Wife and I were both in the honors program in college 25 years ago at American.

It was a pain in the ass.

First, there were in fact a couple of honors classes you could take. They were not distinguished by better dialogue but by sounding more like that asinine grandstanding discussion between wannabe dormroom politicians. And the worst of it was that if there were any kinds of tests or papers with any kind of consequences or outcomes, fellow students thought they could negotiate with the professors about what would be on the test or ask them 20 questions about what was going to be on the test and then try to hold the professors to the 'promises' they had extracted through this socratic haranguing of our own damn professors. I don't know where you're from, but I came from podunk backwards America but we didn't do that to our teachers in high school and it pissed me off.

Second, there was a random extra project that did not feel integral and culminating, i.e., a capstone. I did it, wife did not, I got the extra tiny-font line on my never-displayed diploma, she did not. She's an SES, I'm a Fed too and we're both fine but it hardly made a difference.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My gf (now wife) was in Penn State honors (I was not). Same majors. Only benefit I saw was earlier time for class selection. Even then, I was still able to get the classes i needed. HC is worthless for all the extra effort it takes. But, you get to tell your friends that your kid is in HC!

Wife here. My husband is just annoyed that I had a much better experience than he did. Sure we get priority registration, but we also get to know our professors, mich better assistance, better dorms and quite frankly in a school of 70,000 students, we do get first pick for jobs and better recs from professors for Grad school.
Husband is mad we have the same degree and I make more.

NP. Well, if you're going to start a flame war with your own husband, let me comment that I left Penn State's Honors College after freshman year because the program was dominated by male engineers, I had a depressed roommate who was flunking as a music ed major, I had drunk male strangers enter my room at night twice when I was sleeping because my roommate didn't lock the door (co-ed honors dorm floors were open access to other students), and there wasn't sufficient curriculum, focus on, or respect for liberal arts majors.

I got a 4.0 and transferred to Pitt where liberal arts college majors were the heart of the university rather than lowest priority. The Penn State professors WERE great and personally friendly in NON-Honors classes. Only one official Honors class fit my needs in Freshman year. It didn't look good for sophomore year, even if I added a business major as I planned. The same year I left, a kid from my hometown a year ahead left for Yale.

I'm still salty about the sub-par freshman social experience at PSU. While honestly representing that the education portion was good. Perhaps I didn't realize I was a city girl in the making. But my idea of fun socialization is more complex than endless drinking parties. I certainly don't have any snob issues with attending state flagships. I attended 3 and my older kid applied to 4 of them and attends 1.

Regarding Pitt Honors College, I took some classes from it. However, it focused more on rewarding students who want to customize their classes, do independent study, etc. I decided I did not need the special degree. I graduated with summa and departmental honors.

I went my own way at Pitt most of the time with great success. I had a research assistantship with a young professor who has since become famous, a professor connected me up with a paying internship, etc. I had a great experience at Pitt and the Honors Program was just a little bit of icing on the cake. At that time, they did not have the Honors dorm. I had a much-appreciated single on a girls' floor in a co-ed building. I got to know other high-achieving students who were affiliated with the Honors College through friends and liberal arts classes. Married one of them.

I'm sure Penn State was great for STEM majors. I've heard that they redesigned the Honors program to be more broadly appealing. But I'm still skeptical. Liberal arts continues to be mentioned as a PSU weak spot by alums on the internet (Reddit, college forums). Atherton Hall was a nice central dorm...but didn't have a cafeteria and my personal experience with security, vandalism, etc. was negative. Hopefully that's been corrected.

For our JMU senior, I think the upside was in the beginning and the end, not so much the middle. They met kids they would not have otherwise known because they were on different tracks. They didn't opt to live in the Honors College dorm, which was in retrospect, a mistake (much nicer than their freshman dorm).
Early registration was a benefit in the beginning but because they were in a pre-professional program where course schedules were pretty much guaranteed, it mattered little after the first year.
But in the end, having to complete a capstone project that required significant research, was really beneficial. They learned so much that will help them in their career.

