Honors Program.

MBJ · 09-13-2009, 02:10 PM

Hi. Does anyone know if being accepted to the Honors Program is binding on an applicant ( i.e. can an applicant enroll at UDel but beg off the Honors Program after first being accepted to such program ? ). Thanks. MBJ

NewHope33 · 09-13-2009, 03:35 PM

Know for sure? No, I don't. But I can't imagine it would be an issue. The Honors Program is supposed to be positive ... not punitive.

pumpkin65 · 09-13-2009, 04:06 PM

The daughter of a friend of mine was admitted to Honors and opted not to be part of the Honors program. It had no impact on her substantial merit award. I believe she is in Chem E and thought her courses would be challenging enough without the complexity of choosing a minimum of 2 honors courses per semester.

misterbill · 09-29-2009, 11:44 PM

My son seems to be very happy in the honors program. All the kids on the floor of his honors dorm seem to get along well. And it's really nice being able to get into small size classes (22 kids in one of his honors classes vs. hundreds in the normal sections).

lucky&blue · 10-04-2009, 10:52 AM

Our daughter has 15 kids in an honors chem class and 8 in the lab. Hard to believe for a university of UD's size. As Misterbill said, class size is a great reason to be in Honors.

misterbill · 10-07-2009, 11:14 PM

Also, being in the honors program gives you an advisor who is likely to give much more personal attention. My son is in a small program and he's the only honors student in it. The professor he met with during Delaworld (who runs the program) arranged for him to do some stuff with the basketball team this season). The other kids in the program did not get that opportunity. He probably would have been given a generic advisor if he were non-honors.

BlueHenDad · 10-08-2009, 02:49 PM

Honors Program is not binding. You can drop at any time with no impact. Son is a CHEG major in honors. Please realize that other than the slightly smaller classes for a few courses in Freshman/Sophomore year, a notation on your transcript, and some housing preference as a freshman, there is nothing particularly noteworthy about UD's honors program. It is basically an administrative thing rather than a community building experience can be found at many other institutions.

pumpkin65 · 10-08-2009, 07:46 PM

My D is not finding it to be an administrative thing. Seems there is a lot of community building (at least for freshman...maybe it changes later) and there are specific events for honors kids. I don't know if I would call it housing preference (again, maybe after freshman year, it's a preference) but every kid on her hall is in honors, and the dorm is predominantly honors.

I can't compare it to other schools though, so my view is limited.

misterbill · 10-09-2009, 01:28 AM

Slightly smaller classes??? 22 vs 200 (or 80 if you can find a freshman-only class as my son did for one of his classes) sounds more than "slightly" to me. They have access to writing fellows for help with projects (I guess the other kids go to the writing center) and there is a Russell Fellow in the dorms that they can use for help.

I think there *is* an honors community but they do not force the kids to stay in the program if they do not want. I know that my daughter went to SUNY Albany, and she was in one of their honors programs, and other than early registration, she didn't do anything after the freshman seminar.

whldch · 10-09-2009, 03:22 AM

Honors Programs are ways schools try to recruit students with higher academic ability in an attempt to ultimately make the school more competitive and "desirable". Many schools, Udel included, market this program by telling families that they attract students who arguably might have been headed elsewhere i.e. Ivy League as they told my oldest. While it is nice to have the Honors Citation at graduation, it is well known that some schools make their students work harder for that than others.

I have had 3 honors students in 3 different schools, and can tell you that the school as someone above states does indeed try harder to give this group more guidance and counseling with regards to major choices, on campus employment, housing and other perks. But - as far as class size goes, each student takes lets say one honors class each semester. This may be in addition to their regular curriculum or an honors class that is taken in lieu of a required course. This obviously depends on availability of courses and required courses for a major/minor. Some students can take 2 or more honors classes each semester, most do not. So lets say an honors math major needs an honors course. He or she can take a math course in Honors if it meets a requirement, or can take the same math course as everyone else towards their major, then add let's say an honors art course for that semester. That art course is likely to have less students than a general art course as it is open only to honors students. The honors math course in the same example is likely to have less students than a general math course. Our experience is that honors students take plenty of courses that are in large lecture halls with everyone else. While this course may indeed sound very interesting (my wife and I say we'd love to go back to college and take all the Honors Courses offered at Udel) it is not fair or accurate to claim that an honors student is uniformly put into smaller classes than the rest of the student body. In most cases the class will be the same, as most classes are not honors classes. It's easy enough to go on the Honors site and see the list of classes each semester.

It is obviously an honor for a professor to teach an honors class, and that is a plus as well for the student. Of course sometimes this means more work, and some students look to strategize ways to get higher grades, not be enlightened or challenged.

Having given this lengthy reply, my suggestion is, if your child is accepted into Honors, go for it. If the student gets so stressed out trying to maintain higher grades, he or she can drop out of Honors, it's not worth getting sick over. On the other hand - there is something nice and reassuring to us parents knowing that our kids have a high standard to set and they need to plan their time accordingly.

MBJ · 10-09-2009, 06:20 AM

Thanks wh for the reply. I concur with most of your points.

misterbill · 10-11-2009, 10:59 PM

> it is not fair or accurate to claim that an honors student is uniformly put into
> smaller classes than the rest of the student body.

They have the option of getting into much smaller classes (especially for introductory classes), which is something that the non-honors student would generally not have the opportunity for.

My son is taking honors pysch and microeconomics in addition to his honors colloquium. Both of the honors classes are small class sizes (around 20) and they would be much larger if he were not able to get into the honors sections. He is taking a freshman-only section of another course but that is 70 kids vs 200 in the normal large size classes, i.e., still much larger than honors sections. Obviously if the student does not go out of their way to schedule an honors section, they're not going to put into one automatically, so yes they are not UNIFORMLY put into smaller size classes, but they do have the option.

And they do get some kids who might have gone to Ivy League schools. One kid in my son's dorm got into Harvard and turned it down for UD. Of course there were likely other reasons than UD's honors program! On the other hand. my son tells me that there are a group of Cornell rejects on his floor as well (himself included).

Keilexandra · 10-11-2009, 11:05 PM

^ The Harvard acceptee probably won UD's full ride scholarship. It comes with a bunch of perks.

Honors is definitely better than non-honors, but also definitely inferior to a private LAC IF your priority is small classes.

misterbill · 10-12-2009, 10:59 PM

Right. I never said that UD Honors was going to be comparable to a small private school with small classes. But it definitely can be better than non-honors, and it is more than just an administrative thing.