Highlights from 5 honors colleges

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