Category Archives: Types of Honors Programs

Elite Public Business Programs: Michigan, Virginia, UNC, and UT Austin

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The four pubic university undergraduate business programs that appear near the top of many rankings are those at the universities of Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina Chapel Hill, and UT Austin.

All four are highly selective, especially the Ross School of Business at Michigan and the Business Honors Program (BHP) at the McCombs School of Business at UT Austin.  These two programs differ from the other two in allowing freshmen to participate, though the freshmen “preferred” admits at Michigan only take one core business class the first year.

All applicants for preferred admission at Michigan “must first receive an offer of summer or fall admission to U-M’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA); the College of Engineering; the School of Kinesiology (Sport Management only); the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance; or the School of Art & Design” before being considered for the Ross School of Business.

The average SAT/ACT for preferred admits is 1494/34, and the high school gpa average is 3.91.  The acceptance rate for 2011-2012 was 16.25 percent; in the most recent class, a total of 89 students enrolled as preferred admits. The average UM gpa for regular admits (who must have one or more years of college) is 3.65, and the acceptance rate is 39.9 percent.  About 440 regular admits are enrolled.

Even though many preferred admits may also earn admission to the excellent LSA Honors Program at UM, they should know that combining LSA honors and the Ross regimen of business courses can be daunting.

The McIntire School of Commerce at UVA requires an even larger number of hours–at least 54–before a student can become part of the school, giving UVA business students the most expansive required background in liberal arts of any of the schools discussed in this post.  Students in the prestigious Echols Scholars (honors) program are not exempt from this requirement.

The mean GPA of students admitted to McIntire after at least 54 hours of course work at UVA is 3.65.  The average SAT for freshmen entrants at UVA is about 1395.  However, many students transfer into McIntire from Virginia community colleges or other colleges, and the average SATs for these students is between 1190 and 1280, although the GPA for transfers must be at least 3.8.

Admission to UNC Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School requires making it through a “rigorous and selective” process that includes a year of previous study.   The average SAT is 1346, with an average college GPA of 3.56.  In a recent year, 330 students were admitted, while 236 were denied.

A small number of freshmen can qualify for the Assured Admission Program (AAP), which appears to be similar to the preferred admission program at Michigan.  The average SATs and high school GPAs for AAP are probably similar to those at Michigan and at the Business Honors Program at UT Austin.  Students can be in Honors Carolina and qualify for AAP as well.

The BHP at UT Austin differs from all three of the other programs discussed here in that it requires full freshman participation.  It is also highly selective, with the average SAT being 1480 in 2012, and the average high school class rank being in the top 2.1 percent.  In 2012, a total of 235 freshmen enrolled in the BHP, and the acceptance rate was 22.2 percent.

As in the case of the LSA Honors Program at Michigan, BHP students can also be in UT Austin’s highly-ranked Plan II Liberal Arts Honors Program, but only 11 out of 145 recent Plan II graduates also completed the BHP at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NCHC Conference: UC Irvine Develops Exemplary Transfer Option for CC Honors Students

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Already recognized as a leader among major public universities for the quality of its Campuswide Honors Program (CHP), the University of California-Irvine has also made a success of the “honors to honors” program that helps to guide high-performing community college students to CHP.

Before honors to honors, the number of community college transfers into CHP was extremely low, in the range of one or two students a year.  Now, 20 to 30 community college honors students are welcomed into CHP, and the best news of all is that they perform as well as, or in some areas better than, the “native” students in the program.

Successful transfer students into CHP must be nominated by their community college honors program.  At first, the CHP pilot honors to honors program had partnerships with only eight community colleges in California, but now the number has risen to 14.  To be nominated by one of these institutions, students must have a 3.7 g pa.  Then, since they are nominated in the middle of a term, CHP does an additional review when the student’s final grades for the term are available.

The honors transfer students fall into two basic types: students who are about the same age as juniors who entered the program as freshmen, and students who are older or “non-traditional” students.

