I’m confused whether I should apply to honors programs of what I consider to be safety schools.
First of all, I heard that the Honors College is more for the “interdisciplinary” people. How is this different from just doing double-major? For instance, I’m really passionate about materials science and music (and fashion); however, I do not enjoy anything related to history or business. Would being accepted to the honors program force to take classes in such disciplines or do I choose to take the class I enjoy? Sorry if I’m not making any sense, but this is just really confusing to me.
If someone can help me with this, I’d be really appreciative!
I’ve never heard about HCs being more “interdisciplinary.” I don’t believe they normally have added distribution requirements (outside of the req to take honors credits, or thesis, or maintain a GPA, depending on the school). I don’t see any good reason not to be in the honors college if you’re accepted.
There are no specific criteria for Honors Colleges , each one is different , so it’s important to look at individual school’s programs. Some benefits to most Honors programs are priority registration , mentor opportunities , smaller more intimate classes etc. my advice to you is to narrow down your choices of schools , and look at each program. Also , most schools require General Education requirements in any major , so you will probably be required to take at least one class in each of the core subjects.
Are you talking about a specific school? Honors programs / colleges vary.
Honors programs vary greatly from school to school. Any generalizations are not terribly useful.
Specifically, I’m asking about the Honors programs at UW-Seattle and PennState (Schreyer)
Schreyer isn’t inherently interdisciplinary. You take honors courses in whatever subjects you want and write a thesis in your major.
The honors program at UW-Seattle is interdisciplinary. There are also departmental honors which are not interdisciplinary and are awarded by each dept. Look carefully through the honors website, there is a lot of information there, including the requirements for completing honors and course descriptions of honors courses. There is no registration advantage for honors at UW, however, merit scholarships are associated with the interdisciplinary honors program. Also, it is one way to get small class sizes in distribution classes.
http://depts.washington.edu/uwhonors/apply/freshman/faq/ and http://depts.washington.edu/uwhonors/reqs/#interdisc have some helpful information.
Which university is instate for you? Because both are extremely expensive for OOS students (and offer very little aid=.
Schreyer is one of the best Honors Colleges in the country, along with Michigan’s LSA, USC-Columbia’s Honors College, etc.
UWashington Seattle’s is a bit different. It doesn’t offer as many Honors sections/classes so you have to enjoy the large lecture system (it’s advice they officially give counselors so that there’s no mistake about it, they don’t pretend to be a “LAC in a large university setting”.)
If you have the stats for these, look into UAlabama’s Honors College and Academic Elite/Presidential scholarships, which should give you automatic full tuition if you have 1400 SAT.
Honors Colleges offer opportunities to network and do research; their classes are smaller and thus more interactive. Projects tend to be more creative (also, you’re sure everyone’s in the project and you’re not the only one doing it). They also offer perks, such as housing and priority registration. The latter is worth its weight in gold - no class at an inconvenient time, no bad professor… now you know you’ll only have classes you’re interested in and if you choose, no class before 10! 
Yes, you should always apply to an honor program. You will probably have some classes with smaller numbers of students, students who are academically inclined, access to professors, maybe special housing…and if you don’t want to do it you can just drop out in the future. No harm done.
@MYOS1634 , FYI from Washington’s Honors Program website:
“The University Honors Program provides a rigorous environment for highly motivated students looking for an interdisciplinary educational experience. Bringing selected faculty into close contact with dedicated students in an atmosphere of small, challenging classes allows the Honors Program to combine the intimacy of a small, interdisciplinary liberal arts college with the strengths of an excellent public research university. Interdisciplinary, College, and Departmental Honors annually enroll approximately 1500 undergraduates, with about two-thirds of the students in Interdisciplinary/College Honors and the remaining one-third in Departmental Honors.”
Washington’s Honors Program offers about 30 to 35 “official” Honors courses per quarter each fall, winter and spring quarter, and most have around 10 to 30 students. In addition, almost any course (including study abroad classes) with fewer than 50 students can be taken as an “ad hoc” Honors course, where the student works with the professor to create a plan of additional study in order to pursue a course or study abroad program in more depth.
At Washington, OOS tuition, room and board is about $45,000. If you are admitted to the Honors Program, you will probably receive a Purple and Gold Scholarship ($5,500 to $8,500 per year for four years), which would lower your tuition, room and board to around $36,500 to $39,500 per year.
