The University of Houston–Downtown, located on the historic Buffalo Bayou in the heart of our nation’s fourth largest city, is one of four distinct universities within the University of Houston System. With an enrollment of over 14,000 students, UH-D is the second largest university in Houston, exceeded only by the University of Houston flagship campus located just 5 miles to the south.
UH-D is also the most ethnically diverse university in Texas, and ranks among the top 40 schools in the nation for graduating African-American and Hispanic students with bachelor’s degrees.
UH-D attracts talented students with 44 undergraduate majors, 8 master’s degree programs, and one of the lowest tuition rates of four-year universities in the state. For students interested in taking on an extra challenge, however, the University Honors Program is a good option.
The University Honors Program admitted its first students in 2014. In the fall of 2016, approximately 30 incoming freshmen will join the 50 students currently enrolled in the program.
Interested students must complete a written application. While applications are reviewed holistically, priority consideration is given to students meeting established criteria for SAT/ACT scores, high school GPA, and high school class rank. According to Mari L. Nicholson-Preuss, Ph.D., Director of the University Honors Program, the written application “provides students with the opportunity to elaborate on their academic experience and achievements in the areas of scholarship, leadership and citizenship.”
The application includes a required essay, an optional personal statement, and space for a URL in case the applicant would like to submit a link to supplemental information, such as a portfolio or a YouTube video.
Should a student’s high school record fall short of the criteria required for priority consideration, Dr. Nicholson-Preuss encourages him or her to apply by submitting, along with the application, a high school transcript as well as additional evidence of achievement.
According to Dr. Nicholson-Preuss, “[t]he options for additional evidence are rather broad and should allow the student to build a case as to why they should be admitted to the program. Supplemental evidence could include AP/IB scores, letters of recommendation, completion of leadership programs, capstone projects, service projects, University Interscholastic League, and other academic awards and honors, portfolios and writing samples.”
Once accepted into the University Honors Program, students commit to meet with both the director and a peer mentor each month, to attend one hour of weekly honors study hall each week, and to participate in at least 3 honors events each semester. Freshmen and sophomore students are expected to enroll in at least 30 credit hours per academic year, including 18 hours in Honors sections over the 2 years. In order to graduate from the University Honors Program, a student must maintain a 3.25 GPA and complete 30 hours of Honors credits.
Program perks include an Honors Lounge, the peer mentor program, social events such as attending a Houston Astros baseball game, scholarship opportunities, special lectures, invitations to community events, priority course registration, smaller classes, and opportunities to represent the university in public.
Honors students also have opportunities to take “linked courses”, and benefit from overlapping content or focus. The Honors Program is also developing additional thematically linked courses, focusing particularly on those that enhance UH-D’s commitment to service-based learning, community engagement, and social justice issues.
This is an exciting time to be part of the new Honors community at UH-D, as it continues to develop additional Honors courses and innovative plans for the future.
Thirteen of the 35 Gates Cambridge Scholars for 2016 are from public universities, and another three scholars are from the U.S. Naval Academy. Our special congratulations to new scholars from the University of Oregon and the University of South Carolina for being the first from the schools to win the award. They and several other winners this year are present or former honors program students.
Gates Cambridge Scholarships are the most generous awards we track. They cover tuition (“composition fees”) of about $30,000 a year at the University of Cambridge for one to three years of graduate study. Scholars also receive annual stipends of about $21,000 for housing and maintenance. Other benefits include the costs of airfare to and from England, conference travel, and annual retreats to the lake country.
Successful candidates must have at least a 3.70 GPA and be graduating seniors or graduates. Although many Gates Cambridge Scholars are STEM students, the award is not restricted to scholars in the STEM disciplines. About 95 scholars are chosen annually from more than 4,000 candidates.
Below are the students from U.S. public universities along with excerpts from the bios each composed for the Gates Foundation:
Sanna Alas, UCLA
Growing up a child of immigrants in the heart of Orange County, I was graced with the so-called hyphenated identity of a Muslim-Syrian-American. That hyphen, the moment of mediation between two seemingly disparate things, has served as the foundation for my academic interests and future aspirations. It fuels my passion for intersectional issues as an activist and advocate for educational and environmental justice in South Los Angeles.
