what is honor essay

Albert Dorman Honors College

Tips for Writing an Honors College Essay

Writing an Honors College Essay (Max. 400 words)

A college essay is a chance for you to tell us what all your records cannot: who you really are, how you think, and how well you write. It is not an invitation to tell a story, write a novel, or write about other people's experiences. The main point of your essay is to tell us what you have to offer and how you will take advantage of what we have to offer .

• Write an essay that addresses the topic specified  on the application form. A general essay about yourself or an experience you had is not acceptable.
• Do not write your essay as if it were a novel. "The baby cried until it had to be comforted by its mother;" "I could not believe as I walked into my first class that this was the beginning of my engineering career." These tell us nothing about yourself. Regardless of what you may have been told in school, write a straightforward descriptive essay that directly addresses the question asked.
• Avoid clichéd, generic, and predictable writing, such as "I want to help people." This is particularly applicable to essays for accelerated program candidates.
• Do not quote our own description of our program. We know what we have to offer; we are interested in knowing what you have to offer and how you will use what we offer . Tell us about your interests and why the Albert Dorman Honors College is the right place for you.

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• Contact us:
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Honors College Essay: Tips, Prompt Examples and How to Write

Writing honors college essay

An honors college essay is an academic paper that students typically complete to establish entrance into an honors college, program, or division. An honors paper seeks to test students’ research skills and focus their analytical abilities on a subject of academic interest. 

Due to the specialized focus of the paper, students benefit from serious attention to the college essay topics, which are vital in developing the essay.

An Honors College essay is unique in terms of its requirements, structure, and background. The purpose of this article is to provide advice on writing and structuring an Honors College essay.

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Which Universities do Ask for Honors College Essay

1. uci (university of california irvine) .

The UCI has two programs, the Academic Honors Program and the Honors Program. Both are popular with many members. They are not mutually exclusive, but they have different requirements and different goals.

The Academic Honors Program is for students who want to get recognized by their professors for academic achievement. It does not require an essay but several letters of recommendation from faculty members.

You should not apply to either program if you are only interested in one or the other because there is no guarantee that either program will accept your application or that you will gain acceptance into either program.

2. VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University)

The applicants must complete the 500-word Essay on Honors. The essay should address the following topics:

• Your interests and goals, especially as they pertain to your intended major(s) and career path(s). How do you feel about being a lifelong learner?
• Your ideas about leadership, including h
• How you would define leadership, what your leadership style is, how you would use your abilities as a leader to positively impact your community in and out of college, and how you would lead if given the opportunity.

3. NJT (New Jersey Institute of Technology)

NJT requires you to write an essay and submit it along with your application.

These honors college essays usually focus on your intellectual interests and experiences, using specific examples to illustrate your points. It’s essential to select an area you are interested in and know about. 

You should also pick something that you can write about easily; it will be evident if you are writing a research paper or other academic work instead of an honors college essay, so don’t try to fake it!

4. Purdue University

Purdue University’s Honors College focuses on scholarship, leadership, research, and engagement by integrating residential and co-curricular learning opportunities with academic classroom experiences.

Your college application essay needs to breathe life into your application. It should capture your genuine personality, explaining who you are beyond a series of grades, test scores, and after-school activities. 

Take a minute and think about the college or university admission officers who will be reading your essay.

5. Stony Brook University

The Stony Brook Honors College provides an exceptional opportunity for students who want to pursue a challenging course of study in the company of talented peers. Your essay should be no longer than three double-spaced pages and should address certain questions.

It is an opportunity to explain an event that took place on any day in history; what would that event be? Discuss why you chose this particular day. Also, as this question, what do you hope to learn/experience by being present?

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How to Write a Good Honors College Essay

Honors college essays follow a formal style with a clear structure. To get your honors college essay, follow these tips:

• Think about the prompt and what you want to say.
• Brainstorm.
• Organize your thoughts into a logical outline.
• Write your introduction.
• End with a conclusion that sums up the main points of your argument and connects those points back to the prompt.