Honors colleges exist purely to make larger institutions more human and comfortable. This is their value. Outside of that, no one will care that you graduated from podunk college, but *in the honors college*!

So pick an Honors college that is of small size in a comfy dorm. UMD offered such a one to DS, but he turned it down for no Honors at a large private.

Does this list do a reasonable job breaking this down? Because it sounds a BIT like what people are posting but maybe not a full-on match.

https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/best-honors-colleges/

Benefits of HC vary widely by school. For some schools the dorms are better or if it is an area with a housing shortage you might be guaranteed housing an extra year where others are not. For some schools like GMU, you can take fewer and different gen ed classes so it can help fit in a double major or minor. Always worth checking.

UMass https://www.umass.edu/honors/
W/ added advantage of 5 college consortium
UMD
VT. If student is already in Tech’s strengths

thx for the UVm details. study abroad not a big draw for my dd but we will see. we're waiting on quite a few RD decisions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My gf (now wife) was in Penn State honors (I was not). Same majors. Only benefit I saw was earlier time for class selection. Even then, I was still able to get the classes i needed. HC is worthless for all the extra effort it takes. But, you get to tell your friends that your kid is in HC!

Wife here. My husband is just annoyed that I had a much better experience than he did. Sure we get priority registration, but we also get to know our professors, mich better assistance, better dorms and quite frankly in a school of 70,000 students, we do get first pick for jobs and better recs from professors for Grad school.
Husband is mad we have the same degree and I make more.

Anonymous wrote:My gf (now wife) was in Penn State honors (I was not). Same majors. Only benefit I saw was earlier time for class selection. Even then, I was still able to get the classes i needed. HC is worthless for all the extra effort it takes. But, you get to tell your friends that your kid is in HC!

Same at Wisconsin. Really no point to it.

Anonymous wrote:Can you say more? dd was accepted to honors and while it's not her first choice, we like what we've seen so far. What negatives are you referring to?

The perks are nice, particularly the housing. It's not really a college within a university or a college within a college. I would characterize HCOL as an honors community on par with the other official Learning Communities. It works fairly well as a cohort during the first two years, coinciding with the housing benefit.But if you are already in a strong college (DS is in Rubenstein), the cohort is redundant. The main negative so far has been the lack of communication between the faculty who teach the HCOL seminars and the HCOL admins. There seems to be some dysfunction there, at least according to faculty. I'm not a fan having both an HCOL advisor and a college advisor.

Perhaps another way to put it, Patrick Leahy Honors is an extra college that might be an annoying sideshow or a centerpiece of a student's undergraduate experience. I recommend looking at the two study abroad program opportunities HCOL offers (Maastricht & Glasgow). If either appeal, UVM HCOL might be a great fit.

Also, UGA daughter could have lived in honors dorm but chose to live with friends in the high rises (known to be much more social)

My daughter was in the honors college at UGA. I don’t think it really offered more than just having early registration and some smaller classes. Didn’t really have any meaningful connections beyond that. I think it’s just up to your kid to make those additional connections with other students and professors.

Anonymous wrote:UVM parent of a kid in the HCOL, meh. I hear more negatives than positives. We love UVM, but would recommend the school for reasons other than the honors college.

Can you say more? dd was accepted to honors and while it's not her first choice, we like what we've seen so far. What negatives are you referring to?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Oxford is not an honors program

2. Honors programs at publics accept many students from the bottom half of our private. They are not elite. These students are 1300-1350s kids at 1200s schools. If you want elite students with elite opportunities available to all, go to an elite college: a private T15

+1000
People think because they know one 1600 that attends XYZ U's honors college everyone in that college is like that. So wrong.

I disagree, there are many high stat students at Alabama (full ride for NMF) and even Maryland (BK). Some people want a free ride and don't need to attend a liberal elite ivy and pay north of $360K for a degree.