Author Archives: Honorsadmin

Oregon State Honors College: Growing, Always Changing

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Update April 2013:  OSU students have won five Goldwater awards valued at $7,500 for undergrad research, in the last two years, making the school one of the leaders in this important category.  In 2013, all three of the Goldwater winners were students in the honors college, along with a fourth student who earned an honorable mention.

The Oregon State Honors College in Corvallis will enroll about 850 total students this Fall, including 300 new arrivals, but it won’t be long until enrollment will increase to about 1,000, a number that seems close to ideal for many universities based on our work thus far.

The Honors College is one of several programs that we may include in an expanded edition of our book, A Review of Fifty Public University Honors Programs.

The minimum admission requirements for freshmen entrants are SAT 1820/ACT 27/unweighted GPA 3.75, but only about 54 percent of applicants are accepted; the actual averages for accepted students are SAT 2027/ACT 31/unweighted GPA 3.95.  The average GPA for transfer students is 3.83 for previous college work.

OSU is on the quarter system, and about 20 percent of the total credit hours applied toward graduation must be in honors courses or research/thesis.  The minimum requirement for freshmen entrants who will become honors scholars is 30 credits, including thesis.  The minimum requirement for transfers and upperclass students is 15 credits, qualifying them as honors associates.

Students on both tracks write a thesis and then can be eligible for the Honors Baccalaureate Degree, awarded jointly by the Honors College and the college of the student’s major.  All honors students must maintain a 3.25 cumulative GPA  at OSU to remain in good standing.

A key element of the honors curriculum is that it changes each year, not regarding total credit requirements but with respect to the courses and emphases determined by the honors faculty.

“The University Honors College creates an entirely new curriculum each academic year featuring some of OSU’s most inspiring teachers and serving many of OSU’s most talented and motivated undergraduates,” the web site says.

Class sizes are limited to 24 students for lower-division classes, and 12 students for upper-division courses.  All courses are taught by professors and not by teaching assistants.   Graduates of the OSU Honors College enjoy a 90 percent acceptance rate into graduate and professional schools.

Honors students are eligible for a limited type of priority registration: they register first among their peers in the same class group (as sophomores, they would register before other sophomores).

In the Fall of 2012, honors students may live in West Hall, a change from previous years, when they were assigned to McNary Hall on the east side of campus.  West Hall is located near a large residential community including five other major residence halls.  It is not far from business, engineering, and forestry buildings.

West Hall features suite style rooms, a shared kitchen, and a computer lab.  For each pair of rooms, there is a shared bathroom.  West Hall is also connected to the Marketplace West dining area, which includes at least seven theme-style cafes.  About two-thirds of incoming honors students will live in West Hall.

OSU is noted for having one of the best forestry schools in the nation, and other high-ranking disciplines are ecology, oceanography, microbiology, nuclear engineering, zoology, public health, food science, and pharmacy.

Along with the University of Oregon, OSU is considered a flagship university, and the schools receives more research funding than all other Oregon colleges combined.

 

 

Miami of Ohio Honors Program: Flexibility and High Achievement

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In our continuing series of profiles on honors programs that we would have liked to include in our book, A Review of Fifty Public University Honors Programs, we will discuss in this post the well-known honors program at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

An early post complimented Miami Honors for their up-front stats showing the achievements (in the form of placement percentages) of their most recent class of graduating honors students.   So before describing the details of the program, we are listing the Miami web site stats for placement rates for the 2011 class below:

Law School: 100% placement (national average 69%)

Medical School: 85% placement (national average 45%)

Acceptance to Grad School: 94% (national avg not listed)

Job Prior to Graduation:  86% (national avg <56%)

Four-year Grad Rate:  98% (national average <56%)

The Miami program does not list a rigid set of admission requirements, but the average test scores are SAT 1340/ACT 30/GPA 4.0.   A few students, however, are admitted with significantly lower test scores, if they have outstanding qualities in other areas, such as leadership, academic awards, and volunteer activities.