Technically, the honors college essay can be a five-paragraph essay, but it should be more than that.

It should be closer to a 10-paragraph essay, with an introduction and conclusion paragraph that are each about four or five sentences long.

The introduction and conclusion paragraphs should be about the same size. The middle of the essay should be about three paragraphs long, and each of them should be about four to five sentences long.

1. Introduction 

The introduction should have a hook which is a catchy sentence or two that gets the reader interested in reading your essay. Furthermore, it should have an explanation of why you want to go to Honors College: This is usually possible in one sentence. 

Also, there should be a thesis statement. This is usually evident in one sentence at the end of the paragraph. The thesis statement tells the reader what you plan to write about in your essay. For example: “I want to attend honors college because of their strong pre-med program.”

Write the body of your paper using transition words to connect your ideas and explain the connections between them.

The middle paragraphs should include an explanation of why you have chosen your career path and why you are interested. 

3. Conclusion

End with a strong conclusion that ties together everything you discussed within your paper, providing important takeaways for readers as well as leaving them feeling satisfied with what they just read.

Takeaways 

• You are writing an essay, not a text message. In other words, please use complete sentences and correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. If proper English is not your strong suit, enlist someone proficient at it to help edit your essay.
• Be specific about what you want to study and why. Do not just say that you want an education; tell the reader what kind of education you want and why. This is particularly important if you plan to study something that you did not find at your high school. 
• The readers do not expect you to know everything about the field you plan to enter. They expect that you give serious consideration to it and explain why you want to pursue it beyond the fact that “it sounds interesting” or “it pays well.”
• Proofread your essays before sending them in. Errors will distract from whatever else is in those essays and may give us a negative impression of your abilities.

Things to Remember about Honor Essays

The honors essay is one of your best chances to stand out in a meaningful way from other applicants, so be sure to invest time in crafting a great response.

The admission office is looking for the following:

• The office wants to know that you understand what makes the honors program special. We have a diverse group of students and faculty who are passionate about learning and interacting across disciplines.
• What do you think this will mean for you? How will you take advantage of being in an environment that values interdisciplinary thinking?
• Your accomplishments. Let the audience know your talents. Have you excelled academically? What leadership roles have you taken on, or awards have you won? They want to discover what drives your passion for learning, leadership, and service.
• Your plans for the future. The honors program will prepare you for success beyond your skills, whether that’s graduate school or medical school, or a career in a completely different field. 

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Examples of Honors College Essay Topics

• Considering your lifetime goals, explain how your present and future academic activities will assist you in achieving your goals. 
• Settle for an issue of importance to you, whether it is political, personal, local, or international related. Then, craft an essay to explain the significance of that issue to yourself, your community, and your generation. 

When not handling complex essays and academic writing tasks, Josh is busy advising students on how to pass assignments. In spare time, he loves playing football or walking with his dog around the park.

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What Does Honor Mean to You: Fundamentals of Humanity

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Honors Theses

What this handout is about.

Writing a senior honors thesis, or any major research essay, can seem daunting at first. A thesis requires a reflective, multi-stage writing process. This handout will walk you through those stages. It is targeted at students in the humanities and social sciences, since their theses tend to involve more writing than projects in the hard sciences. Yet all thesis writers may find the organizational strategies helpful.

Introduction

What is an honors thesis.

That depends quite a bit on your field of study. However, all honors theses have at least two things in common:

• They are based on students’ original research.
• They take the form of a written manuscript, which presents the findings of that research. In the humanities, theses average 50-75 pages in length and consist of two or more chapters. In the social sciences, the manuscript may be shorter, depending on whether the project involves more quantitative than qualitative research. In the hard sciences, the manuscript may be shorter still, often taking the form of a sophisticated laboratory report.

Who can write an honors thesis?

In general, students who are at the end of their junior year, have an overall 3.2 GPA, and meet their departmental requirements can write a senior thesis. For information about your eligibility, contact:

• UNC Honors Program
• Your departmental administrators of undergraduate studies/honors

Why write an honors thesis?