CHP has tried with varying results to find ways to connect the freshman entrants with the transfer students, especially with the non-traditional students, but there can be significant differences between the groups.  On the other hand, the transfer students are themselves a part of the honors experience for freshman entrants because of the special experiences the non-traditional students have had.

Over the past few years, CHP has learned that the factors below are often involved:

–The quarter system can be confusing to transfer students who have been on the semester system.

–Study and writing skills for some transfer students may not be fully developed.

–The family responsibilities of transfer students are often very demanding.

–Transfer students may be more stressed, upset, or even depressed.

–They are also more likely to have job responsibilities.

Yet despite these differences, Lisa Roetzel, associate director of CHP, says that transfers perform as well and graduate as promptly as freshmen entrants, and they tend to be even more receptive to the thesis requirement, in part because many have already made plans for graduate school.  Transfer students also take full advantage of the increased faculty contacts afforded by CHP.

CHP advisor Mary Gillis has created a special schedule for transfer advising, including the use of paid peer advisors who are successful transfer students themselves.  The special advising also includes GRE preparation and counseling for degree planning.

The first semester advising is generally focused more on support, encouragement, and efforts to make the transfer students a part of the overall honors community.  Transfers are eligible for honors housing and priority registration, just like freshman entrants.

Since about half of UCI’s students now are first-generation college students, the matchup with outstanding community college scholars may be more feasible, as many of them too are the first members of their families to attend college.

One result of UCI’s close partnership with community colleges is that many of the best honors students from the two-year schools are choosing UCI honors instead of honors or regular admission at other UC campuses.

NCHC Conference: A Student Board of Directors Candidate Speaks Out

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Planning a national conference in Boston, the birthplace of American Independence, allowed the National Collegiate Honors Council to go with their instincts and tie many conference presentations to the individual and independent character of honors programs–and honors students.

One such student is Riley Cook from the University of Iowa Honors Program, who is a candidate for the two-year term as student representative on the national board of the NCHC.  It is fitting that the NCHC would include students on its board, and the presence of 600 honors students at the annual conference attests to the interest and commitment to honors students.

We ran into Riley at the conference and realized that his outlook corresponded closely with the overall theme of the meeting: challenging structures in higher education. Other articles about the conference have addressed the commitment of the honors community to insist that a high-level college education must go far beyond the acquisition of specialized skills to include an intellectual focus on “the things that matter” the most in life: a deeper understanding of ourselves and our relation to other human beings and institutions.

Or, to use Riley Cook’s own words, honors “should not just be something to put on a resume; it should be a medium through which students explore their passions on a personal level with faculty and fellow students to their full extent. My main concern is what honors can do intrinsically for students to enrich their academics rather than just be a series of requirements to fulfill.”

Now if you look at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, you will see the following: “Intrinsic value has traditionally been thought to lie at the heart of ethics. Philosophers use a number of terms to refer to such value. The intrinsic value of something is said to be the value that that thing has ‘in itself,’ or ‘for its own sake,’ or ‘as such,’ or ‘in its own right.'”

Intrinsic values are what we discover; instrumental knowledge is what we receive.  Honors education is about discovery.

Riley expressed concern to us that many institutions lack the commitment to honors education that would allow faculty to teach the smaller discussion courses that promote this kind of discovery.  The reason: faculty “productivity”is a metric used by administrators–and legislators–to assess how efficient departments are, productivity typically reflects only the quantity of students taught, and not the content or individual character of courses.

“Unfortunately,” Riley said, “the quantity of students in the classroom is considered more financially worthwhile than investing in the quality of personalized honors discussion.”

Riley sees this as shortsighted.   “I spoke with a business student in honors at [another] university who informed me that an honors program did not always exist there. The lack of honors directly affected enrollment, significantly enough to necessitate the establishment of such a program.” In other words, honors attracts more students, and these students, in turn, raise the overall quality and perception of the university.

