Certain majors have honors college courses for freshmen, like engineering. And then all honors students are required to take honors seminars. The honors profs have offices within honors college residents, they had dedicated advisors, and the profs were house parents for the dorm Plus guaranteed research, leadership opportunities, honors specific study abroad, etc…. My daughter got a ton of benefit from her honors experience at Purdue.
And her non honors courses were plenty rigorous!
YMMV if not engineering or STEM