Satisfy your intellectual curiosity This is the most compelling reason to write a thesis. Whether it’s the short stories of Flannery O’Connor or the challenges of urban poverty, you’ve studied topics in college that really piqued your interest. Now’s your chance to follow your passions, explore further, and contribute some original ideas and research in your field.

Develop transferable skills Whether you choose to stay in your field of study or not, the process of developing and crafting a feasible research project will hone skills that will serve you well in almost any future job. After all, most jobs require some form of problem solving and oral and written communication. Writing an honors thesis requires that you:

• ask smart questions
• acquire the investigative instincts needed to find answers
• navigate libraries, laboratories, archives, databases, and other research venues
• develop the flexibility to redirect your research if your initial plan flops
• master the art of time management
• hone your argumentation skills
• organize a lengthy piece of writing
• polish your oral communication skills by presenting and defending your project to faculty and peers

Work closely with faculty mentors At large research universities like Carolina, you’ve likely taken classes where you barely got to know your instructor. Writing a thesis offers the opportunity to work one-on-one with a with faculty adviser. Such mentors can enrich your intellectual development and later serve as invaluable references for graduate school and employment.

Open windows into future professions An honors thesis will give you a taste of what it’s like to do research in your field. Even if you’re a sociology major, you may not really know what it’s like to be a sociologist. Writing a sociology thesis would open a window into that world. It also might help you decide whether to pursue that field in graduate school or in your future career.

How do you write an honors thesis?

Get an idea of what’s expected.

It’s a good idea to review some of the honors theses other students have submitted to get a sense of what an honors thesis might look like and what kinds of things might be appropriate topics. Look for examples from the previous year in the Carolina Digital Repository. You may also be able to find past theses collected in your major department or at the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Library. Pay special attention to theses written by students who share your major.

Choose a topic

Ideally, you should start thinking about topics early in your junior year, so you can begin your research and writing quickly during your senior year. (Many departments require that you submit a proposal for an honors thesis project during the spring of your junior year.)

How should you choose a topic?

• Read widely in the fields that interest you. Make a habit of browsing professional journals to survey the “hot” areas of research and to familiarize yourself with your field’s stylistic conventions. (You’ll find the most recent issues of the major professional journals in the periodicals reading room on the first floor of Davis Library).
• Set up appointments to talk with faculty in your field. This is a good idea, since you’ll eventually need to select an advisor and a second reader. Faculty also can help you start narrowing down potential topics.
• Look at honors theses from the past. The North Carolina Collection in Wilson Library holds UNC honors theses. To get a sense of the typical scope of a thesis, take a look at a sampling from your field.

What makes a good topic?

• It’s fascinating. Above all, choose something that grips your imagination. If you don’t, the chances are good that you’ll struggle to finish.
• It’s doable. Even if a topic interests you, it won’t work out unless you have access to the materials you need to research it. Also be sure that your topic is narrow enough. Let’s take an example: Say you’re interested in the efforts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and early 1980s. That’s a big topic that probably can’t be adequately covered in a single thesis. You need to find a case study within that larger topic. For example, maybe you’re particularly interested in the states that did not ratify the ERA. Of those states, perhaps you’ll select North Carolina, since you’ll have ready access to local research materials. And maybe you want to focus primarily on the ERA’s opponents. Beyond that, maybe you’re particularly interested in female opponents of the ERA. Now you’ve got a much more manageable topic: Women in North Carolina Who Opposed the ERA in the 1970s and 1980s.
• It contains a question. There’s a big difference between having a topic and having a guiding research question. Taking the above topic, perhaps your main question is: Why did some women in North Carolina oppose the ERA? You will, of course, generate other questions: Who were the most outspoken opponents? White women? Middle-class women? How did they oppose the ERA? Public protests? Legislative petitions? etc. etc. Yet it’s good to start with a guiding question that will focus your research.

