Hi All, again, and thanks for the replies I've gotten (both on- and off-list).
Most of the replies have been something along the lines of "our honors graduates do X very well," where X is get into grad school or med school or get good jobs. My concern is that there's a selection bias, here. Using the students' success after college as a measure of the value added by an honors program assumes that the honors students represent the larger population before doing the honors program, and that's clearly not so -- they are, after all, in an honors program whereas the majority of college kids are not. What I am really searching for is evidence on the other end: graduate admissions people or employers who will show how they use knowledge of a student's honors degree to give the student some benefit that non-honors kids don't have. And we just can't find any in the literature. So let me ask this: for those of you who are involved in selecting students to come to your grad programs, do you make a note of whether or not a student completes an honors program, and if you do, does that confer some sort of advantage on those students? In two jobs that I've had, I've been involved in selection of students for graduate work, and in neither case did we care whether or not the student had an honors degree. We did care whether or not they did research, how they scored on the GRE, what the letters of recommendation said, and like that. I'm just wondering if my experience is representative. Here, for example, any student who wants can do independent research; if they do, we will pay for them to go to a conference to present it (should it be accepted for presentation), and like that. There are no special perks for honors students. Consequently, I question whether we should have an honors program at all, especially given the fact that the honors-eligible students don't want harder classes and don't want to be singled out as different if it confers no advantage on them post-graduation. Any more thoughts? m Marc Carter Associate Professor and Chair Department of Psychology ------ "There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about." -- Margaret Wheatley --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