Riley also sees the importance of honors programs in generating support from honors alumni who can become mentors and, in some cases, donors to the institution.

“Students aren’t the only ones who benefit from honors opportunities,” he said. “By offering research opportunities, professors are able to work with valuable research assistants. Even collaborating on a student’s independent research project could influence their research or at least deepen their knowledge of a certain topic in their field. In a university setting, professors are learners, too, and the students they collaborate with may become valuable partners in their field in the years to come.”

After hearing what Riley has had to say, it should be no surprise that honors faculty frequently find themselves in the role of partners or facilitators, and less as the intellectual masters who deliver wisdom from on high.  They, too, engage in the process of discovery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NCHC Annual Conference: The ‘Ecology’ of Honors Teaching

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The theme of the 2012 conference of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) being held in Boston is “challenging structures” in higher education, and at the center of that challenge is the honors focus on the “ecology” of undergraduate instruction: the critical and sometimes difficult balance among faculty, students, and the pursuit of knowledge that brings them together.

In a session devoted to honors instruction, a thoughtful and expressive panel of honors professionals emphasized that learning at the highest level requires challenging themselves and their students to see the acquisition of knowledge as a dynamic, adventurous process that goes far beyond the ingestion of basic facts.

The goal, according to Michael Doran, director of the honors program at the University of South Alabama, is to work with students so that they can gain confidence, accept risks, and become passionate about “inquiry and the creation of new knowledge…students rise to higher expectations, and that message is transferred to other students on campus.”

The words “creativity” and “reflection” and “inquiry” were prominent in the discussion.  John Zubizarreta of Columbia College in South Carolina noted that the “importance of reflection…is important for all students, but for honors students it’s indispensable.”

One reason: honors portfolios, when they are in fact used in honors programs, collect the most important elements of a student’s experience–major papers, significant projects, notes, lists of books and their significance–all of which connect the student to accomplishments and aspirations, and clarify goals.

At Texas A&M, according to Jon Kolinek, associate director of the honors program, students in living/learning communities meet to discuss what they have learned, especially in first-year courses and experiences, and then reflect on how the first year has reinforced their initial goals or caused them to consider different options.

The use of portfolios, discussions, and focused reflection is not unique to students.  At Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University, a formal mentoring program involving current honors faculty with prospective honors instructors has been in place for several years.

According to Jacquie Scott,  director of the Barrett Faculty Mentoring Program for Teaching Excellence and an honors faculty fellow at Barrett, the program requires two years of classroom visits and feedback, all geared toward making Barrett faculty as focused as they can be on effective, high-level student instruction.  The program has also increased overall faculty cooperation and reduced territorial conflicts among disciplines.  This is yet another way that honors education can be a positive influence for the university as a whole.

One part of the honors “ecology” that is requiring more attention is the recognition that the traditional honors predilection toward confident, extroverted young scholars who can comfortably participate in what are typically small honors seminars can mean that quieter, introverted students of great ability might be overlooked or misunderstood if they do participate in honors.  An audience member from the University of Southern Maine pointed out that faculty need to be aware of such students and not equate their relative reticence with a lack of ability or the passion for learning

Jon Kotinek of Texas A&M sees honors instruction is a process of “layering” honors experiences in the most effective manner.  This layering, the ecology of honors instruction, means that the watchwords of creativity, inquiry, reflection, and even risk should inform the pedagogy of faculty and the attitudes of students, to the end that the knowledge they all seek is not merely transmitted but also transformed by their exciting work.

 

 

University of Maine-Orono: Carefully Blended Honors Curriculum

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The Honors College at the University of Maine-Orono is highly-respected among honors professionals, and one reason is that the college curriculum is a well-balanced blend of a liberal arts core curriculum augmented by a carefully coordinated department focus in the junior and senior years.

