Honors Program

• Use this form even if you have earned college credits while still in high school. (Full-time college students should use the application for Continuing and Transfer Students, which will be posted in mid-October on the webpage for that cohort.)
• The application for admission to Honors must be completed solely by the student. 
• Minimum requirements: 3.5 High school GPA. This threshold does not guarantee admission; applications are reviewed holistically. ACT and SAT scores are not required.
• Misrepresentation of any information will result in the student's disqualification from admission.
• Applications must be complete in order to be eligible for review.
• Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until reaching capacity, but no later than the beginning of the term for which the applicant is applying..

13-14. Essay Questions:

Use the spaces provided below to write any TWO essays chosen from the list of topics below.

• You may submit only two essays. Additional entries will not be considered.
• Each essay should be 300-350 words in length.
• Avoid clichés and repetition.
• We want to know specifically about you and your actual interests, not a list of accomplishments.
• Choose the two topics that best allow you to express different perspectives on your experiences and ideas, so that we understand more about you from each essay. 
• Do not provide dictionary definitions.
• Use details to support what you say.
• At the beginning of each essay, write the letter corresponding to your topic choice.

Topic Choices

a. Elaborate on one answer you gave for question #12 that, in your mind, best demonstrates your unique experiences and identity as a learner and thinker. Include an explanation of why it stands out in contrast to your other two answers.

b. What is the best question you've ever been asked that helped you grow in your intellectual perspective, and why? Support your answer by discussing the context of the question, as well as specific ways your responses to the question have impacted you.

c. Analyze an experience in which you needed to interact with a person or people whom you perceived as thinking differently than you do. What approaches or strategies did you use? What did you take away from the experience?

d. Describe a situation in which you learned something complex on your own in a non-academic setting, and then applied that knowledge/experience to an unrelated, completely different classroom setting. 

e. If (and only if) you plan to use your future career to address a specific change--a change NOT generally associated with your future major or career path as a whole: What are some of the ways that you would like to use Honors to prepare more deeply for that path? 

f. What is the single most creative experience you have ever had? Do not write about an ongoing activity, but about a particular instance or event. Explain why you chose it--and this question--as a representation of who you are.

g. Sometimes a leadership position teaches us more than conventional leadership skills. If this is true for you, what did you learn, how, and why do you consider what you learned unusual?