Best honors colleges with the brightest kids

College Search & Lists
1

Does anyone have experience with searching for the best public school honors colleges? I’ve read all different websites and I see many differences. What I’m really asking, though, is where do kids go when they want challenging and interesting classes with true peers? I have a friend whose daughter is at Indiana University and is finding that the honors college classes are easy and the classmates not what she expected. She thinks the classes are easier than her high school classes. She’s bored…and now transferring.

Where are the honors programs with intellectual kids? The kind where most graduate at the top of their class with high standardized test scores? Our S19 loves the idea of a liberal arts education with small classroom and interesting discussions. We haven’t done a ton of visits yet but, if he decides that LACs are just too small overall, we’ll be looking for larger schools that offer honors programs.

Has anyone shopped around and found a great fit at an honors college for their child? Scholarship money would be great (we won’t get any need based aid) but it’s not a must. We aren’t sure of our limitations geographically so I’m opening up this question to anywhere in the US!

2

Look at Foundation Fellows at UGA: https://honors.uga.edu/c_s/scholarships/f_f/foundation_fellows.html

3

I would expect the honors colleges with a lot of NMFs to have smart kids.

4

@PurpleTitan Hm. Do you think that’s something that’s public knowledge? How many NMFs in the honors program?

5

National Merit publishes the stats on which schools their students go to. It would be a safe bet to assume those kids are in the honors programs, if there is one at their destination school.

6

This is one student’s opinion. I would speak with more students before rushing to judgement. In fact, the Honors College at IU may be perfect for your S19. Don’t write it off before doing more work.

Since you are early in the process and focused on honors colleges, you should consider buying John Willingham’s “Inside Honors” book. I found the content to be long on data and short on drama. Very helpful.

http://publicuniversityhonors.com/

Good luck!

7

@STEM2017 I know my story is anecdotal but this friend graduated from our S19’s high school, took easier classes than S19 and had a lower GPA. S19 already scored higher on standardized tests than this friend. And I know this student very well and have spoken to her a few times already about her experience and why she’s leaving. I get that it’s one student but I actually can easily compare her to our S19 since I know her and her high school experience very well.

8

Anecdotes can be powerful things. They can give a real gut feeling. I understand.

Good luck!

9

@PurpleTitan For anyone who is also interested, I looked up the list of NMF and where they went to school last year. No surprises with Alabama, USC, and Barrett. Full tuition or half tuition I think for those three schools. After that, Oklahoma, Maryland, and Kentucky have the most.

10

Started looking at a few of these. Barrett’s average ACT for incoming students is 28. Hm. This is what I mean. That’s not all that high…and that’s an average. They have 300 or so NMFs, but 6800 kids in the program overall. Anyone have any experience with Pitt’s honors program? Or American’s?

11

More anecdotes: My D is very happy at U South Carolina Honors College. She has mentioned that her classmates are sometimes much more “into” the subject matter than she is (e.g. one of her first classes was a Survey of Business honors course, and she was surprised at the number of students who read the WSJ regularly–not for class but because they found it interesting.). Note, she is very bright, but is not what I would call a really intellectual kid; she has more of a pre-professional slant.

Three of her friends from HS, who I’d characterize as more intellectual than my D (based on their majors, conversations I have overheard, etc.), seem to be very happy at U Vermont Honors, Penn State Schreyer, and U Maryland Honors.

Re finances at the four I mentioned above: SCHC would be least expensive in terms of OOS student looking for merit–unless your kid wins a Banneker Key award to UMD (highly competitive).

12

@LuckyCharms913 super helpful. Thanks!!

13

William and Mary???

14

The best honors college for you may very well be one in your own home state.
In some cases, residential tuition rates result in a lower net cost than a merit scholarship from a private or OOS public school. But if you don’t like what your own state has to offer, then you may not want to limit yourself to OOS public honors colleges. Some private colleges attract many intellectual kids and also are fairly generous with merit scholarships.

Kiplinger’s lists merit scholarship numbers for ~200 private colleges:

http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=prv_univ
http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=lib_arts

15

Thanks, @tk21769. I agree on the private college front. I’ve already investigated many, many of those and made a good list. Most of them are pretty small though. Illinois is our home state and, for many reasons, we are not considering UIC. Schools like Grinnell and Kenyon on our tentative list. Even maybe Wake Forest or Davidson…but those merit scholarships are even harder to get. Hard to know where S19 will stack up for those as it’s impossible to get stats on the kids who get those scholarships and I think a lot is based on ECs, recommendations, and essays as well as GPA, etc.

16

In general, honors or not, I think some kids find the upper level courses in their major more satisfying than the general education requirements.

At U of Kentucky, despite being in Honors, not all of the classes will be in the Honors Section. There are a lot of super smart kids there, but each class you take is NOT going to packed with those kinds of kids.

Our D complained at first that her classes were too easy, and told us that high school was much harder. Her schedule was packed with a lot of Intro to This and Intro to That, in Humanities, and we did not expect those classes to give her any trouble.

We asked her to take a deep breath and enjoy her free time, while it lasted. The classes WILL get more difficult and more satisfying. We have talked about our belief in the benefits of being exposed to academic diversity. A big public is NOT going to be same as a small(er) elite private.

We reminded her that one of her complaints about HS was that she often felt crushed by the workload. She did well, but there was a price to pay. She had her nose in her homework a LOT. It was a grind. However, she is well prepared for college level work.

One of her professors in a 200 level class was impressed by her research paper first semester and recommended she apply for an undergrad fellowship. If she gets accepted, this is a program “designed to provide experiences for outstanding undergraduates that go beyond classroom instruction in order to help them cultivate extraordinary academic achievement”. She has joined an academic fraternity. She is doing some informal tutoring & homework help for other students, and has met a lot of new people that way. She has an off campus job. She has discovered a pre-professional major she didn’t know about before and has put in an application. None of this has to do with the Honors program, and without a crystal ball, we could not have seen this path developing.

So, I’m wondering if the student transferring out of IU had really explored opportunities for motivated students on campus. I’m assuming those opportunities are there at a school like IU! Had she spoken to her advisor and professors?

Lastly, UKy has Honors housing, plus a STEM LLC, etc. like a lot of other schools, but that’s no guarantee that the Honors kids, many of them NMFs, will be sitting around having intellectual conversations in their free time, you know?

I hope that helps!

17

@Midwest67 super helpful, yes!

18

We are looking at UO Clark Honors (the oldest honors program in the US, I recall) and I ordered this book from Amazon at the suggestion of a fellow CCer.

INSIDE HONORS: Ratings and Reviews of Sixty Public University Honors Programs

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0692783814/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

A lot of their stuff could be found at the corresponding online site if you are just looking at a single school, but it is handy to have it all consolidated if you are looking at several schools/locations.

19

Thanks, @CADREAMIN , I’ve got that book. I’m finding it’s really confusing. It pretty much confirms that it’s hard to compare programs as they are all so different!

20

Ya, for me just looking at a single school it probably wasn’t necessary. I think you are asking some good questions! Our concern is spending too much time in honors classes and it taking away from major or other things to explore - that ol’ quandary. I think it’s a great place to start and if it doesn’t fit, pull out of honors after the first year, but oddly have read that sometimes the honors courses don’t count for the credits you would expect them to. I tried calling, but starting the conversation with, “In the event my D isn’t happy in the honors program…” isn’t going to generate a productive conversation with the person in charge of honors. As expected I suppose.