The core is typically made up of four courses:

“The four courses constituting Civilizations: Past, Present, and Future follow a chronological trajectory from earliest recorded times through the present, examining philosophy, history, literature, the arts, and natural, physical, and social sciences. In particular, by incorporating primary sources, small group discussions, and multiple perspectives, these courses explore the way in which civilizations and cultures have been developed and have interacted with others.”

In the third year, students take honors tutorials and seminars, most of which satisfy the university’s general education requirements.  Through careful reading, honors students can select “from among eight texts nominated by the University community, the ‘Honors Read’ for incoming students in the Honors College a year hence.”

Honors students in a tutorial also select a visiting scholar in ethics for the succeeding year, a process that requires students to analyze writings and other “evidence presented about the candidates, deliberate using those criteria, and correspond and negotiate with viable candidates to determine availability and suitability.”  This exercise combines extensive research with a real-world decision-making problem.

In the senior year, honors students must take an honors directed study course, which prepares them for their senior honors thesis.  The directed study course and thesis count for three credit hours each.  Honors graduation requires at least 27 credit hours in honors courses, and AP credits are not applied to honors credit.

The university as a whole is increasing its focus on prestigious scholarship competition.  In recent years, Maine students have won four Goldwater scholarships in the last six years along with four Udall awards, all of which are earned by undergraduates.  Also in the last two years Maine students have won four National Science Foundation Graduate Research Grants.  In 2012, a Maine student was awarded the school’s fourth Truman Scholarship.

The best academic departments at Maine are earth sciences, social work, clinical psychology, education, and history.

The college does not publish average admission statistics, but we estimate the the minimum SAT score for the honors college is around 1200 to 1250, with a high school graduate place in the top 10-12 percent.  Again, this is only an estimate based on some comparable programs.

Honors students benefit from program advisors who are former honors students at Maine, and also have the support of honors preceptors/instructors in many academic departments.  About 120 freshmen honors students out of approximately 750 on campus choose to live in honors housing in Colvin and Balentine Halls.

Colvin remodeling was finished in 2008, and the facility also houses the Thomson Honors Center, home of the college.  Colvin is the smallest residence hall on campus, home to 36 students in 8 quads, one triple, plus the RA’s quarters.  “The floors are hardwood, the bathrooms are brand new, and Colvin is the only residence hall with wireless throughout.”

“Balentine Hall, arguably one of the most beautiful buildings on campus, was first occupied in 1914….Balentine Hall was an all-women’s residence hall until the fall of 2003; today it is part of Honor’s College housing, with room for 78 students in the residential areas.”

It may still be the case that a few honors students also live in Penobscot Hall.  All honors residence halls have both freshmen and upperclassmen.

University of Houston Honors College: High Value Added

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While some national rankings overlook the University of Houston, the Honors College is a strong value-added component in a city that has lots of jobs to offer in business, engineering, and law.

The average honors student has a 1300 SAT and is in the top 10 percent of his or her class, but the college does not consider these qualifications as an absolute minimum.

The curriculum is substantial, requiring as much as 36 hours of honors work, including a thesis.  One of the most attractive features of the college is its close involvement with the Bauer College of Business.  Business majors admitted to the honors college are automatically a part of the Bauer Honors Program.  At least 18 of the 36 hours in honors are in small classes in all business specialty areas.  The classes emphasize discussion, writing, and case studies.  A thesis is required.

“This kind of thesis might resemble a long research paper in form, but it is different than a class paper. It approaches an existing business topic from a new angle, or tackles a newly developing business problem that others have not yet addressed adequately.  Often, the topic for a Senior Honors Thesis arises from close collaboration with a faculty member on an existing research project. You may choose to identify a significant aspect of a faculty member’s research to investigate in more detail or expand upon a case study completed as part of a previous course or business competition.”  Business theses average 50-75 pages in length.

The business program is ranked in the top 53 or so among those at public universities, and in the top 25 in entrepreneurship among all schools.  The U of H also has the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management and it, too, has an honors track.

