How much weight does an honors thesis carry. I have a chance to work on one and my idea is in the process of getting approved. Is this one of the best things i could do to prepare for graduate school? Is it worth the time?
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How much weight does an honors thesis carry?
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If its running your own study (or at least analyzing one), absolutely worth the time and thought of highly assuming it is an interesting project and you do a good job with it.
If its just a lit review, won't hurt but isn't likely to be a big deal.
If its just a lit review, won't hurt but isn't likely to be a big deal.
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I can speak as someone who didn't do an honors thesis, and this application cycle I was invited to interview at half the schools I applied to and have received two offers so far. I also have unique life experiences, poster presentation, manuscript in progress, and a very high GPA (GRE was very average). So, in my case not having an honors thesis didn't hurt me, but I had other things that may have offset that. I also think I helped my case by applying to labs that fit exactly what I want to research.
IMO whatever you can do that sets yourself apart wont hurt you... especially if your thesis is related to what you ultimately want to research in grad school. Then find faculty members that match your interests to apply to for grad school. Good luck!
IMO whatever you can do that sets yourself apart wont hurt you... especially if your thesis is related to what you ultimately want to research in grad school. Then find faculty members that match your interests to apply to for grad school. Good luck!
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An honors thesis isn't necessary (plenty of people get accepted without them, myself included) but it can bolster an application. I agree with Ollie that an actual study (even a correlational one) is better than a lit review. When I see an honors thesis on an application, I then assume (a) the person took honors level classes and thus has a high potential to succeed at graduate level work, (b) the person worked with a mentor on a project and had some independence in that project, (c) the person has some experience writing.
Of course, all of these things can be demonstrated in other ways. Capacity for graduate level work can be communicated other ways (e.g. managing multiple jobs or research alongside full time work), writing can be communicated other ways (e.g. manuscripts, personal statement)....there are many components to an application. But an honors thesis can help, especially if you have no other ways to demonstrate these capacities.
Of course, all of these things can be demonstrated in other ways. Capacity for graduate level work can be communicated other ways (e.g. managing multiple jobs or research alongside full time work), writing can be communicated other ways (e.g. manuscripts, personal statement)....there are many components to an application. But an honors thesis can help, especially if you have no other ways to demonstrate these capacities.
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Probably varies by prof but to really make it worthwhile I'd really suggest submitting it as a poster to a local conference (or even better a paper). Another benefit is that it allows the people you're working under to be able to write a better rec letter.
I did one and I think that was a great experience overall, and kind of fun. Regardless of whether it helps you get in, I think it would be a good thing to do and worth the time. If you do a fantastic job at it, you might even get it published - and that might look really good (though I guess if you apply your senior year this wouldn't be reflected in your application) I would say absolutely go for it if given the chance.
What is meant by an honors thesis? I designed and conducted my own investigation with a couple colleagues under the supervision of a professor, it was empirically sound and we found significant results. I wrote a 20 page paper on this investigation as well. I never once heard heard the label honors thesis.
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I had to be accepted to the Honors College; take two interdisciplinary honors seminars; take four upper level honors courses or graduate courses; spend two semesters working in a lab closely with a professor.
My thesis came to be about 30ish pages (n=80), and I presented our findings in France this past summer at an international conference and am presenting additional findings this summer at apa. Currently, I'm working on turning it into a paper. I learned a lot about stats and it was the first time I took ownership of a dataset and really got to know it inside and out. My UG school posts theses and dissertations on their library site and generates a citation for it, so I have the citation on my CV although it's not peer reviewed (it's clearly marked that it's not peer reviewed.)
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It varies largely by school. At some schools you have to take a bunch of extra classes and at some as long as you do your own study it can be labelled as an honors thesis. It's important in your essays when applying to grad school to talk more about the skills you've learned from the experience rather than the name 'honors thesis' or not.
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I can only speak for myself, but I am happy to give you a professor's perspective. For me, it is one of the top things I look at. I don't require it, because I understand that not everyone has a chance to do one, but if you do an honors thesis and have a strong letter of reference from the faculty member who supervised you, I take notice. Why? Because I want to know that you can write, and you have a sense of what research takes. Doing an honors thesis puts you in a great position to be successful doing a master's thesis. If you have a honors thesis and a good letter from your mentor I am going to pay less attention to your GRE verbal and writing score. If you haven't done an honors thesis and don't have publications, then I pay a lot of attention to your GREs. I particularly look at the writing score in this situation as I have found it to be fairly predictive of writing skills. I hope that helps some!
Thank you for the input! Out of curiosity, what do you consider a satisfactory GRE verbal / writing score?
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Obviously the higher the better, but I usually feel pretty good anywhere between 4-5 on the writing, above 5 is gravy. I will consider 3.5s with good writing samples or if a student successfully completed an honors thesis, though I really prefer scores of 4 or above. On the verbal, I like to see 50th percentile or above. I have learned that I can teach my students the science, but it is harder and more time consuming to teach them how to write. Thus, I strongly consider the students writing ability when evaluating applications.
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At my school you can do either an "Honor's Thesis" (which requires all those extra classes, and to have been accepted to an honors program) or you can do an "Independent Research Project" which is basically the same without the title or extra classes (as long as you treat it the same and put the same effort into it). I did an independent project, not an Honor's thesis, because of other personal issues. But, with my project I was the PI, and I had the responsabilities of writing (and getting) a grant, writing the IRB, recruiting and running participants, doing all the stats, and presenting at conferences. All of this was done under the close supervision of my faculty mentor, which meant that I was able to get a strong letter from him. I got many interviews, and during them the project always came up for discussion, and I ended up getting a couple of offers and had the wonderful option of choosing where I wanted to go.
So I guess my point is that you don't need the title of having done an "honor's thesis", and that the title alone won't do anything for you if you can't explain and show that you have done the work. If you like research and you want to show that you can do research, then doing some sort of independent project will probably pay off. And don't let the "honor's" title scare you into thinking that the option is not available to you
So I guess my point is that you don't need the title of having done an "honor's thesis", and that the title alone won't do anything for you if you can't explain and show that you have done the work. If you like research and you want to show that you can do research, then doing some sort of independent project will probably pay off. And don't let the "honor's" title scare you into thinking that the option is not available to you
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