@PhilaSKiMom: A Pitt Parent here with a Freshman Engineer (who is very happy at Pitt). My understanding is that Honors Calc is Calc 1 and Calc 2 condensed into one semester. D had a very good AP Calc teacher in HS (80% of the class got 4s and 5s on the AP test, or something like that), and so she did not see a reason to repeat it. She opted to start at Calc 2 and has no regrets. I will say that the advisor she met at PittStart was fabulous, and that her advice to my daughter was spot on for her situation. I’m a fan of the Honor’s program at Pitt because it is so flexible. My D has taken some of the Honor’s options, and she is signed up for at least one Honor’s section next fall even though she knows it will be much more work. It is an area that she wants a greater depth of knowledge. Seems like some classes offer more depth and some just move faster. The advisors should be a great resource.
D also took the Honor’s version of the Engineering Analysis/Analytics class. It is mostly programing, and they breeze past Excel and something else, and focus on the MatLab and C programming in the 1st semester, which is 2nd semester in the non-honor’s version. It isn’t more comprehensive; it is just faster by skipping some of the easier material. And then you have a few options for the Honor’s 2nd semester. My D loves her second semester class. I believe that there are less than 15 students and the teacher is top notch. That said, my D has previous programming experience and I don’t think this would work well for many Freshman Engineers. Just nice that there are a few options to make it work best for the individual student.