For engineering majors there is another honors track, also requiring a thesis.  The engineering school ranks  77th nationwide.  “A Senior Honors Thesis in engineering typically arises from close collaboration with a faculty member on an existing research project. Ideally, you will identify a significant aspect of that research and craft a smaller project representing your own work. The thesis should include an introduction explaining the relevance of your work to the broader field of study, a brief literature review, pertinent explanations of all technical innovations and processes, and an appropriate representation of results achieved. On average, the thesis will be between 30-60 pages.”  It is important to note that Houston and the surrounding area are home to a large number of companies that employ engineers.

Other honors tracks are available to students in the social sciences, humanities, and performing arts, including creative writing–a nationally-recognized strength of the university.

Honors housing is available in Cougar Village, a complex that opened in 2010.  The Village features two-bedroom suites, with two students in each bedroom and all four students sharing a sizable bath with two lavatories.  There is a skyway to the new Cougar dining hall.  Cougar Village is especially convenient to Melcher Hall, the home of the Bauer College of Business.

  • December 1 — Priority consideration application date for fall semester admission to both the Honors College and the University of Houston.
  • April 1 — Honors College application deadline and supporting documents deadline for admission for the fall semester.
  • April 1 — University of Houston application and supporting documents deadline for admission for the fall semester. Visit the University of Houston Admissions website for additional information about UH admissions.

 

Texas Tech Honors College Offers Direct Paths to Law, Medical School

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The Honors College at Texas Tech University is one of only a few honors programs that offer fast-track options to attend law or medical school at the same university, and the joint program between the honors college and the medical school even allows honors students to skip the MCAT before entering med school.

The joint Early Acceptance Program allows Honors College students to waive the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) and to apply early to the School of Medicine during their junior year.

“To be eligible for the Early Acceptance Program, you must be enrolled in the Honors College, have entered Texas Tech University as a freshman, maintain residency in the state of Texas, and acquired a composite score (earned in one test administration) of at least 1300 on the SAT or at least 29 on the ACT upon matriculation at Texas Tech University.”

“The Honors College and the Texas Tech School of Law have collaborated to create two exciting new opportunities for Honors students who plan to attend law school. The Early Decision Plan allows eligible students who intend to attend the TTU Law School to receive notice of their acceptance as juniors but complete their undergraduate degrees prior to entry into the law school. The Early Admission Program (“3+3 Plan”) allows eligible Honors Arts & Sciences students to enter law school prior to graduation after they have completed 100 hours of coursework. The “3+3″ program enables eligible students to complete both a baccalaureate and a doctor of jurisprudence in approximately six years.” [Emphasis added.]

Eligibility for the honors college as a freshman requires a minimum SAT score of 1200 or an ACT of 26  or a place in the top 10 percent of the applicant’s high school class to be considered for admission.  Admission is not, however, guaranteed with these credentials.  Applicants with International Baccalaureate diplomas are assured of admission.  Current students are also considered for admission if they have earned a 3.4 GPA.

The regular honors curriculum requires 24 hours of honors course work for freshman entrants, and 27 hours for students who enter later.  Six hours must be in upper-division courses, six must be in 3000-4000-level courses, and freshman entrants must also complete a first-year series.

In order to graduate with highest honors, students must also complete an additional six hours of research and thesis work.

The honors housing at Tech appears to be a strong option: students in Gordon Hall share two-bed suites that have private baths and that share a common living area with the adjoining suite.  Gordon hall as its own laundry, and the Fresh Market Cafe serves both Gordon and neighboring Bledsoe Hall.  Gordon Hall is on the east side of campus, closest to science and engineering classrooms and farther from business, English, foreign language, and philosophy classrooms.



Maryland to Add Cybersecurity Honors Program in 2013

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In association with the Northrup Grumman Corporation, the University of Maryland at College Park will launch the nation’s first honors program in cybersecurity aimed at producing highly capable graduates who can answer the demand of this important area of economic and national security.

