Expand Your Horizons: University Honors Program
The University Honors Program at Texas A&M University is one of the most comprehensive of its type anywhere in the United States. Every year, Texas A&M offers more than 300 Honors classes and benefits from the participation of approximately 2,500 undergraduates in its programs.
The goal of the University Honors Program is to unlock the resources of a major research institution to undergraduate students whose track record of academic success demonstrates a readiness to take greater personal responsibility for their own education. The defining characteristic of Honors study at Texas A&M University is engagement. While each academic discipline across the campus has its own pedagogical style, students in Honors classrooms are encouraged to speak, inquire, write, challenge, and do. In many cases, Honors students are introduced to research resources or interactive learning that are more typical of graduate than of undergraduate education.
What is Honors Education?
Honors is a distinct approach to undergraduate education that:
- incubates new curriculum and pedagogy through layering high-impact educational experiences
- emphasizes specific perspectives on culture, pedagogy, and expectations of its constituencies
- provides an opportunity for close contact between faculty and students, and
- offers curricular challenges that would not otherwise exist.
Admission to the University Honors Program
The university-level Honors distinction offered by the University Honors Program is Honors Fellows. Students are admitted to the Honors Fellows curriculum on a competitive basis. Incoming freshmen apply as part of their application for admission to the university. Continuing students may apply each Spring for entry in the Fall prior to completing 60 credit hours at Texas A&M.
Applications are evaluated on the basis of the student’s record of academic achievement and demonstrated potential for creativity, intellectual ability, imagination, curiosity, willingness to try new things and self-awareness. Once admitted to the Honors Fellows curriculum, students are designated as “Honors Students” and may then access specific privileges and resources, including additional academic advising, priority registration, contracting non-honors courses for Honors credit, Honors Independent Study, and enrolling in graduate-level courses for undergraduate Honors credit. Honors Students also receive priority for the Honors Housing Community and advising for competitive national fellowships.
Freshmen admitted to the University Honors Program are required to live in the Honors Housing Community and participate in the Honors Freshman Learning Community course. To remain in the program, all students (freshman and continuing students) must make progress toward the Honors Fellows distinction and meet minimum co-curricular participation requirements.
Maintaining Honors Student Status
To remain in the Honors Fellows curriculum, Honors Students must:
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Maintain a 3.5 cumulative GPR
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Maintain a 3.25 GPR in Honors course work
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Make progress toward curriculum requirements by taking at least six Honors credits per year.
- Meet minimum co-curricular participation requirements.
Honors Students who fail to meet any of these requirements will be given a semester of probation to correct any deficiencies. Honors Students who fail to meet requirements after a semester of probation will be dismissed from the program.
Over the last four decades, many motivated students have found the University Honors Program an excellent way to get the most out of an undergraduate education at Texas A&M University. They have experienced the special pleasures of close contact with leading faculty, and they have enjoyed the challenges offered by highly motivated classroom peers in a participatory learning environment. You may find that spicing your curriculum with several honors courses enriches your program of study or you may wish to pursue Honors course work of sufficient depth and breadth to earn an Honors Graduation Distinction. Each year, a number of ambitious seniors cap their sustained experience in honors study with participation in the Undergraduate Research Scholars and Teams Program, contributing to the advancement of knowledge through scholarly research on the Texas A&M University campus.
Honors-eligible: participating in Honors courses without being part of University Honors or a College or Departmental Honors Program
Students are Honors-eligible as entering Freshmen if they graduated in the top 10% of their high school class and have an SAT of at least 1250 (verbal + math, with a minimum score of 570 on each) or a composite 28 on the ACT (minimum score of 27 each on verbal and math). Continuing students are Honors-eligible if they earn a cumulative GPR of 3.5 or better.
Honors-eligible students may register for Honors courses during their regularly scheduled registration time.