Honors College Program/OML

Does taking part of the University's Honors College program gives extra points for the AROTC OML. Is it worth the extra work?

CAP said:

Does taking part of the University's Honors College program gives extra points for the AROTC OML. Is it worth the extra work?

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It's worth the extra work as far as your college transcripts go, but for the ROTC OML it will not give you any advantage.

Being elected to student government and leadership positions in school will help however.

Don't know what college you're going to, but being in Honors Program has advantages that may make the extra work worth it, but not necessarily in an actual OML way. For example -- usually, Honors College participants get first dibs on registering for classes, meaning they get the good teachers, the good sections that fit with their schedule in other areas, and they don't have as much hassle getting the classes they need when they need them in order to graduate on time.

Those classes, filled with honors college kids, can be more engaging, resulting in a more dynamic learning experience. And you have better access to tutoring and great study groups. Special section honors classes can also sometimes be smaller and more intimate than regular classes, with more individual interaction with the professor.

Does this give you 10 actual points on the OML? Maybe, maybe not.

payitforward said:

Don't know what college you're going to, but being in Honors Program has advantages that may make the extra work worth it, but not necessarily in an actual OML way. For example -- usually, Honors College participants get first dibs on registering for classes, meaning they get the good teachers, the good sections that fit with their schedule in other areas, and they don't have as much hassle getting the classes they need when they need them in order to graduate on time.

Those classes, filled with honors college kids, can be more engaging, resulting in a more dynamic learning experience. And you have better access to tutoring and great study groups. Special section honors classes can also sometimes be smaller and more intimate than regular classes, with more individual interaction with the professor.

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+1

You will find that having any sort of advantage to scheduling classes is a really nice perk to have. Because typically coming in as a freshman you get dibs on whatever's left over to choose from. What does this equate to, in terms of ROTC, possibility of 8ams (trust me, you want to go to sleep after PT) or time schedule conflicts with LLAB, causing you to schedule for 7,8,9 pm's.

As stated, there are scheduling and class size advantages to participating in an Honors program. However, when we weighed the advantages/disadvantages with our sons, they decided against it.

My husband is a college professor. He grades hundreds of papers and tests a year. We knew that we wanted our boys that scored 33-35 on the English portion of the ACT sitting next to the kid who scored a 19. Sounds harsh, but it's true. Think "better by comparison."

txpotato said:

We knew that we wanted our boys that scored 33-35 on the English portion of the ACT sitting next to the kid who scored a 19. Sounds harsh, but it's true. Think "better by comparison."

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Interesting outtake on that. Never thought about it that way. Nothing wrong with it; survival of the fittest.

And another point of view

txpotato said:

As stated, there are scheduling and class size advantages to participating in an Honors program. However, when we weighed the advantages/disadvantages with our sons, they decided against it.

My husband is a college professor. He grades hundreds of papers and tests a year. We knew that we wanted our boys that scored 33-35 on the English portion of the ACT sitting next to the kid who scored a 19. Sounds harsh, but it's true. Think "better by comparison."

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Then there are honors courses where the students receive better grades because of the perception of who makes up the classes: "These students are supposed to be the cream of the crop thus more latitude in both grades and assignment types."

Difficulty is you won't know what type(s) of classes you would be a part of until you are already committed.

In terms of enrollment strategy this could also mean that you would avoid using AP scores and actually take the class for a supposed easy A or then again maybe use those AP Credits to free up your schedule and thus have more time to do well in the courses at hand.

And we didn't even talk about the fact that you should expect your college GPA to be significantly lower than high school, for many we are talking a full 1.0 lower.

So many variables it's really hard to say what the best strategy is but the one constant, at least as of today, GPA = 40% OML.

You can look at it many ways. But once you have been in the work force for a couple of years, none of that matters. What will matter is your experience. Usually your first job after college will look at grades and courses. After that, no.

Only you can determine if it is worth it.