@UWfromCA : if OP is instate there’s no doubt that uwa’s honors would offer a great community and a good complement.
The information I provided above comes from official communication from that very program.
To give you a comparison, the other honors programs quoted offer about 500 honors classes a year, vs fewer than 100 at uwa over the course of the year. 100 is good and certainly better than at many flagships. It does mean fewer major specific classes and excellent interdisciplinary seminars for freshmen , who thus, depending on major, may take 2 honors classes and 3 "regular " classes.
UW Honors Program would offer a great community and a good complement regardless of OP’s residency.
An Interdisciplinary Honors student will usually take one or two Honors courses and one or two “regular” courses per quarter, which I suppose is what they mean when they say they “combine the intimacy of a small, interdisciplinary liberal arts college with the strengths of an excellent public research university.”
I see what you were referring to about the courses in those other honors programs. For example, Penn State has about 1,845 honors students and about 376 honors courses, many of which are major specific. In comparison, Washington has about 1,000 Interdisciplinary Honors students (about 250 per class of 6,500) and about 100 Interdisciplinary Honors courses, not counting all of the other courses that may be taken for Interdisciplinary Honors credit on an “ad hoc” basis. At Washington, the approximately 500 Departmental Honors students add “honors” elements to their major coursework, usually an additional 10-15 credits of upper-level courses, additional research or an extended thesis with guidance from a faculty mentor.
^ There are about 300 students at Penn State Main Campus per class, plus about 500 more spread over the branch campuses (equivalent to Bothell, for instance - there are 20 “branches” in the state). At UP, there are about 250-300 different Honors options including gen eds, freshman seminars (not FYE), and major-specific classes each semester, not counting ad hoc options, so students who wished to could take ALL their first two years save for about 2-3 in Honors. Obviously, no one does as it’d be too intense :).
UW has a two-honors system (with general honors separate from honors in the major). There are universities where it’s either/or, or both. It depends on the student’s wishes as to what they like best.
However, at UW, the “intimacy of the small, interdisciplinary liberal arts college” part was explicitely downplayed by officials looking for OOS applicants.
In my opinion, both Penn State and UW are too expensive OOS unless OP has close to 40K per year to spend on college. It’s too much for a state flagship OOS, unless parents have a LARGE college budget. It may be worth it to a direct admit to UWA CS, but that’s about it. Hopefully OP lives in a state with a good flagship and a good Honors program, or has stats that allow him/her to apply to flagships with generous financial or merit aid.
For a full-pay applicant, the small scholarships may help (and UWA is better in that respect than PSU, although it’s also a bit more expensive to start with), but for a student who needs financial aid, both are totally unaffordable. UWA however has a huge advantage in that, at least, it is affordable for instate students, whereas Penn State isn’t.
Hopefully OP lives in one of these two states and has a good college budget.
Thank you for your reply. I am an international student currently living in NC. So OOS and international?
Hopefully, I’ll receive scholarships since I consider those to be my safety schools (or I may be wrong).
AFAIK, there are no scholarships besides the ones mentioned.
So, UWA COA (total costs) = 50K, direct costs (what you pay to the university itself) = 47K. It’s unclear but it looks like internationals are not eligible for merit aid OR may be eligible for 4K (I don’t think Purple and Gold is available to internationals; for others who may be reading, UWfromCA is correct, there are scholarships up to $8,500 for OOS residents). So, you’d pay 43K at best.
You’d have to email the Dean directly to know if you’re eligible for tany competitive scholarships as an international.
Penn State Schreyer isn’t much cheaper: PSU COA (total costs) = 49K, direct costs = 42K, and if you get into Screyer the scholarship is only 4.5K, so you’d pay 37.5K at best.
Note that both Honors Colleges are very competitive and admission there cannot be considered a safety.
In addition, admission to some majors (especially CS at UWA) are especially competitive and would be reaches or matches depending on stats, certainly not safeties.
Is it that the honors program is non-safety? I thought I would just apply to Penn State (+ Schreyer) and UWA and see if I can get into the honors. If not, I can still be accepted by the college itself right?
Yes.
Admission to the university and to Honors is separate. You apply to both separately. The decision from Honors arrives after the decision from the university.
Are you able to pay 40-45K per year out of pocket?
What are your stats (GPA, unweighted/weighted) and your test scores?
This is a previous thread with my stats listed:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1885856-college-list-initiation.html#latest
I’d really appreciate if you’d take your time looking at it and giving me some advice.