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Anonymous wrote:Which non-honors schools would you Penn State honors program over? UMD? UVA? Michigan? T30 schools?

Honors programs are a stats grab. If you get and need the merit, that’s one thing. But if full pay, I’d Definitely choose any T30, including UVA and Mich over Penn State.

Thanks. No merit aid here (yet). Not sure any aid is forthcoming. Deciding between Michigan and Penn State Honors.

Look at the coursework at PSU honors. The good programs have coursework not just perks.

Unless the job placement of PSU honors is demonstrably superior to non honors…not sure why the coursework matters.

A social environment than brings high-achievers together is good. Think of the difference between students in AP classes as a large public school vs those in on-level classes

Except...98% of your classes won't be with other high-achievers...just a small number of "honors" classes. Are you claiming PSU basically has an AP-track for many majors?

Bingo. It's not like they have one regular English/physics/computer science class and then the "honors" version of each of those classes, as in high school. "Honors" classes usually just refer to the extra honors courses you have to take in addition to your regular coursework. It has nothing to do with your actual major.

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Anonymous wrote:Making college lists. Curious which colleges have top notch honors programs and why? And separately, are there any honors programs that are heads and shoulders above the rest of the school? A school that may not have the strongest academics, but the honors program is so strong that it outweighs that lack of strength? Or does a school have to have decent academics overall to make the honors program excellent?

*A lot of them
*Smaller classes and more experienced professors
*Most of them
*It's called graduate school
*Preferably

Srsly OP, it depends on the major and the school.

What is your real question?

Plus, peers in the honors classes and housing tend to be higher performing and achieving. All of the above impacts peer group and class discussion.

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Anonymous wrote:Are students in the Honors Programs all merry? My kid is interested in a honors program, but also wants to be in a Sorority and likes to be around a diverse group of people. Not students who are single minded about their classes.

Why target 'honors programs' at all? Why wouldn't she target the best College, with a greek system?

Because $200,000 over four years is real money to some people, even if it seems like chump change to you.

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Anonymous wrote:Are students in the Honors Programs all merry? My kid is interested in a honors program, but also wants to be in a Sorority and likes to be around a diverse group of people. Not students who are single minded about their classes.

Nerdy. Sorry, phone autocorrected it.

Nerdy and sorority .... hmmm, what do you think?

You really think sororities are diverse? They are definitely not single-minded about their classes. Maybe about their next party.

Lol DD is in an honors program and on the executive board of her sorority. She’s the type that can make even a sorority “nerdy” I guess. And she’s POC. So in this respect the PP is right - you can be diverse in a sorority!

I’m not the the PP you’re responding to but another PP who said sororities aren’t going to be diverse. But I wasn’t taking about race, I meant a more narrow interest and culture. I was not trying to knock Greek life, but just saying you don’t join the Greek system to increase the diversity of who you hang out with. Both honors colleges and Greek systems are selective so they’re by definition going to select certain types of people. Your kid just happens to fit both profiles so good for her!

Thanks PP. I do agree that the sorority thing is more about conforming to fit into the sorority rather than expressing oneself and in that sense being diverse. The OP's kid could get diversity by doing Greek life plus a few other things.

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Anonymous wrote:Are students in the Honors Programs all merry? My kid is interested in a honors program, but also wants to be in a Sorority and likes to be around a diverse group of people. Not students who are single minded about their classes.

Nerdy. Sorry, phone autocorrected it.

Nerdy and sorority .... hmmm, what do you think?

You really think sororities are diverse? They are definitely not single-minded about their classes. Maybe about their next party.

Lol DD is in an honors program and on the executive board of her sorority. She’s the type that can make even a sorority “nerdy” I guess. And she’s POC. So in this respect the PP is right - you can be diverse in a sorority!

I’m not the the PP you’re responding to but another PP who said sororities aren’t going to be diverse. But I wasn’t taking about race, I meant a more narrow interest and culture. I was not trying to knock Greek life, but just saying you don’t join the Greek system to increase the diversity of who you hang out with. Both honors colleges and Greek systems are selective so they’re by definition going to select certain types of people. Your kid just happens to fit both profiles so good for her!

Anonymous wrote:Are students in the Honors Programs all merry? My kid is interested in a honors program, but also wants to be in a Sorority and likes to be around a diverse group of people. Not students who are single minded about their classes.

Why target 'honors programs' at all? Why wouldn't she target the best College, with a greek system?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are students in the Honors Programs all merry? My kid is interested in a honors program, but also wants to be in a Sorority and likes to be around a diverse group of people. Not students who are single minded about their classes.

Nerdy. Sorry, phone autocorrected it.

Nerdy and sorority .... hmmm, what do you think?

You really think sororities are diverse? They are definitely not single-minded about their classes. Maybe about their next party.

Lol DD is in an honors program and on the executive board of her sorority. She’s the type that can make even a sorority “nerdy” I guess. And she’s POC. So in this respect the PP is right - you can be diverse in a sorority!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are students in the Honors Programs all merry? My kid is interested in a honors program, but also wants to be in a Sorority and likes to be around a diverse group of people. Not students who are single minded about their classes.

Nerdy. Sorry, phone autocorrected it.

Nerdy and sorority .... hmmm, what do you think?

You really think sororities are diverse? They are definitely not single-minded about their classes. Maybe about their next party.

