FAQs

Ambitious students who will be entering the University of Portland as a first-time student in the fall are eligible, as well as students transferring into the University with freshman status when they arrive at UP.  Rising sophomores can also apply in spring-semester of their first year.

The Honors Program gives you resources. You will have an older student who can help you to serve as a mentor, you will have an Honors advisor, and you will have Dr. Hersh, all of who you can go to see to get help on any problem. As a freshman, this was one of the things that struck me the most, just how many sources of additional help the Honors Program offered me. Also, coming in, as a freshman, you move in early for the Honors Colloquium. This still ranks as one of my top college memories, and was a great experience to get to know people and get to know the campus. With the Honors Program, you always have a community around you.

-Jason Hortsch, Class of 2012

The UP honors program makes sure you remember that you’re not studying for yourself, you’re going through all this to make the world a better place and to share what you learn. It’s a good reminder and a solid ethic to practice in life. This is one of the key things that set the UP Honors program apart from other programs across the country. It also stresses a sense of holistic learning, and understanding to what extent things are connected and nowhere near as compartmentalized as the modern education system would have you believe. So, all in all, the Honors Program gives you mojo.

-Conor Eifler, Class of 2011

Lots! The Program gives you a faculty mentor, who will be there to guide and assist you during your first two years. We get free discounted tickets to many cultural events, such as plays, operas, and dance performances. The program helps you become a public intellectual, and gives you a way to interact with others who enjoy being smart. The Honors program helps you reach your full potential.

-Katie Van Dyke, Class of 2013

You get to come to campus a week early, so you know the terrain and how everything works while other new freshmen are still trying out the ropes. Also, you have the opportunity to get to know more people outside of your major, since in most of your classes outside of the Program, the school tried to keep people of the same major together. Not only that, but you also have the opportunity to be a public intellectual, which you could be outside of the Honors Program but is much more difficult. The Honors Program throws pretty awesome activities, too.

-Christine Braun, Class of 2013

Absolutely! The variety of majors present in the Honors Program is part of what makes it such a unique experience — students learn about other majors and the work each student is doing in his or her field.

Honors classes aren't harder, but students say that the professors have a certain expectation of Honors students. Classes require an investment and willingness to participate on the student's part and students are "pushed" more than in most other classes.   Honors courses are much more discussion based.