Director: Timothy M. Casey, Loree, Room 038, 732-932-9266 or 9162 (casey@aesop.rutgers.edu)
The General Honors Program is designed for highly motivated and promising high school seniors who apply to the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. Students who fulfill the admissions criteria are invited to the campus to be interviewed by faculty and students who participate in the four-year program. Students selected as Rutgers Presidential Scholars who have applied to the school are also admitted to this program. Successful candidates are typically notified in early April, prior to the deadline for college decision. Several first-year students not in the program, whose first semester performance is outstanding, may be invited in January to join the program.
The program includes a variety of social and academic activities throughout the year, recommended by both faculty and students in the program. The academic requirements of the program are as follows:
1. First Year: In the first semester, students are registered for an honors section of Exposition and Argument and a 1-credit Readings in Biology course, in addition to the courses they request. Students register for the interdisciplinary honors seminar in the spring semester. The honors seminars are team-taught and integrate formal presentations by faculty and students, reading, discussions, and individual and/or small group research projects. The additional courses selected in the first year will depend upon the curriculum in which the student intends to major. Qualifying students also may be invited by departments to take first-year honors courses.
2. Sophomore Year: Each semester, sophomores register for a 1-credit honors tutorial in which they work with a faculty member on a small independent study project that introduces them to research in their areas of interest. In the spring, sophomores also register for the honors seminar.
3. Junior Year: Students register for at least 3 credits of honors tutorial, an independent study program in which each student works with one faculty member. The remaining courses selected for the junior and senior years are determined by the curriculum in which the student is enrolled.
4. Senior Year: Each semester, students register for a 3- to 6-credit Honors Tutorial (11:554:497,498) or the George H. Cook Scholars Program (11:015:497,498).
In order to remain in the school's General Honors Program and continue to receive the scholarship award that accompanies participation, honors students must (1) enroll as full-time undergraduates and (2) maintain a cumulative grade-point average of 3.4 or better.
