Graduating Undergrad with Honors

[thebillsfan]

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Hey all,

I was wondering about the benefits of graduating with honors in terms of med school admissions. For premeds applying during their senior year, most interviews will happen during the fall of their senior year. However, most seniors do not receive honors until well into the spring of their senior year. So, is honors something you can even put on your application, considering that when you apply youre really only considering honors/just getting started at that point in time? I figure med schools will really not give much credit to people who are PLANNING on doing honors. Another way of phrasing this question would be: does an honors degree only help a med school application if you are applying after graduation from your UG institution?

Hope that made sense! Thanks.

 

[dw2158]

doesn't matter much. anything the honors would tell them they can already see in your transcript-- thesis, high GPA, etc. phi beta kappa is a different story though, since you have to be nominated.

 

[Stratego]

I agree that graduating with honors is not much benefit, which is good since most applicants haven't graduated yet. So, certainly, intending to graduate with honors has zero impact. But if you have completed a thesis, this is worth putting on the application. Also, they can see an "H" after your grade if the course had an honors designation, which might have a miniscule benefit.

 

[236116]

none of the above matters.

 

[DoctorDeMan]

I disagree. The actual "honors" designation means next to nothing, but if you are working on a research project to get the honors designation, by all means talk about your project. I did honors because I wanted to do more research... and I put "Honors Reserach Project/Thesis" on AMCAS. Worked out well for me.

If you're getting the designation by taking honors courses or something, I'm not sure you could tie that in nor would medical schools care. They know you're smart based on your GPA+MCAT, no need to add more information that is of little additional value...

 

[thebillsfan]

well i'm already doing research in a lab and will have been doing so for almost 3 years by the time I apply. given that, would doing honors be worth the ability to say/discuss how i am doing "honors research" or that i have a thesis? the research i would be doing is the same, the question is whether i can call it my thesis or not.

 

[DoctorDeMan]

well i'm already doing research in a lab and will have been doing so for almost 3 years by the time I apply. given that, would doing honors be worth the ability to say/discuss how i am doing "honors research" or that i have a thesis? the research i would be doing is the same, the question is whether i can call it my thesis or not.

For me, it was a different project and with a different mentor than other projects... since for you it is just basically working in your existing lab w/o pay (presumably), I doubt it matters much. Saying you have an "honors thesis" sounds cool, though.

So basically just being able to call it a thesis is of little value, IMO. But then again, I'm not an ADCOM...

 

[TexasPhysician]

I did the Honors program to register for the best classes early while I was an underclassmen. Dropped it after sophomore year because it is worthless.

 

[efitzpat]

They have no way of knowing with you sound pretentious and odd saying "sometime in the future i may graduate with honors."

no one will care past admissions. all i care about is that i get a pretty little cord to put around my graduation gown and that they say some latin words after my name so that I look smart. But what they say at graduation doesn't depend on my last semester grades so wooooo party! i love the fact that im graduating in 26 days.

 

[slick27]

Most people in med school graduated with honors. So it doesn't matter.

 

[NiCad089]

It doesn't matter.

 

[STXGregor]

I did an Honors program at my school. It did allow me to register early every semester, which was great, but I kept it because I enjoyed the extra classes I took and thought that doing it and completing a thesis would help me with my med school application. I'm about to defend my thesis in the next week or two and was accepted last semester. There's of course no way to know how much, if any, this helped me. But I feel that it can only help you, as long as you aren't having too much trouble with the increased work load of course.

 

[Lukkie]

I did the Honors program to register for the best classes early while I was an underclassmen. Dropped it after sophomore year because it is worthless.

same here... but i was dropped from it due to low GPA

 

[tiedyeddog]

I think it is super common for people to use honors status as a method of getting the classes you want and would advise doing honors for that reason. However, it will not help that much in your app.. It will count as a decent EC.

 

[AdmiralChz]

I wrote a thesis and will graduate with honors, but I am sure that had little to no effect on my medical school apps.

Maybe if you are taking a year off, mentioning that stuff could be useful. But don't expect it to make up for a poor MCAT!