Goal-setting and time management

The senior year is an exceptionally busy time for college students. In addition to the usual load of courses and jobs, seniors have the daunting task of applying for jobs and/or graduate school. These demands are angst producing and time consuming If that scenario sounds familiar, don’t panic! Do start strategizing about how to make a time for your thesis. You may need to take a lighter course load or eliminate extracurricular activities. Even if the thesis is the only thing on your plate, you still need to make a systematic schedule for yourself. Most departments require that you take a class that guides you through the honors project, so deadlines likely will be set for you. Still, you should set your own goals for meeting those deadlines. Here are a few suggestions for goal setting and time management:

Start early. Keep in mind that many departments will require that you turn in your thesis sometime in early April, so don’t count on having the entire spring semester to finish your work. Ideally, you’ll start the research process the semester or summer before your senior year so that the writing process can begin early in the fall. Some goal-setting will be done for you if you are taking a required class that guides you through the honors project. But any substantive research project requires a clear timetable.

Set clear goals in making a timetable. Find out the final deadline for turning in your project to your department. Working backwards from that deadline, figure out how much time you can allow for the various stages of production.

Here is a sample timetable. Use it, however, with two caveats in mind:

• The timetable for your thesis might look very different depending on your departmental requirements.
• You may not wish to proceed through these stages in a linear fashion. You may want to revise chapter one before you write chapter two. Or you might want to write your introduction last, not first. This sample is designed simply to help you start thinking about how to customize your own schedule.

Sample timetable

Avoid falling into the trap of procrastination. Once you’ve set goals for yourself, stick to them! For some tips on how to do this, see our handout on procrastination .

Consistent production

It’s a good idea to try to squeeze in a bit of thesis work every day—even if it’s just fifteen minutes of journaling or brainstorming about your topic. Or maybe you’ll spend that fifteen minutes taking notes on a book. The important thing is to accomplish a bit of active production (i.e., putting words on paper) for your thesis every day. That way, you develop good writing habits that will help you keep your project moving forward.

Make yourself accountable to someone other than yourself

Since most of you will be taking a required thesis seminar, you will have deadlines. Yet you might want to form a writing group or enlist a peer reader, some person or people who can help you stick to your goals. Moreover, if your advisor encourages you to work mostly independently, don’t be afraid to ask them to set up periodic meetings at which you’ll turn in installments of your project.

Brainstorming and freewriting

One of the biggest challenges of a lengthy writing project is keeping the creative juices flowing. Here’s where freewriting can help. Try keeping a small notebook handy where you jot down stray ideas that pop into your head. Or schedule time to freewrite. You may find that such exercises “free” you up to articulate your argument and generate new ideas. Here are some questions to stimulate freewriting.

Questions for basic brainstorming at the beginning of your project:

• What do I already know about this topic?
• Why do I care about this topic?
• Why is this topic important to people other than myself
• What more do I want to learn about this topic?
• What is the main question that I am trying to answer?
• Where can I look for additional information?
• Who is my audience and how can I reach them?
• How will my work inform my larger field of study?
• What’s the main goal of my research project?

Questions for reflection throughout your project:

• What’s my main argument? How has it changed since I began the project?
• What’s the most important evidence that I have in support of my “big point”?
• What questions do my sources not answer?
• How does my case study inform or challenge my field writ large?
• Does my project reinforce or contradict noted scholars in my field? How?
• What is the most surprising finding of my research?
• What is the most frustrating part of this project?
• What is the most rewarding part of this project?
• What will be my work’s most important contribution?

Research and note-taking

In conducting research, you will need to find both primary sources (“firsthand” sources that come directly from the period/events/people you are studying) and secondary sources (“secondhand” sources that are filtered through the interpretations of experts in your field.) The nature of your research will vary tremendously, depending on what field you’re in. For some general suggestions on finding sources, consult the UNC Libraries tutorials . Whatever the exact nature of the research you’re conducting, you’ll be taking lots of notes and should reflect critically on how you do that. Too often it’s assumed that the research phase of a project involves very little substantive writing (i.e., writing that involves thinking). We sit down with our research materials and plunder them for basic facts and useful quotations. That mechanical type of information-recording is important. But a more thoughtful type of writing and analytical thinking is also essential at this stage. Some general guidelines for note-taking:

First of all, develop a research system. There are lots of ways to take and organize your notes. Whether you choose to use note cards, computer databases, or notebooks, follow two cardinal rules:

• Make careful distinctions between direct quotations and your paraphrasing! This is critical if you want to be sure to avoid accidentally plagiarizing someone else’s work. For more on this, see our handout on plagiarism .
• Record full citations for each source. Don’t get lazy here! It will be far more difficult to find the proper citation later than to write it down now.