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Anonymous wrote:Are students in the Honors Programs all merry? My kid is interested in a honors program, but also wants to be in a Sorority and likes to be around a diverse group of people. Not students who are single minded about their classes.

If your dd wants to be around a diverse group of people, I don’t think a sorority is the way to go. Sorry, but Greek organizations attract a fairly narrow profile. That’s totally fine, but it’s strange to say you want to join a sorority or fraternity to be around a diverse crowd.

PP with Pitt and PSU Honors experience. Also, my parents and my husband were Greek.

When I went to Pitt and PSU, the sororities were housed on dorm floors (not stand-alone houses). The purpose of going Greek is definitely to find friends. It is a very group-oriented process. Frequent co-ed parties, often at fraternity houses, are fairly central to the experience. I do not like loud, drunken, crowded environments. Basically private equivalents of hanging out at a busy bar. I am a "restaurant with small group of people and good conversation" kind of person. I enjoy meeting new people but only where we can discuss common interests at a reasonable volume. I also had steady boyfriends one at a time during college so I was not looking widely for extra social opportunities.

At Pitt and PSU, it's my impression that the honors college women were not involved in sororities. It's not so much a question of being nerdy as it is a question of priorities. It's my impression, which will probably be controversial, that the most academically talented women were not interested in going Greek. That said, sororities were more prominent at PSU and therefore probably more selective.

Back to the main point of going Greek. Finding friends. I can see where the Honors dorms add value there. Too nerdy just depends on the individuals and the circumstances. In my specific experience at PSU long ago, that didn't work out because there weren't a lot of women in the honors dorm and I had a roommate with personal problems/mental health issues. So the community of honors women was too small to meet my social needs. I joined PSU choirs instead.

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Anonymous wrote:Are students in the Honors Programs all merry? My kid is interested in a honors program, but also wants to be in a Sorority and likes to be around a diverse group of people. Not students who are single minded about their classes.

If your dd wants to be around a diverse group of people, I don’t think a sorority is the way to go. Sorry, but Greek organizations attract a fairly narrow profile. That’s totally fine, but it’s strange to say you want to join a sorority or fraternity to be around a diverse crowd.

+1. The poster must not be from this area. In the DMV it’s not nerdy, it’s the norm, to be a striver who is high performing in multiple areas.

Anonymous wrote:Are students in the Honors Programs all merry? My kid is interested in a honors program, but also wants to be in a Sorority and likes to be around a diverse group of people. Not students who are single minded about their classes.

If your dd wants to be around a diverse group of people, I don’t think a sorority is the way to go. Sorry, but Greek organizations attract a fairly narrow profile. That’s totally fine, but it’s strange to say you want to join a sorority or fraternity to be around a diverse crowd.

Anonymous wrote:Are students in the Honors Programs all merry? My kid is interested in a honors program, but also wants to be in a Sorority and likes to be around a diverse group of people. Not students who are single minded about their classes.

Nerdy. Sorry, phone autocorrected it.

Are students in the Honors Programs all merry? My kid is interested in a honors program, but also wants to be in a Sorority and likes to be around a diverse group of people. Not students who are single minded about their classes.

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Anonymous wrote:I was in the honors program at a big 10 school. I would tell my kids to go to the best school they can. Not pick a school that has a good honors program. No one really cares about that.

+1

Agreed, go to college, learn, and have fun. No one will care whether you go to Michigan or Michigan Honors. NO ONE, trust me.

After a while, no one will even care if you went to Michigan, as long as you have a degree, maybe.

For real ....

It won't matter for the jobs, maybe, but it will matter for the experience, right? Why do people join frats and sororities? To find communities they have a lot in common with. For those kids who don't want to party, but want to meet other kids who are passionate about learning, honors colleges are a great option.

I don't know...I don't really equate the two. You can have high stats and get accepted into an Honors College but not be terribly passionate about learning. There are definitely many kids that are after the ability to register for classes early and a good dorm vs. any social connection.

I agree with you that it's not a perfect correlation, but there is definitely some correlation. I'll still bet that it's easier for a kid who is passionate about learning to find others like them in an honors college vs in a random sample of a huge state school population.

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Anonymous wrote:How about UPitt Honors College?

I'd love to hear about some first-hand experience with this one. John Willingham is a fan and the BPhil seems quite rigorous for an undergraduate program, but many aspects of the program seem either overly flexible or kind of opaque from the outside.

PP. I wrote up my parent era experience at the link below. There are a bunch of other threads on DCUM if you Google or search internal to the site.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1190405.page

I think the reason the description of the Pitt honors program may feel "opaque" is that what you do with Honors College classes, thesis, B.Phil., etc. is very specific to the student. The more "pointy" and specialized the student's interests, the more they will get out of working with faculty and being mentored. If they treat getting access to resources, becoming a junior-level expert in a topic, or winning scholarships like a job, it will be much more clear what benefits can be obtained from an honors program and in retrospect what the impact of the honors degree was. There are great professors at Pitt regardless of honors course status or not. In many classes, the experience of the class is between the teacher and student and the other people in the class don't really add or detract. The professors teach what they plan - they don't speed up or dumb down classes based on the course audience. I treated college not as a job but as an education. I was not gunning for Rhodes/Marshall type scholarships and I did not want to write a thesis. But students who were involved in those pursuits received appropriate, directed counseling through the Pitt Honors College.