Like some other honors curricula we have reviewed, the Miami requirements are extremely flexible, with credit assigned for “honors experiences” rather than  honors courses alone, although honors courses are the basic elements of honors experiences.  And, following a trend in honors education, students have to prepare and submit for review annual online portfolios that organize and summarize what they have learned.

Honors experiences include small, interactive seminars, research, study abroad, undergrad teaching assistantships, graduate courses, leadership projects, and internships.  Honors portfolios must demonstrate progress in six areas: written communication, collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, intercultural understanding, and reflection (self-understanding). Students must complete at least nine experiences.

Note: Readers may want to see our recent post on “College Learning Assessment (CLA): Rationale for Honors?” in which we discuss the ways that honors curricula already enhance critical thinking and writing skills that college reformers often advocate.

Honors housing is important at MU because students are required to live on campus during the first two years.

“Although members of the University Honors Program eventually move all across campus, most have one thing in common: they spent their first year living in Tappan or Emerson Hall,” one student reports.

Tappan Hall is located on South Quad and is close to Harris Dining Hall, an all you care to eat location, and Scott Hall, which houses Encore and Ovations food courts.  South Quad is not  the most central location on campus, but, as another student says, the “location is great…for all the ‘good stuff’ (Rec Center, Hamilton Dining Hall, Shriver  Center, Western Campus…”

Most rooms are corridor style with communal baths and shared double rooms.  It appears that at least some of the rooms are air-conditioned, and there are a few suite-style rooms as well.

Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA): A Rationale for Honors?

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In a previous article, we wrote about philanthropist Bill Gates and his ideas regarding hybrid college courses that combine “superstar” faculty videos with classroom discussion groups. The Gates Foundation is also associated with the Council for Assistance to Education, which has developed the Collegiate Learning Assessment test used by some universities.

Gates has said that he does not want universities to turn into vocational institutions, and he  has maintained that students need to develop broader skills, especially the critical thinking and writing skills measured by the CLA test, not only for the students’ own benefit but for the benefit of employers and society functioning in a world where vocational training becomes outdated so quickly.

Honors curricula for decades have emphasized critical thinking and writing skills as a central component.  The writing requirements for almost all honors students are significantly more demanding than those for non-honors students, and the curricula develop critical thinking by engaging students in texts, research, and projects that demand sophisticated, in-depth analysis.

The CLA test is used to compare the skills of entering students with those of graduating seniors in a given institution.  The results of the test provide part of the statistical basis for the 2011 book Academically Adrift, which argued that students in American universities learn relatively little during their time in college and, moreover, do not work very hard in the process.

Critics of higher education, especially of public higher education, cite the book as evidence that universities over-emphasize research at the expense of undergraduate instruction and as confirmation that too many of the students now entering college are not sufficiently motivated or prepared to be there in the first place.

That argument aside, Academically Adrift and a more recent and detailed study by the CAE itself show that students in certain major areas do better than those in others.  For example, students majoring in science or the humanities score the highest in improving the critical skills between the time they enter a university and the time they graduate.  Business, education, and engineering majors do not show as much improvement.

Although some honors programs have a lot of engineering and business students, in general the focus is on the arts and sciences.  Under siege by reformers for not being vocational enough, the humanities and social sciences, as well as the natural and physical sciences, can now stake a claim to being leaders in developing “higher order” thinking.

The longstanding honors role in teaching to this end is generally accepted; but there are other roles, less noticed by the general public, that honors education has promoted critical skills in their universities as a whole.  Allowing non-honors students to enroll in some honors classes is a common practice, and of course all honors students take classes that are not directly a part of the honors curricula.

While it may cost more to educate an honors student than it does to teach non-honors students, the need for critical thinking skills is emerging as a priority.  Even gradual increases in the enrollment of honors students could, in the long run, be one of the best investments a university can make in its own future and the future of all its graduates.

