<p>My daughter is strongly considering Maryland for a variety of reasons, and leaning toward pre-vet and possibly the Honors College or a Scholars Program.</p>
<p>My daughter and I have done a lot of reading, but can someone give a quick explanation of Maryland Honors vs. the Scholars programs?
Specifically, does a student often enroll in both programs, or is a scholar considered to be in the Honors College?</p>
<p>We are going for a look at Maryland next month, and meeting with someone from the Honors College and from the CANR, we’d like to know a bit more about the basics prior. Thanks.</p>
<p>@CDK, Maryland Honors College and the Scholars program are invitation only. The Honors College has a number of seats to fill and has first choice at incoming freshman. The program allows you to choose from a menu of five “directed” LLCs or University Honors (a sort of build your own option). </p>
<p>If you are not selected by the Honors College, you might still be invited to another program such as College Park Scholars, however, “Honors College students have exclusive access to more than 400 academic courses taught by top campus faculty and field experts.”</p>
<p>The link you posted from CANR appears to be a bit out of date. (such as Gemstone no longer “invites”). For information on the Honors College, use their site:</p>
<p>as the previous person mentioned, College Park Scholars and the Honors College are two different programs and by invitation only.
The Honors College is probably a bit more academically rigorous, and the students have access to classes which are taught by top professors and are typically more challenging. When invited, you have a choice between 5 (I believe?) programs within the honors college, and you are free to pick based on your interests.
College Park Scholars is also another program for academically competitive students, and it provides a more “outside the classroom” experience when it comes to learning. When invited to college park scholars, you have a choice between 11 programs, such as the college park scholars life sciences, arts, business, etc. The CPS are more devoted to service and extracurricular activities, and encourage outside the classroom experiences that help students create connections with faculty and staff that can help them in graduate and professional school.
the Honors College is a 4 year program, while the College Park Scholars is a 2 year program, and requires one semester of internship by the conclusion of sophomore year. </p>
<p>both programs are GREAT! there really shouldn’t be any concern as to which one is better or more prestigious, because invitation to either one presents a great opportunity in itself. The Honors College is without a doubt more academically rigorous, but College Park Scholars provides a strong extracurricular and hands on experience for what you are learning. They also both make the transition to the big campus size at maryland a lot easier! because depending on your choice of a program, you will be with a group of 70-100 something students, who all have the same interests and take the same classes, while living with them. </p>
<p>I am a student at UMD right now, and a member of College Park Scholars! if you have any questions feel free to contact me!</p>
<p>I had one D in the honors program, and currently have one in Scholars. I second that both are great programs…Scholars, with the added “outside the classroom” experience, also seems like they look for those students with a passion for community involvement. In our case, each of my Ds was in the program she was best suited for…by far.</p>
<p>Thanks all. It seems that if my daughter is serious about finishing her pre-vet requirements and entering vet school after her 3rd year that she should look more toward the CP Scholars if she has the option. She will meet with someone from the Honors College in a couple of weeks and hopefully can discuss further. She is only a junior and has time to figure it all out.</p>
<p>If you’re in University Honors, while you’re technically a part of the Honors College all 4 years, you can very, very easily be done after 2. You need 5 Honors classes to get the citation when you graduate (along with a certain GPA, forget what it is), 3 of which need to be Honors Seminars. Take an Honors Seminar a semester, and one semester take an H-Version (honors version of a regular class, much smaller class size), and you’re done in 2 years. Or even less if you take a couple H-versions. So then all you have to do is keep your GPA up and you get the Honors citation on your diploma. But there’s also that flexibility that you can take an Honors Seminar or two in your junior or senior year too. It’s a very flexible program, it’s why I chose University Honors over one of the specific programs. </p>
<p>If you ask around, you can find easy Honors Seminars too. You want one that interests you. The one I took last fall, almost everyone got an A in it but it was an awesome class. There was still a fair amount of work but it was fun. My favorite class at UMD so far. One of the ones I’m taking this semester is just ridiculous in terms of workload. It’s a rarity though, and unfortunately it was a fairly new one so I couldn’t check a lot of reviews. Then I’m taking another one where we learn golf! The first half of the class we go outside to the driving range, and the second half we go in the classroom. Though, there’s papers and readings and stuff regardless of where we have class of course. But yeah, there’s some really awesome honors seminars and in <em>most</em> of them a big majority of the class gets As.</p>
<p>Do you live off the college park campus? I want to be part of the buzzing CP student life, not off in a different part of Maryland with only 70 other people =P</p>
<p>No, you live on campus in a dorm. You are as immersed in student life as anyone else on campus. You dorm with other people from your program for just the first year, but you’ll be right near all the other dorms too.</p>
<p>As noted above, the applicant doesn’t get to choose–the invitation comes from the program. My kid was invited to the Honors program and was considering inquiring about whether she could instead participate in one of the Scholars programs that was a better fit, but didn’t pursue it because she decided not to go to Maryland after all. </p>
<p>People here seemed to think that would be a possibility, since Honors picks its candidates first out of the pool, and Scholars might have been interested in her had she been still “available” to them. But they also seemed to think it would be unusual to do that.</p>
<p>If your daughter has the GPA, rank, test scores, and accomplishments you listed elsewhere, she WILL be invited to Honors.</p>