Honors - How to Apply?
In my previous post, I provided a brief overview of what Honors offers students in their freshman year.
These are programs you apply to in your senior year of high school. For all of the honors programs except Plan II and LAH, you MUST put your desired honors program as your first choice major. This means if business is your second choice, you cannot apply for BHP.
One exception (admissions often has exceptions) is a new partnership between BHP and Turing Scholars. To apply for this, a student must put Business as their first and Computer Science as their second choice. A small number of elite students will gain admission to both.
However, LAH and Plan II not only allow you to select Liberal Arts as your second choice, but they encourage you to do so. Most Plan II students have majors outside of the College of Liberal Arts, so if you want to study Radio, Television, and Film, put Communications as your first choice and Liberal Arts as your second. LAH and Plan II are much more flexible when it comes to having multiple honors programs or double majors.
If you are interested in applying to honors, do it!
Applying to honors only requires a little bit of extra time and it has no bearing on regular admissions decisions. There are a few short answer questions to fill out, and each program has a few additional requirements. You can view those here.
The application process has two steps. First, you must complete the Apply Texas application. There is a box you check on Apply Texas that reads "I am interested in applying to honors." Based on your first and second choices, an application is sent to your e-mail a day or two later showing the honors programs available to you.
Second, this honors application asks a few additional questions about AP exam scores, SAT Subject Tests, and asks you to fill out a few short paragraph responses. Since the honors application comes second, it is important to not wait until December 1 to submit Apply Texas! In fact, all of the honors programs except Engineering have either recommended or priority deadlines of October 15.
Anytime a university recommends you do something, you should probably do it. Submitting by October 15 allows your application to be considered before everyone else applies and, in some instances, you may receive an admissions decision in December. Don't worry if you don't hear anything though! All students not admitted early will be reconsidered after December 1 and decisions distributed by March 1.
How do honors programs review their applicants? I discuss that in my next post.