<p>I don’t think it is quite up to the level of many southern colleges. In particular, there are very few perks - you don’t get preferential housing selection or special dorms (although one is in the works), you don’t get preferential course registration, there don’t seem to be special scholarships, etc. And it costs an extra $300/year.</p>
<p>It does get you access to better advising and the honors courses are typically pretty small, and I think many of them sound interesting, although I am a parent, not a student. ComCol has its own dean, which is a huge plus, and their own web site. </p>
<p>In my personal opinion, it is too big - something like 15% of all students are in ComCol. The school obviously disagrees.</p>
<p>There’s tons of information here:</p>
<p>[UMass</a> Amherst: Commonwealth College the Honors College at UMass Amherst](<a href=“http://www.comcol.umass.edu/index.html]UMass”>http://www.comcol.umass.edu/index.html)</p>
<p>If your kid is high-stats, you have a good chance at some merit aid that narrows the gap between IS and OOS, the highest seem to cover about 1/2 the difference. Other than that, UMass doesn’t seem to give out a tremendous amount of merit aid.</p>
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If this is code for “doesn’t party”, then yes, there are plenty of kids who don’t. If you mean “stay up all night arguing some nuance of world politics”… I’m sure every school has kids like these, but even at a top LAC they are probably tough to find.</p>
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I think you generally take 1 Honors class per semester, and have to do some sort of project at the end. Not too sure what that involves, my kid hasn’t gotten that far yet.</p>