 

 

 

 

Transfer to Honors: Delaware, Washington, UT Austin

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In our continuing series on the transfer requirements of public honors programs, this post will list the requirements of the University of Delaware, the University of Washington, and the University of Texas at Austin.  A previous post discussed the transfer requirements for honors programs at Arizona State, Penn State, Georgia, UC Irvine, and Michigan.

Delaware: Transfer students with outstanding academic records from another institution apply for Honors through the University’s application for admission. For more information, call the Admissions Office at (302) 831-8123.

Students at UD who did not apply or who were not admitted to Honors as incoming freshmen are eligible to take honors courses on a space-available basis if they have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.00 or higher in at least 12 credits at UD.

For full admission to the honors program, students must have a minimum GPA of 3.40 and must also have completed at least two honors courses with a grade of B or better.  Two letters of recommendation from UD faculty are also required.  The committee reviews applications twice a year; the deadlines for submitting applications are October 15 and March 15.

Washington: Transfer students who have been admitted to UW and have either participated in honors programs at their previous institution or who have strong college academic records are eligible to apply to Interdisciplinary Honors. Transfer student admission to the Interdisciplinary Honors Program is selective, due to limited space availability.

“Because Interdisciplinary Honors requires students to complete 47 credits of general education coursework, students who have already earned an Associates degree, or who have fulfilled the UW’s Areas of Knowledge requirements through their transfer credits are not eligible to apply. In order to determine this, those interested in entering the Honors Program must wait until they have been admitted to the University of Washington and had their transcript evaluated for UW credit before applying to Honors. Those not eligible for Interdisciplinary Honors may instead be eligible to apply for Departmental Honors in their chosen major(s). Contact the Departmental adviser for admission information and requirements.”

Applicants may be able to enroll in some Honors courses before they are formally accepted into the Program. See an Honors advisor regarding which Honors courses might be available to you.

UT Austin Plan II: Unfortunately, over-enrollment issues have forced Plan II Honors to suspend transfer admissions for the last four semesters and onward.   There is a very strong chance that Plan II Honors will NOT reinstate transfer admissions.

If Plan II does reinstate transfer admission in the future, “it’s important for prospective transfer applicants to note that Plan II is, primarily a four-year freshman program.”  Therefore, any transfer policy would exclude students who have completed 45 or more (classroom) credit hours at the time they would begin Plan II if admitted.

“The 45-hour maximum is because Plan II Honors has a core curriculum which is front-loaded.  More Plan II requirements are scheduled in the the first two years of the program than the second two years.  Additionally, the core curriculum requirements progress from year to year and course to course.  We do not accept substitutes for our core courses.  That maximum applies to classroom hours, not to hours earned through testing.”

However, the separate Dean’s Scholars Honors Program at UT Austin and the Health Science Honors Program do consider a small number of transfer applicants each year.  Dean’s Scholars are extremely gifted students who want to study science and mathematics.

The Health Sciences Honors Program is for those interested in medical careers.   Both of these programs consider applications from second and third semester students.

Finally, the Business Honors Program at UT Austin admits a limited number of students who have completed their freshman year of college.  The BHP accepts applications from students currently enrolled in UT’s McCombs School of Business, other UT colleges (internal transfers), or students enrolled at a university other than UT-Austin (external transfers).

All students interested in applying as a sophomore transfer need to complete a BHP Sophomore Application.  External transfer applicants must also apply to transfer to the University of Texas at Austin.  Internal Transfer students must also apply for acceptance to the McCombs School of Business.

“The following criteria are used to evaluate sophomore candidates:

    • Number and academic challenge of courses taken (min. 24 hours)
    • Earned (non-placement) GPA for the first year courses
    • Evidence of college-level extracurricular activities and leadership
    • Personal statement
    • Professional resume
    • One letter of recommendation
    • Phone interview with BHP alumnus ( by invitation only throughout June)”

 

 

Bill Gates on College: More Hybrid Courses, Less ‘Marking Time’

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In the most recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, philanthropist Bill Gates says that even though education “has not been substantially changed by the internet” thus far, the future is likely to bring fundamental shifts toward online instruction.

