Membership in the Arts and Sciences Honors Program
The purpose of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences Honors Program is to enable well prepared and motivated students to undertake and complete especially challenging curricular course work that leads to special honors upon graduation.
Membership in Honors should involve a basic commitment to excellence. Honors students should aim to pursue a rigorous liberal arts program that cultivates precision of thought and expression, a sense of critical judgment, and a constantly expanding yet coherent perspective.
Because it is important to explore the programmatic possibilities for honors work as early as possible in your academic program, membership requirements for admission into the Honors Program vary for incoming freshmen and for students who have completed college-level course work (beyond college or university course work completed during a student's high school career), whether at Ohio State or another institution.
Membership for Incoming Freshmen
Although exceptions are made, incoming freshmen should rank in the top ten percent of their high school class and should have a minimum ACT composite score of 30 or a minimum SAT combined score of 1340. Incoming freshmen should apply for membership to the general University Honors Program through the University Honors & Scholars Center.
Students who have decided to pursue a program in the Arts and Sciences will enroll directly into the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences and will work with their advisers in beginning to design an honors curricular program during their first quarter at Ohio State.
Membership for Already Enrolled Students and for Transfer Students
Honors students who transfer to Arts and Sciences from another Ohio State college need to apply for membership in the Arts and Sciences Honors Program to retain their honors status. The application involves a dialogue with advisers and culminates, for freshmen and sophomores, in a first pass at a curricular definition of each student's vision of his or her honors program. Juniors and seniors will apply directly for candidacy in the program they intend to pursue (i.e., via the Honors Contract for with honors in the Arts and Sciences or the thesis proposal for with distinction).
Ohio State students who are not yet enrolled in an honors program, as well as students transferring to Ohio State from another university or college, must meet with an honors counselor to discuss application to the Arts and Sciences Honors Program. The counselor will determine whether a student is eligible for membership via application or must submit, and receive approval for, an Honors Contract or thesis proposal prior to admission to the program. Most students will be required to submit an Honors Contract or the official paperwork for the senior thesis to be considered for admission.
Students admitted to the Arts and Sciences Honors Program will receive the University Honors designation and will receive priority for course registration, honors housing, research conferences, and special campus events.
Criteria for Continuing Membership
The basis for membership in the Arts and Sciences Honors Program is a rigorous curriculum and high achievement. Fundamentally, membership in the Honors Program means that the student must constantly commit to taking challenging work. Depending on background, this may translate into all honors courses in some quarters and no honors courses in other quarters. In general, however, this will mean five to seven honors or upper-division courses during the freshman and sophomore years, and nearly all advanced courses and research during the junior and senior years. In addition, students will be expected to maintain a minimum 3.4 grade-point average. Although most honors students finish their undergraduate careers with a grade-point average somewhere between 3.5 and 4.0, the Honors Committee has set the minimum grade-point average at 3.4 so that students who do not perform up to expectations early in their undergraduate careers will not be penalized.
In practical terms, the Honors Committee requires that all honors students commit to an Honors Contract (with honors in the Arts and Sciences) and/or an Honors Research and Thesis Project (with research distinction) no later than the beginning of the junior year. Consequently, students who have not submitted an Honors Contract or preliminary research proposal by the end of the sophomore year will be required to submit one of those two documents by the end of Winter Quarter of their junior year as a condition for continuing membership in the Honors Program.
The Honors Committee recognizes that students will alter their Honors Contract and often change thesis topics. Changes to a contract can be easily accommodated if they are supported by the faculty adviser(s) and do not significantly alter the strength of the approved contract. Likewise, a change in thesis topic is routinely accommodated when it has the approval of the faculty project adviser(s). Early planning and consultation with faculty honors advisers and an Honors Office counselor is, however, essential to constructing a strong honors curriculum or research project, and the Honors Committee wants to ensure this consultation will begin early.
In general, students will take five to seven honors or upper-division courses during the freshman and sophomore years, and nearly all advanced courses and research during the junior and senior years.
In addition, students will be expected to maintain a minimum 3.4 grade-point average.
All students in the Arts and Sciences Honors Program are required to complete an Honors Contract and/or an Honors Research and Thesis Project.
