Honors Program
The Honors Program at the University of South Carolina Upstate provides an enriching educational opportunity for motivated students committed to academic excellence. The Honors Program provides a unique learning environment that enriches and enhances students' academic careers by offering a curriculum of study designed to prepare them for life-long learning and achievements.
Serving the needs of the best and brightest, the Honors Program is designed to offer students with a challenging curriculum of honors courses, top professors, exciting seminars, student-faculty conversations, extracurricular activities and other honors opportunities. The Honors Program encourages students to grow intellectually, think independently and critically, and engage in a challenging honors learning experience.
Honors Classes
Honors classes are specially designed for honors students to broaden traditional fields of inquiry as well as to deepen knowledge within a particular field of inquiry. Emphasis is placed on small, participatory classes, primary source material, group teaching, interdisciplinary themes, and individualized instruction.
Honors students have the opportunity to enroll in honors seminars, honors colloquia, honors sections of regularly scheduled classes, special honors courses, and independent honors study. Required of all honors students is the First Year Honors Experience or the Honors Colloquium, facilitated seminar courses taught by multiple faculty with interdisciplinary themes.
Admission to the Honors Program
First-year students are invited to participate in the Honors Program based upon review and approval by the Director of the Honors Program and the Honors Faculty Council. A first-year student is eligible if the student meets at least two of the following criteria: a minimum SAT score of 1100; a ranking in the top ten percent of the student's high school graduating class; a cumulative high school grade point average of at least 3.5; a Merit Award Program finalist; a Chancellor or Valedictorian Scholar; evidence of motivation and commitment to academic excellence. An application for admittance to the Honors Program is available in the USC Upstate Admissions Office and at the USC Upstate Honors House.
Other Honors Opportunities
The Honors Program offers honors advising, collaborative research opportunities, and service orientation. A full range of activities open to honors students include faculty research symposia, guest lecturers and speakers, field trips, cultural events, and honors ceremonies. The USC Upstate Honors House is available for honors students to study and socialize.