Gates advocates greater use of hybrid courses, defined by the Chronicle as those “in which students watch videos from superstar professors as ‘homework’ and use class time for group projects and other interactive activities.”

Even if such an approach might be effective for some colleges or programs, what applicability might online classes have for honors programs, which emphasize the interactions of students and professors in small classes?   Should honors programs be on the cutting edge of integrating online learning with instruction in relatively small classes?

But, if so, how would the effectiveness of such honors experiments be assessed?  Gates acknowledges (and laments) that there is a lack of evidence showing “where…technology is the best and where face-to-face is the best.”  One big problem, he told the Chronicle, is that higher education “is a field without a kind of clear metric that you can experiment [with] and see if you’re still continuing to achieve [increased learning].

“You’d think people would say, ‘We take people with low SATs and make them really good lawyers.’ Instead they say, ‘We take people with very high SATs and we don’t really know what we create, but at least they’re smart when they show up here, so maybe they still are when we’re done with them.’”

Clearly, “maybe” is not good enough for Gates and other reformers.  Here it seems that public university honors programs can help in developing curricula that improve measurable skills and that facilitate the transfer of those improvements to the larger university population, including some students who do not have “very high SAT’s.”

Honors curricula are recognized as being highly effective in developing and improving critical thinking and writing skills, both of which are emphasized by the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) tests used by some colleges to measure improvement in important skills between the freshmen and senior years.  (The Gates Foundation has connections with the Council on Assistance to Education (CAE), which develops CLA testing.)

Another advantage of honors programs is that the course work and activities of honors students are never entirely segregated from the larger university and inevitably have an impact beyond honors.  Therefore, honors programs are and have been a natural vehicle for the transfer of enhanced instruction  to the larger university.

A key element in this process would be the assessment of non-honors students who have frequent classes or projects with honors students in order to understand how the interaction is beneficial.  The next, and much more difficult, step would be to determine what parts of the process could be used with similar effectiveness in a hybrid context.

The hybrid model that Gates is exploring can sound a bit like the communication and training structure of an international high-tech company: we watch the CEO in a series of online videos; we note his insights and instructions; and we meet and discuss the ways in which they might be developed, used, and enhanced.  Then we are graded according to our progress.

But given the hard choices by some public universities, the use of more online instruction might make the advantages of an honors education more readily transferable to the larger university if online lectures and instruction were incorporated into the curriculum, provided that at least some of the assumed cost savings could then be used to fund more frequent small-group discussions and projects.

The founder of Microsoft also believes that many students are marking time in school because “if you’re trying to get through in the appropriate amount of time, you’ll find yourself constantly not able to get yourself into various required courses.”

The Chronicle asked Gates if, in response to this problem, he might “create pressure to make universities into a kind of job-training area without that citizenship focus of that broad liberal arts degree.”

“But I’m the biggest believer in taking a lot of different things,” he said.  “And so, yes, it’s important to distinguish when people are taking extra courses that broaden them as a citizen and that would be considered a plus versus they’re just marking time because they’re being held up because the capacity doesn’t exist in the system to let them do what they want to do.  If you go through the student survey data, it’s mostly the latter.”

Whatever effect online instruction may have on university curricula, Gates says that “…obviously, anything that has to do with the universities is going to be figured out by people who have worked in universities, and it’s going to be piloted in universities.”

And in that effort, honors learning innovations could lead the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transfer to an Honors Program: Possible, but Be Prepared

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Honors colleges and programs allow transfers from other universities, but high GPAs in challenging courses must be a part of the transfer plan. Some programs also require at least one interview for prospective transfer students.

We will write a series of posts on the varying transfer requirements, and the next edition of A Review of Fifty Public University Honors Programs may include transfer requirements as a part of each profile.

In this post, we will look at the transfer requirements of the honors programs at Michigan, Penn State, Georgia, Arizona State, and UC Irvine.