Miriam Alvarado, UC Berkeley
Originally from California, I have been lucky enough to spend the last three years in Barbados studying physical activity and health disparities. I originally came to the Caribbean as a Fulbright Fellow, and was later affiliated with the University of the West Indies, Cavehill….Before coming to Barbados, I was a Post Bachelor Fellow at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation and focused on the Global Burden of Disease and social determinants of health. I received my MPH from the University of Washington, and have a BA in Economics and Development Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.
Eric Bringley, South Carolina
I grew up in Columbia, South Carolina loving computers and mathematics for as long as I can remember and grew to love chemistry early in high school. While attending the University of South Carolina, I studied chemical engineering with minors in chemistry and mathematics…. I wish to make contributions to global problems through computational modeling. My PhD will consist of stochastic and multilevel modeling of a variety of chemical systems including combustion engines of biofuels. Eric is a senior in the University of South Carolina Honors College.
Daniel Charytonowicz, Delaware
As an undergraduate Biomedical Engineering student at the University of Delaware, I developed a strong interest in biomedical technologies through a combination of research experiences and self-started software development projects. I have always had a passion for computer related technologies, and am looking for ways in which to apply this knowledge towards expanding the capabilities of modern healthcare. Daniel is a senior in the University of Delaware Honors Program.
Ryan DuChanois, Arkansas
Born and raised in a small town in Arkansas, I proceeded to pursue a bachelors of science in civil engineering at the University of Arkansas with a desire to address water concerns around the globe. My undergraduate experience provided water-related research and service opportunities in nations such as South Africa, India, and Ethiopia. These experiences continuously reminded me that many people have limited or contaminated water supply despite the fact water is a fundamental physiological need. Ryan is a senior in the University of Arkansas Honors College.
Amelia Fitch, Oregon
I grew up in Astoria, Oregon, a small pocket of beautiful coastal and temperate rainforest in the Pacific Northwest. During my undergraduate years at the University of Oregon, I worked on two majors, Biology and Environmental Science because I couldn’t choose between the two distinctly different departments. I have both a passion for a mechanistic understanding of the natural world and conservation of these phenomena. During my MPhil in Biological Science, I will pursue this amalgamation of conservation and biology through research in aquatic ecosystems. Amelia is a senior in Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon.
Larry Han, UNC Chapel Hill
As the son of immigrants from China, I had always wanted to reconnect with my roots and study at a Chinese institute of higher learning. Through the Schwarzman Scholars program, I studied public policy and health economics at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. Previously, I focused my undergraduate studies in biostatistics and infectious diseases at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. A Morehead-Cain Scholar and Phillips Ambassador, I co-lead an NIH-funded randomized controlled trial to improve sexual health delivery in Guangzhou, China.
Alex Kong, Kansas
When I was about six years old, I announced to my parents that I would one day be a scientist, unaware of what a scientist actually did. Growing up in Lawrence, Kansas, a mere seven-minute drive from my future university, I was able to learn just that. At the University of Kansas, my love for the sciences deepened, as did my passions for creative writing, performing a cappella music, and pipetting my way to carpal tunnel syndrome. Alex is a senior in the University of Kansas Honors Program.
Joanna Lawrence, Wisconsin
I developed an interest in archaeology as an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin. After I withdrew from my former career as a ballet dancer, my passion to create physical expressions of myself found satisfaction in uncovering the memories of selves expressed in the physical objects they left behind. As an archaeologist, I am interested in the everyday experiences of Bronze Age people in northern Europe.
Matthew Leming, UNC Chapel Hill
I grew up in a Navy family, moving around five different states before attending high school. As a student in the 5-year Computer Science BS/MS program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (with a minor in Russian language!), I became interested in computational analysis of diffusion MRIs of the brain as a means of detecting neurological disorders. This research took me to laboratories in St. Petersburg and London, as well as many hours on Linux machines at the UNC medical school. Matthew is an Honors Carolina student at Chapel Hill.
Connor Richards, UC Riverside
As an undergraduate studying physics at the University of California, Riverside, I worked alongside faculty searching for evidence of new physics at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC)…. My field is elementary particle physics, meaning that I am interested in what makes up the universe at the most fundamental level. Dark matter and other questions about the universe have long fascinated me, and I hope to help answer these during my career. Connor is in the University Honors Program at UC Riverside.
Yevgen Sautin, Florida
I was born in Kiev, Ukraine, lived in Japan as a young boy, and grew up in Gainesville, Florida, where I went to school at the University of Florida. Since childhood I have been fascinated by history. As an undergraduate student, I began studying Chinese, which quickly became a lifelong pursuit. At Cambridge I will be pursuing a Ph.D. in Modern Chinese History, researching Manchuria in the early post-war period. At the time Manchuria was a fiercely contested space both geopolitically and in terms of its identity. Yevgen is a participant in the University Scholars Program at Florida.
