Honors programs are a terrific way for academically talented students to reap the benefits of a liberal arts education within the context of a large research institution.

To give you a better sense for how this can enrich your college experience, we’ve compiled a list of undergraduate honors programs from top public and private universities across the nation. We've included admission profiles where available, program benefits, whether an extra application is required and a link to each institution's offering for more details.

Click on Continue Reading to see our list of top undergraduate honors programs now.

With the fall 2024-25 application cycle approaching, it's important to keep an eye on interview requirements for the schools on your list—especially if they're looking for evidence of demonstrated interest.  

For example in cases like Hillsdale College where interviews are encouraged and demonstrated interest is very important, it's a good bet that taking advantage of an optional interview — in-person or virtual — is worth your time and may more strongly weigh on your candidacy for admission.

To compile this list, we first surveyed every school in our coverage universe where the latest Common Data Set entry for "level of applicant's interest" was reported as important or very important.  We then identified the schools where interviews are offered, encouraged, or required. 

 The devil is in the details, so to help you figure out your strategy we've also included a link to each listed school's interview policy.  Do keep in mind that interview requirements may often vary by major.   Also note that the Common Data set defines four options—very important, important, considered and not considered—and that inconsistencies are likely to exist in the way colleges define these terms.

This information is current as of 6/26/2024.

College Kickstart subscribers: this information is already available to you in the Summary and Requirements views.

 

Click on Continue Reading for the list.

For those of you who have been waitlisted at one of your top choices, here's our initial update of Class of 2028 waitlist notification dates and status where available.  

To get a sense for what's happening at the macro level, we took a look at recently released Class of 2027 waitlist statistics from 84 private and public institutions.  Our analysis paints the following picture:

• The number of students admitted from the waitlist increased 134 percent year over year from 19,000 for the Class of 2026 to 44,000 for the Class of 2027

• On average, 23 percent of Class of 2027 students accepting a place on a waitlist were admitted, down from 19 percent in for the Class of 2026

• Students admitted from the waitlist accounted for 15 percent of Class of 2027 enrollments, up from 8 percent for the Class of 2026

• 42 percent of the schools sampled admitted 10 percent or less of the students accepting a place on the waitlist for the Class of 2027 (vs. 67 percent for the Class of 2026)

Be sure to bookmark this page as we expect to be updating status over the next several weeks.

Click Continue Reading for the list.

Here's our updated list of reported overall admission rates for the Class of 2028. Results are now available for American University, Amherst College, Auburn, Barnard, Boston College, Boston University, Bowdoin, Brown, Bucknell, BYU, Carleton College, Colby, Colgate, Colorado College, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Elon, Emory, Fairfield, Florida State, Fordham, Franklin & Marshall, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Holy Cross, Howard, Johns Hopkins, Lafayette, Lehigh, Macalester, MIT, Northwestern, Notre Dame, NYU, Oberlin, Rice, Santa Clara University, Swarthmore, Tufts, Tulane, University of Georgia, University of Miami, University of Richmond, University of Southern California, University of Tennessee - Knoxville, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt, Wellesley, Wesleyan, William & Mary, Williams College and Yale.  Latest year application totals are available for many more.

Bookmark this page as we'll update frequently as more institutions report results. 

Click Continue Reading for the list.

 

Boston College announced that it admitted 14.7 percent of applicants to the Class of 2028.  

Overall, 35,475 applications were received

Click here for the article.

 

William & Mary announced that approximately 5,800 students were admitted to the Class of 2028.

A total of 17,787 applications were received this year, resulting in an overall admission rate of 33 percent.   

Click here for the news release.

 

NYU announced today that it admitted 8 percent of applicants to its New York campus to the Class of 2028.  

118,000 applications were received, up 13 percent year over year.

Click here for the article.

 

Georgetown announced recently that it admitted 12 percent of applicants to the Class of 2028.  

A total of 3,226 students were admitted out of 26,170 applicants.  

Click here for the news article.

 

Oberlin College announced recently that it admitted 34 percent of applicants to the Class of 2028.  

A total of 9,699 applications were received. 

Click here for the article.

 

Carleton College announced recently that it admitted 17.9 percent of applicants to the Class of 2028.  

A total of 1,405 students were admitted from a pool of 7,869 applicants.  Applications were up 22 percent from the previous year.

Click here for the article.

 

Here's our updated list of regular decision notification dates for the Class of 2028.  As many of you know, schools often post results in advance of their "official" notification dates, so we've compiled the most recently updated dates for you here, along with the notification dates from last year.  Bookmark this site, as we'll post updates often.

Good luck, seniors!

Emory University announced today it admitted 5,058 applicants to the Class of 2028.

A total of 34,914 applications were received, resulting in an admssion rate of 14 percent.

A total of 3,453 were offered admission to Emory College and 2,792 were offered admission to Oxford College.  1,187 were accepted to both.

Click here for the news release.

 

Northwestern University admitted 7.5 percent of applicants to the Class of 2028.  

Over 5,0000 first-year applications were received. 

Click here for the article.

 

Dartmouth announced today that it accepted 1,685 applicants to the Class of 2028.  

Applications totaled 31,657 for the year, resulting in an overall acceptance rate of 5.3 percent.

Click here for the news release.

 

Rice University announced today that it admitted 7.5 percent of applicants to the Class of 2028.  

A total of 2,439 students were accepted from a pool of 32,459 applicants.  

Click here for the news release.