Michigan:  The LSA Honors Program does not list a required GPA, but based on GPA requirements for transfers at similar programs, we estimate that the GPA would need to be in the 3.75 range in challenging courses.  An interview, by appointment, with a representative in the major department is required.

“Students who transfer to University of Michigan and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) with junior standing (55 credits or more) may be considered for the Honors Program by their concentration (major) departments. You should contact the department early in your first semester in LSA and ask about making an appointment with a concentration advisor. Make sure you mention that you are interested in doing an Honors concentration.”

“During your appointment with the concentration advisor, you and the advisor will consider your background, academic preparation, and your interests and decide whether an Honors concentration is right for you. If you do declare an Honors concentration, you will be a member of the Honors Program, and we urge you toschedule an appointment with an Honors general advisor to discuss your academic plans and your opportunities as a member of the Honors community.”

Penn State Schreyer Honors College:  Transfers who have at least one full semester at Penn State may be eligible to apply to Schreyer through the college’s Gateway Program.

“The SHC requires Gateway applicants to have:

  1. at least one full-time semester of study completed at Penn State
  2. a minimum of four full-time semesters of study remaining before graduation
  3. a cumulative GPA of 3.70 or higher at the time of application
  4. an application-semester GPA of 3.50 or higher for rising juniors and 3.70 for rising sophomores

“The criteria stated here are minimums set by the SHC.  In some cases, additional criteria for Gateway entry have also been established by the academic unit (e.g., higher cumulative GPA, specific courses, declaration of major, etc).   The online application form includes additional criteria for your academic unit.  In all cases, the department or academic college reviews applications and makes decisions which are communicated to applicants by the SHC.”

Georgia:  “To be eligible for Honors, transfer students must have completed at least 30 transferable hours of graded academic credit and must have at least a 3.75 transfer GPA. Transfer acceptances will be determined on a space-available basis.

“Transfer students must apply to the Honors Program prior to their first term at the University of Georgia. Transfer students must submit a complete application by the postmark deadline specified on the application to be eligible for acceptance.”

Arizona State, Barrett Honors College: Transfers from other colleges should have at least a 3.60 GPA.   The average SAT for freshmen admits is 1310, and the ACT average is 29.

“Lower Division Entry is generally reserved for students who apply to Barrett during the fall of their senior year of high school seeking enrollment as incoming freshmen. Those individuals already in their first semester at ASU and students in their first semester at another university or college looking to transfer to ASU may also seek Lower Division Entry for the second semester of their first year. The Lower Division honors curriculum is designed for students spending four years at ASU and Barrett.

“Upper Division Entry is specifically designed for those individuals who have completed approximately half of their undergraduate degree program and is geared at enrollment during the start of what is traditionally considered the junior year. The Barrett Upper Division academic requirements are designed for completion over the course of a student’s final four ASU semesters, not including winter and summer intersessions.”

UC Irvine: The Campuswide Honors Program (CHP) at Irvine makes specific provision for the possible transfer of some community college students into the program.

“Students eligible for Honors to Honors must attend a participating community college, have a GPA of 3.7 or better, and have successfully completed their community college Honors Program. Participating community colleges in this pilot program are: Cerritos College, Citrus College, Cypress College, Fullerton College, Golden West College, Irvine Valley College, Long Beach City College, Mt. San Antonio College, Orange Coast College, Pasadena City College, Rio Hondo College, Saddleback College, Santa Ana College, Santa Barbara College, Santa Monica College, and Santiago College.

“All other transfer students are invited to apply to the CHP prior to matriculation at UCI, or after they have completed at least one quarter at UCI. To apply you must have a minimum overall GPA of 3.5. (Please note that students who are admitted to the CHP often have GPAs higher than the minimum required for consideration.)”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UMass Amherst: Public Excellence Amid Private Elites

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The University of Massachusetts Amherst has the unenviable challenge of carving out its own place of prominence amid some of the most elite private universities in the entire world. There is growing evidence that the university, along with its Commonwealth Honors College, is doing just that.

