Sandburg’s honors program recognizes exceptional students who go above and beyond. Honors courses are intellectually challenging, allow independent study, and involve considerable interaction among students and instructors. You'll also receive recognition on your transcripts and at commencement. Scholarship opportunities are available.
You must take two honors courses and complete an honors project to be a certified honors program graduate.
ELIGIBILITY
You can apply for the honors program if you meet one of the following criteria:
- Earned a cumulative high school GPA of 3.5 or higher
- Graduated in the top 10% of your high school class
- Scored 25 or higher on the ACT
- Received a combined score of 1,000 on the SAT
- Completed 12 college transfer credits with a minimum 3.25 GPA
- Recommended by Sandburg instructor or counselor
COURSE OPTIONS
Honors courses help you learn and apply diverse concepts while stressing collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. You must take two honors classes from the following choices:
- A class for honors credit
- An honors class
- The honors learning community (usually offered each spring semester)
A learning community combines two different courses often team-taught by faculty who integrate content, assignments and/or themes into both classes. The honors community fulfills the two-course requirement for the honors program.
HONORS PROJECT
The honors project goes above and beyond the rigors of traditional coursework. Although it’s aligned with the topic of the honors class, it challenges you outside the classroom. Examples include:
- Community service (accompanied by an in-depth paper)
- Community activism (accompanied by an in-depth paper)
- A research paper
- A creative project applying course material to career/real-life circumstances
HONORS CERTIFICATE
Upon successful completion, the honors program offers an honors certificate. This award is noted on your transcript, and you’ll be recognized at commencement. The honors certificate requires a minimum 3.0 GPA in both honors classes and a grade of B or better on the honors project.
WIU GENERAL HONORS SCHOLAR
If you complete 12 hours of honors coursework at Sandburg, you may be eligible to transfer into Western Illinois University's Centennial Honors College and graduate as a general honors scholar at WIU.