Daniel Stevens, UCLA
As an undergraduate at UCLA, I fell in love with the language, literature, and linguistics of Ancient Greek. The entire classical world fascinated me, and I enjoyed exploring its mix of cultures and its wide range of both art and philosophical thought….Building upon this work, in my PhD, I will focus on how the concepts of covenant and promise were used in an early Jewish Christian text to provide a group identity and hope for an audience that had previously faced hardship and displacement from their property and were expecting to soon face more of the same.
Three prominent public universities–Florida, Maryland, and Washington–will begin using the application process developed by the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success (CAAS), a recently formed consortium of more than 90 leading public and private colleges and universities.
Our guess is that the three schools will opt for the new process in summer 2016. (Note: the University of Washington never used the Common App previously.)
Note: A list of all public universities listed as CAAS members as of March 9, 2016, is below.
According to a Scott Jaschik article in Insider Higher Ed, member schools “are creating a platform for new online portfolios for high school students. The idea is to encourage ninth graders begin thinking more deeply about what they are learning or accomplishing in high school, to create new ways for college admissions officers, community organizations and others to coach them, and to help them emerge in their senior years with a body of work that can be used to help identify appropriate colleges and apply to them. Organizers of the new effort hope it will minimize some of the disadvantages faced by high school students without access to well-staffed guidance offices or private counselors.”
To qualify, as of now, for membership in the CAAS, a school must have a six-year graduation rate of 70 percent or higher. Several prominent public universities that qualify have not yet joined, among them all of the University of California institutions, UT Austin, and UW Madison.
Jaschik writes that the UC campuses have not joined because of present concerns about the ability of community college transfers to use the process effectively. UC schools have strong and highly successful articulation agreements with the state’s community colleges.
UT Austin questions the fairness of the new process, at least in its initial form. “Associate director of admissions Michael Orr said UT did not apply to the coalition because of criticisms of the programs, including the coalition’s failure to consult with high school counselors,” according to Jameson Pitts, writing for the Daily Texan.
“The argument within the community … has been that there is a concern that students with means will be the ones that will be able to take advantage of that opportunity the most,” Orr said. He did not rule out the possibility of joining the Coalition if concerns about fairness can be resolved.
Several voices in the higher ed community have opposed the Coalition, saying that students are already over-focused on preparing for college admission and that the new approach will favor more privileged students.
Our question is this: If the new process is designed to help students who cannot afford college counselors and lack effective guidance in their schools, how will the students find out about the process in the first place and learn to use it to good effect?
Whatever the possible shortcomings may be, the CAAS has gained the membership so far of the 36 public universities listed below. It is important to note that only Florida, Maryland, and Washington have decided to use the CAAS process exclusively. The other schools listed below will, as of this date, use either the Common App or the CAAS process.
Clemson
College of New Jersey
Connecticut
Florida
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Illinois
Illinois St
Indiana
Iowa
James Madison
Mary Washington
Maryland
Miami Ohio
Michigan
Michigan St
Minnesota
Missouri
New Hampshire
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Ohio St
Penn State
Pitt
Purdue
Rutgers
South Carolina
SUNY Binghamton
SUNY Buffalo
SUNY Geneseo
Texas A&M
Vermont
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Washington
William and Mary
E. Gordon Gee is the current president of West Virginia University and the former president of Ohio State. He is a man of many opinions, well known in the higher education community.
“When honors colleges deliver on their promises, they are being anti-elitist,” Gee writes in his article “Access, not Exclusion: Honors at a Public Institution.”
“I know that many honors colleges and programs struggle with perceptions of elitism on their campuses, but we should never mistake an elite education for an elitist one,” Gee says.
Citing New York Times columnist Frank Bruni’s much discussed piece, “A Prudent College Path,” Gee says public honors colleges (and programs) offer a place for highly talented students who have either declined admission to expensive private elites or have been denied such admission because of capricious admissions decisions.
“A lower price tag is one reason. Here is another outlined in Bruni’s column: honors programs promise a more inclusive environment of devoted, highly driven students within an even more diverse campus population.
“The obvious way that honors colleges are about access is that they give individual students access to the kind of educational opportunities and environment that they might not have been able to afford otherwise.”
