Highlights from 5 honors colleges

Applicants to Virginia Tech's honors college check a box on admissions application indicating interest in the program, which has an acceptance rate of about 30%.

Higher ed leaders are working to distinguish their honors colleges from their four-year programs. Here are highlights from five models:

Arizona State University

• Barrett Honors College
• Launched: 1988; additional fee
• Current enrollment: 7,400
• Applicant acceptance rate: 75%
• More on the acceptance rate: Incoming students’ average high school GPA is 3.82 and their SAT score is 1368. Barrett’s leaders attribute the high acceptance rate to a high level of preselection among the college’s applicants.

City University of New York

• Macaulay Honors College
• Launched: 2001; no additional fee
• Current enrollment: 2,200
• Applicant acceptance rate: 10%
• More on the acceptance rate: Over the past eight years, the college has received between 5,500 and 6,300 applications with entering classes
  of around 520 students.

New Jersey Institute of Technology

• Albert Dorman Honors College
• Launched: 1995; no additional fee
• Current enrollment: 730
• Applicant acceptance rate: 7%
• More on the acceptance rate: NJIT averages about 2,200 applicants for 150 seats. This year, it’s on pace for nearly 2,400 applicants.

The University of Maryland

• Honors College launched in 2009; no additional fee
• Current enrollment: 4,000
• Applicant acceptance rate: n/a

Virginia Tech, Honors College

• Honors college launched in 2016; no additional fee
• Current enrollment: n/a
• Applicant acceptance rate: 29%
• More on the acceptance rate: Applicant pool comes from prospective students who check a box on admissions application indicating interest in Honors College.

Read our full honors college feature: Innovative honors college programs to model