The new curriculum track, called the Advanced Cybersecurity Experiences for Students (ACES) program, has received $1.1 million from Northrup Grumman to launch it and will receive matching corporate and university support.

According to the university, “ACES will engage a highly talented, diverse group of students–majors in computer science, engineering, business, public policy and the social sciences–in an intensive living-learning environment that focuses on the multifaceted aspects of cybersecurity and develops team-building skills.

“Students will take on an advanced, cross-disciplinary curriculum developed through industry consultation, and will interact directly with industry and government cybersecurity mentors. Student enrolled in the program will have the option of interning with Northrop Grumman and preparing for security clearance. ACES will produce skilled, experienced cybersecurity leaders highly sought by corporate and government organizations.”

The curriculum “will include general cybersecurity courses, as well as a variety of other topics, including cybersecurity forensics, reverse engineering, secure coding, criminology, and law and public policy. In year-long capstone courses, teams of seniors will apply their knowledge and skills in solving complex cybersecurity problems.”

Northrup Grumman has headquarters in nearby Falls Church, VA.  The university is extremely well-suited to partner with the company on the cybersecurity program because of its nationally recognized living/learning honors communities and its strong academic departments in cybersecurity-related subjects.

“UMD is one of only 6 universities in the world with top 25 programs in Computer Science, Engineering, Economics and Business, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Physics, and Social Sciences, according to the Academic Ranking of Worldwide Universities.”

The program also offers a clear career path.  “Summer internships will augment coursework with real-world projects and develop a pipeline of talented students. Throughout, Northrop Grumman will provide guest lecturers, participate in an industry advisory board, pose real-world problems for students to solve, and provide advisors and mentors for capstone projects.”

Speaking of job “security,” see what Alex Fitzpatrick at Mashable.com has to say about the growing field of cybersecurity:

“Alec Ross, senior advisor for innovation at the State Department, has a piece of advice for students tasked with the nerve-rattling dilemma of choosing a college major.

“’If any college student asked me what career would most assure thirty years of steady, well-paying employment,” said Ross, ‘I would respond, ‘cybersecurity.’”

“That’s because cybersecurity is a field where the rules of the recession seem flipped: There’s plenty of jobs, but relatively few qualified applicants.

“The government needs to hire at least 10,000 experts in the near future and the private sector needs four times that number, according to Tom Kellermann, vice president at Trend Micro and former member of President Obama’s cybersecurity commission. Booz Allen Hamilton, a private security firm in Mclean, has hired nearly 3,000 cybersecurity experts in the past two years, and that trend is expected to continue.”

Currently, cybersecurity grads do not earn as much as those going into computer software design and computer engineering, but the pay is certain to increase with the ever-increasing demand.  The story by Fitzpatrick states that the average starting salary in 2009 was $55,000 a year, with many of the jobs now in the public sector.  The joint effort by UM and Northrup Grumman are an indication that the demand is now strong in the private sector as well.

New for 2013: Oregon’s Global Scholars Hall Has Most Room Options

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In our frequent reviews of honors residence halls, we come across a wide variety of room configurations, with the most typical being the traditional shared double with corridor baths or a combination of traditional rooms with some suite-style rooms that allow four students in two adjoining rooms to share a common bath.

But the Global Scholars Hall at the University of Oregon offers not only these basic options but an amazing six additional options.  The hall will soon have its own dining facility, the Freshmarket Cafe, offering sushi, pasta, rice bows, deli sandwiches, special expresso drinks, and fresh produce.

The Clark Honors College at U of O ranked 24th out of 50 in Overall Excellence and 23rd in Honors Factors in our recent book, A Review of Fifty Public University Honors Programs.  The Global Scholars Hall was not yet open at the time of publication, and if it had been open, the Clark Honors College would have ranked even higher with a stronger score for housing.

Home to students in the Clark Honors College, College Scholars, and global language scholars studying Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, or German.  Students in these groups must apply through their program for a place in the Global Scholars Hall.  There are classrooms and study facilities in the hall, which even has its own librarian.