But greater access for talented students isn’t the whole story. Gee writes that “their presence enriches the entire campus and our state.”
“When we bring more honors students to our campus, we are raising the level of discussion in every classroom, not just honors classes.
“When we have more students who know how to balance working smart and playing smart, we are helping teach all of our students how to work and play smarter.
“When we have more students engaged in going first in the classroom, we create an environment where more are encouraged to go out into the world with boldness and confidence.
“When we keep talented students at our land-grant universities, we are also keeping them in our state, contributing not just to the university’s academic mission but also to its mission to serve the citizens of the state.”
Gee writes that the WVU Honors College enrolls more than 2,200 students, including 739 entrants in 2015-2016–up from 580 the previous academic year. Under the leadership of honors college Dean Kenneth P. Blemings, the new students begin making their contributions as soon as they arrive on campus.
“All of them participated in a day of service that had them giving back to the community that they were just joining. That kind of service is good for them and for our city.
“The honors commitment to service takes place not just in one day or at one place. Honors students on campuses across the country are providing great service to their communities.
“Many honors students at WVU are not going to spend just four years giving back; many are going to stay in our state and give back to the community for years to come.”
The most prestigious scholarship–a rare “full ride”–at the University of Texas at Austin is the Forty Acres award. Only 15-20 of these scholarships are granted in any given year. One notable fact about the scholarships is that more than half are awarded to Plan II Honors and/or Business Honors Students. One of the most common majors of Forty Acres Scholars is the combined Plan II/Business Honors major.
Bear in mind that Plan II only has about 700 students out of 39,000 undergrads on the UT Campus, which was originally assigned to, yes, forty acres of land in Austin. About three quarters of all Forty Acres Scholars are in some kind of honors program, with Plan II predominating. Others are engineering honors and the Turing Scholars program for computer science.
Both Plan II and Business Honors are highly selective. In this post on UT’s Business Honors Program, we wrote that by “’highly qualified’ we mean enrolled students with an average ACT of 33, and SAT of 1477 (higher than the 1466 average for the Wharton School at Penn), and an average high school class standing in the top 2.27%.”
For Plan II, the admissions statistics show that enrolled students had middle 50 percent SAT scores of 2090–2270 and middle ACT scores of 32–34.
It is likely that many Forty Acres Scholars have even more impressive credentials. The most recent group of scholars with Plan II, Business Honors, or both majors is below:
Susie and John L. Adams Forty Acres Scholarship Henry Boehm
Majors: Business Honors; Plan II Honors
Honors Programs: Business Honors; Plan II Honors
Hometown: Waco, TX
High School: Vanguard College Preparatory School
Ray and Denise Nixon Forty Acres Scholarship Michael Everett
Major: Business Honors
Honors Program: Business Honors
Hometown: Southlake, TX
High School: Carroll Senior High School
BHP Forty Acres Scholarship
Chevron Enrichment Award Alejandra Flores
Major: Business Honors
Honors Program: Business Honors
Hometown: Laredo, TX
High School: United South High School
Sarah M. and Charles E. Seay Forty Acres Scholarship Chandler Groves
Majors: Business Honors; Plan II Honors
Honors Programs: Business Honors; Plan II Honors
Hometown: Southlake, TX
High School: Carroll Senior High School
Elizabeth Shatto Massey Forty Acres Scholarship Mandy Justiz
Majors: Biochemistry; Plan II Honors
Honors Programs: Dean’s Scholars; Plan II Honors
Hometown: Austin, TX
High School: St. Andrew’s Episcopal School
Barbara and Alan Dreeben Forty Acres Scholarship Seth Krasne
Majors: Business Honors; Plan II Honors
Honors Programs: Business Honors; Plan II Honors
Hometown: El Paso, TX
High School: Coronado High School
Charline and Red McCombs Family Forty Acres Scholarship Alex Rabinovich
Majors: Business Honors; Plan II Honors
Honors Programs: Business Honors; Plan II Honors
Hometown: McAllen, TX
High School: McAllen Memorial High School
Lowell Lebermann Scholarship Francesca Reece
Majors: Government; Plan II Honors
Honors Program: Plan II Honors
Hometown: Euless, TX
High School: Trinity High School
Madison Charitable Foundation Forty Acres Scholarship Audrey Urbis
Majors: Business Honors; Plan II Honors
Honors Programs: Business Honors; Plan II Honors
Hometown: Brownsville, TX
High School: Los Fresnos High School