The Times Higher Education world rankings of research universities has consistently ranked UMass at number 64 or better in the world–higher than some elite private institutions in the New England neighborhood. The Times also ranked the UMass disciplines of life sciences and physical sciences at number 32 and 48, respectively.

Other highly ranked academic departments at UMass are computer science, sociology, earth (geo) sciences, English, psychology, education, kinesiology and linguistics.

The UMass Commonwealth Honors College has for 18 years hosted the Undergraduate Research Conference, which brings together more than 800 young researchers from across the state to present their research work to their peers and a wider audience.

Further evidence of undergraduate research opportunities comes from the six to eight-credit year-long Capstone Experience, which “is a comprehensive, research-intensive thesis or project of original scholarship. Typically completed in the senior year, it is a chance for honors students to engage in rigorous scholarship and to explore an academic interest in depth.”

The UMass prominence in world rankings ties in with its International Scholars Program, which “allows honors students of any major participating in any of the university’s over 400 approved study-abroad programs in more than 60 countries to form an intellectual cohort, providing a structured opportunity to reflect on and share their international experiences and complete research linking their study abroad experiences to their larger academic goals.”

Prospective honors students should be excited to know that a new, 500,000 square-foot, 6-building honors college complex will open to students in fall 2013. Located on central campus, it is next door to the new rec center and a 5-minute walk to the main library. The residential complex will have 1,500 beds, including 600 in two-person rooms and another 900 in suites or apartments.

Student Loan Legislation: Not All Good

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On June 29, both houses of Congress passed a bill to extend federal transportation funding and to continue student loan interest rates at the current level of 3.4 percent, but most media reporting all but ignored the student loan story, and outlets that did cover it did not inform the public about a disturbing downside of the bill.

A notable exception was NPR, which on Saturday brought home the truth of the matter. The report by Claudio Sanchez led with these words: “The House passed a bill Friday to keep the interest rate on government-backed student loans from doubling. It’s a victory for students, but other compromises by Congress could cost them a lot more in the long run.”

This is what is known in the trade as a great lead to a story.

That aside, the facts of the story reveal that to continue the student loan rate at the current level of 3.4 percent, Congress in fact cut or restricted student financial aid in other areas–to the tune of $4.6 billion. In return, the average student borrower will save about $1,000 a year versus what they would have paid if Congress had enacted the 6.8 percent interest rate.

“The total cost to students, according to some estimates, is $18-20 billion extra over the next 10 years,” according to NPR.

Students will now lose the six-month grace period after graduation and be required to begin loan payments immediately after graduation. Graduate students will have to begin paying the interest on their loans while they are still in school.

According to Joel Packer, executive director of the Committee for Education Funding, the bill now has limits on the number of semesters during which needy students can receive Pell grants and makes it more difficult to receive the maximum amount.

Getachew Kassa, legislative director of the U.S. Student Association, told NPR that “in the past year, we’ve had deals where students have basically been robbed. I think the real question to ask is, at what point is this going to stop? Because sooner or later, you take a little bit here, a little bit there — you have nothing else to take away from.”

Honors Challenge: Balancing Core Curricula with AP and IB Credits

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Many honors professionals struggle to balance their primary goal of providing a strong, cohesive honors curriculum across all four years with the often liberal policies of their universities in granting credit for AP and IB courses that may replace essential honors courses.

The problem is especially acute during the first two years and “often leaves honors programs scampering to find strategies for a robust experience in the early years of an honors education,” according to an interesting article in the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council. 

Honors programs have responded in several ways, making it important for parents and prospective students to research the individual policies of the universities and honors programs if obtaining credit for AP and IB achievement is important, as it typically is.

The article, “The Role of Advanced Placement Credit in Honors Education,” was written by Maureen H. Kelleher, Lauren C. Pouchak, and Melissa L. Lulay, all affiliated at the time with the Northeastern University Honors Program.

They argue that “the impact of AP credit directly affects many honors programs by presenting challenges to general education requirements as they are currently conceived and delivered at colleges and universities.”