Here are the room options in the 450-student hall:

1. Traditional double with in-room sink;

2. Enhanced single with in-room sink;

3. Double with its own bath;

4. Triple with three sets of furniture, in-room sink, and no private bath (the least expensive option);

5. Single with its own bath;

6. Four-person suite, featuring two double rooms with a shared bath between them;

7. Six-person suite with one bath, with a private hallway, common living area and furniture, and three double rooms;

8. Two-person suite with bath, where each student has a single room and both students share one bath.

The Global Scholars Hall is open for Fall 2012, but we include it as “new” for 2013 as well.


 

 

 

New for Fall 2013: Florida Changes Completion Requirements

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This post about the University of Florida Honors Program is the first post about honors changes effective for Fall 2013.  We  anticipate several additional posts in this series, including upcoming discussions of Indiana University’s Hutton Honors College, the South Carolina Honors College, the Texas A&M Honors Program, and others.

Previously students in UF honors had to complete four honors courses and at least one enhancement experience, which could be an internship, study-abroad course, research project, or a leadership activity.

But in some cases students found it difficult to complete these requirements, so now program completion requires at least cum laude achievement in the college of the student’s major along with 14 honors points, eight of which must be academic (A) points and six of which must be enrichment (E) points.

Below is a list that shows the point correlations to course and enrichment activities:

Activities worth 1 Honors point

  • 1- or 2-credit Honors course (grade of B or higher) (A)
  • Apply for a nationally competitive scholarship or fellowship (e.g., Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, Goldwater, Fulbright) (A)
  • Induction into Phi Beta Kappa or Phi Kappa Phi (A)
  • A publication in a refereed undergraduate journal (such as the UF Journal of Undergraduate Research) (A)
  • Complete a minor (A)
  • A regional conference presentation in a discipline relevant to the student’s major (A)
  • Short-term study abroad (E)
  • Participate in a Partners in the Parks program (E)
  • Participate in leadership activities (e.g., hold a leadership position in a student organization or activity) (E) (note: a maximum of 3 points is allowed for this type of activity)
  • Participation in a leadership conference (e.g. LeaderShape, Gatorship, UF Women’s Leadership Conference) (E)
  • Participation in a Florida Alternative Breaks trip (E)

Activities worth 2 Honors points

  • 3+ credit Honors course (grade of B or higher) (A)
  • Graduate course (grade of B or higher) (A)
  • A publication in a refereed professional journal (A)
  • Complete a second major (A)
  • Faculty-directed independent study or research (A)
  • A national conference presentation in a discipline relevant to the student’s major (A)
  • Six-week summer or semester study abroad (E)
  • Complete at least 50 hours of community service (documentation required, hours may come from multiple sources) (E)
  • Complete an internship at least 45 hours in duration (E)

Activity worth 3 Honors points

  • Complete an Honors thesis as part of requirements to graduate magna cum laude or summa cum laude (A)
  • For students in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, complete the CALS upper-division honors program (A)

Please note that IDH 4917, Honors Research, and IDH 4905, Independent Study, do not count as  Honors courses for these purposes, but they do serve as proof of faculty-directed independent study or research; that is, you may not receive points for both IDH 4917/4905 and performing research/independent study.  The same comment applies for IDH 4940 and internships.

Note also that the maximum number of points that can be earned for community service is two; that is, performing 100 hours of community service is not worth four points.

sis as part of requirements to graduate magna cum laude or summa cum laude (A)

  • For students in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, complete the CALS upper-division honors program (A)

Please note that IDH 4917, Honors Research, and IDH 4905, Independent Study, do not count as  Honors courses for these purposes, but they do serve as proof of faculty-directed independent study or research; that is, you may not receive points for both IDH 4917/4905 and performing research/independent study.  The same comment applies for IDH 4940 and internships.

Note also that the maximum number of points that can be earned for community service is two; that is, performing 100 hours of community service is not worth four points.