DD is planning on going to grad school right after undergrad. Considering that tidbit - would the honors “tag” be that appealing to grad schools? Especially in light of my original post concerning GPA slippage.</p>
<p>Sorry for interrupting, but what kind of statistics would give you a <em>good</em> chance of getting into Cockrell honors, assuming OK extracurricular (a little on the weak side)? I couldn’t find any average stats so I have no idea if I have a chance.</p>
<p>Bigbaddad - I dont have any numbers for going to PG schools from regular vs honors program. I have a sample of one, about 5 years ago, who went from EE honors to Stanford for a Ph.D.</p>
<p>It really varies. But I would say top 5% of class at the very least, along with good SAT/ACT, essay.</p>
<p>Thank you. I’m top 2%, have a 33 ACT, 3.85 UW/4.5 W GPA, and a math-heavy courseload. I’m assuming I should have a decent chance then?</p>