Another study by the University of California System showed that credit for AP and IB tests did not, in general, cause students to graduate early, but instead allowed them to “take a larger number of advanced courses or to take more courses in more subject areas than they otherwise would have been able to do.”

Students also use the credits to reduce their semester loads while pursuing a thesis or other demanding course work, or as a replacement for a dropped course.

The impact of AP and IB credits is also apparent in another important feature of honors education: honors communities.  “As…honors programs…move toward developing living/learning communities,” the NCHC article says, “the lack of entry-level shared courses prevents critical connections among entering students as well as the opportunity to develop a common learning experience.”

According to the article, the honors response to the AP/IB issue has usually followed one or  more of the following paths:

  • Diversification of courses, so that lower-divisions courses are so distinctive that “AP doesn’t line up with what goes on in the classroom.”  This may also take the form of developing more honors courses specific to the major that are beyond the general education requirements.
  • Refuse to count AP credit at all for honors courses.  The article quotes an honors dean: “We do not give honors credit for high school work.”  The students would receive elective or non-honors credit, however, in accordance with university policy.
  • Allow AP credit for honors courses that count as general education courses, but do not allow AP credit for honors courses above that level.

All of this makes honors advising a specialized and complicated task, given that universities as a whole generally like the AP and IB credits because “they increase a university’s yield.”

After earning AP or IB credit, many students want to jump into advanced work in the major at once.  The problem with this is that it may foreclose on other options that the student may have discovered by participating in the broader, more interdisciplinary curriculum.

This results in a phenomenon which the researchers call “narrowing.”  They argue that some students focused on entering their major quickly face an “existential crisis” by the third year.  “They have met all the requirements of their major and have no idea what other courses might also interest them,” and they feel odd, as juniors or seniors, about the idea of “shopping around” among entry-level courses.

Further complicating the matter is that AP courses, even if credit is earned, do not always provide the same rigorous preparation as the honors course would do, especially in the more selective and demanding honors programs.

The authors conclude that while AP and IB courses “may not better serve high school curricula, they have less value at the college level.”

 

 

 

 

Best Universities in the World Under 50 Years Old

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UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz, and the University of Illinois at Chicago are among the top universities in the world that have been in operation less than fifty years, according to the Times Higher Education rankings of the “top 100 under 50.”

In all, there are eight American universities for undergraduates on the list, which emphasizes academic research and publications far more than do most college rankings.  The schools are listed below.

The Times published the list for the first time this year in order “to show which nations are challenging the US and the UK as higher education powerhouses–and offers insights into which institutions may be future world leaders.”

China has no universities listed among the “top 100 under 50,” a fact that points to a continuation of the current rush of Chinese students to strong research universities elsewhere, especially in the U.S.   The influx of these students, who pay full tuition, is an increasing and somewhat controversial source of revenue for many U.S. universities, including cash-strapped public institutions.  (We will report on this phenomenon is a separate post in the near future.)

China has only two universities in the top 100 in the world, and only nine in the top 400.

The U.K. led the list with twenty universities among the top 100 “young” institutions.  Although the Times report emphasizes the emergence of Asian universities and the U.K. prominence on the list, it is remarkable that continental Europe also has twenty-eight institutions on the list, and Australia has nineteen.   Hong Kong has four emerging universities, and Taiwan has five.

The Republic of Korea has the top emerging university: Pohang University of Science and Technology.

The U.S. universities that are on the list are below, with their “young” rank first and their overall world ranking listed next:

UC Irvine, established 1965: (4) and (86)

UC Santa Cruz, established 1965: (7) and (110)

Illinois at Chicago, established 1965: (11) and (167)

UT Dallas, established 1969: (29) and (251-275)

UT San Antonio, established 1969: (53) and (276-300)

George Mason, established 1957*: (57) and (301-350)

Maryland-Baltimore County, est 1966: (63) and (301-350)

Florida International Univ, est 1965: (84) and (unranked)

*We assume that the Times takes a liberal view of fifty years.