Overview
The Elizabethtown College Honors Program, established in 1999 and sponsored by The Hershey Company, reflects the College’s commitment to providing hand-crafted learning opportunities for its students. In the case of the Honors Program, the focus of this handcrafting is on students with excellent academic records, superior academic abilities, intellectual promise and demonstrated initiative. Consistent with the mission of the College, the Honors Program seeks to promote high standards of scholarship, leadership and service among those students selected for the program. Class size deliberately is kept small; no more than 15 students are enrolled in each course.
The opportunity to work closely with faculty mentors from the first year to the senior year is an explicit goal of everyone associated with the program. In order to foster even greater involvement between faculty scholars and Honors students, co-curricular activities are an integral part of the program. Events such as field trips to nearby cultural sites (Gettysburg, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.) are routine. In addition, international travel is both encouraged and facilitated. Semester-long, study-abroad opportunities are expected, but there also are opportunities for students to visit a foreign country in an annual inter-session trip (e.g., Austria, China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, England, Iceland, and Ireland).
To facilitate such experiences, the Elizabethtown College Honors Program allows each qualified student to apply for an Academic Research Grant that can be used in support of these trips or to support senior thesis research. In order to help foster a deeper sense of community, study rooms, a reserved lounge and a computer lab are located in the Honors Center for Honors student use.
For more information, please visit www.etown.edu/programs/honors.
Admissions Process
Admission to the Elizabethtown College Honors Program is very competitive. The minimum standard for admission is a combined score of at least 1200 on the critical reading and math portions of the SAT (with no score below 550) or equivalent on another standardized test (TOEFL or ACT), a rank within the top 10 percent of the student’s high school graduating class, and review by the Honors Committee acting on the recommendation of the Office of Admissions.
The application deadline for the Honors Program is January 15. Notification is guaranteed by April 1. Students interested in the Honors Program are required to have an on-campus interview with an Admissions officer.
A limited number of students are accepted to the Honors Program during their sophomore year. These students must demonstrate excellence in their first-year courses, provide recommendations from at least two Elizabethtown professors, and have the concurrence of the Honors Committee. Rising sophomores must apply by March 15 for consideration.
Participation Requirements
Students entering the Elizabethtown College Honors Program in their first academic year take a two-course sequence of an Honors First-Year Seminar and an Honors Interdisciplinary Seminar focusing primarily on critical thinking and foundational skills. In the sophomore/junior years, Honors students take two additional Honors courses from the College’s Core Program or in majors, minors or electives. In the junior year, students complete the Honors Leadership course. The final capstone Honors experience is the completion of a Senior Honors Thesis. A total of 24 credits must be acquired in Honors courses in order to fulfill the requirements and graduate as a recognized Elizabethtown College Honors Scholar. In order to remain in good standing within the program, students must maintain a grade point average of 3.50 overall.
A list of Honors courses is available through the course descriptions tab of this Catalog. Define the search criterion as an “H” in the “Code” field or select a specific Honors “Type” shown in the drop-down menu. All Honors courses are noted on course schedules with an “H” at the beginning of the course code and “HNR” at the beginning of the title.
The following non-disciplinary Honors courses are offered:
Courses