Keeping those rules in mind, here’s a template for the types of information that your note cards/legal pad sheets/computer files should include for each of your sources:

Abbreviated subject heading: Include two or three words to remind you of what this sources is about (this shorthand categorization is essential for the later sorting of your sources).

Complete bibliographic citation:

• author, title, publisher, copyright date, and page numbers for published works
• box and folder numbers and document descriptions for archival sources
• complete web page title, author, address, and date accessed for online sources

Notes on facts, quotations, and arguments: Depending on the type of source you’re using, the content of your notes will vary. If, for example, you’re using US Census data, then you’ll mainly be writing down statistics and numbers. If you’re looking at someone else’s diary, you might jot down a number of quotations that illustrate the subject’s feelings and perspectives. If you’re looking at a secondary source, you’ll want to make note not just of factual information provided by the author but also of their key arguments.

Your interpretation of the source: This is the most important part of note-taking. Don’t just record facts. Go ahead and take a stab at interpreting them. As historians Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff insist, “A note is a thought.” So what do these thoughts entail? Ask yourself questions about the context and significance of each source.

Interpreting the context of a source:

• Who wrote/created the source?
• When, and under what circumstances, was it written/created?
• Why was it written/created? What was the agenda behind the source?
• How was it written/created?
• If using a secondary source: How does it speak to other scholarship in the field?

Interpreting the significance of a source:

• How does this source answer (or complicate) my guiding research questions?
• Does it pose new questions for my project? What are they?
• Does it challenge my fundamental argument? If so, how?
• Given the source’s context, how reliable is it?

You don’t need to answer all of these questions for each source, but you should set a goal of engaging in at least one or two sentences of thoughtful, interpretative writing for each source. If you do so, you’ll make much easier the next task that awaits you: drafting.

The dread of drafting

Why do we often dread drafting? We dread drafting because it requires synthesis, one of the more difficult forms of thinking and interpretation. If you’ve been free-writing and taking thoughtful notes during the research phase of your project, then the drafting should be far less painful. Here are some tips on how to get started:

Sort your “evidence” or research into analytical categories:

• Some people file note cards into categories.
• The technologically-oriented among us take notes using computer database programs that have built-in sorting mechanisms.
• Others cut and paste evidence into detailed outlines on their computer.
• Still others stack books, notes, and photocopies into topically-arranged piles.There is not a single right way, but this step—in some form or fashion—is essential!

If you’ve been forcing yourself to put subject headings on your notes as you go along, you’ll have generated a number of important analytical categories. Now, you need to refine those categories and sort your evidence. Everyone has a different “sorting style.”

Formulate working arguments for your entire thesis and individual chapters. Once you’ve sorted your evidence, you need to spend some time thinking about your project’s “big picture.” You need to be able to answer two questions in specific terms:

• What is the overall argument of my thesis?
• What are the sub-arguments of each chapter and how do they relate to my main argument?

Keep in mind that “working arguments” may change after you start writing. But a senior thesis is big and potentially unwieldy. If you leave this business of argument to chance, you may end up with a tangle of ideas. See our handout on arguments and handout on thesis statements for some general advice on formulating arguments.

Divide your thesis into manageable chunks. The surest road to frustration at this stage is getting obsessed with the big picture. What? Didn’t we just say that you needed to focus on the big picture? Yes, by all means, yes. You do need to focus on the big picture in order to get a conceptual handle on your project, but you also need to break your thesis down into manageable chunks of writing. For example, take a small stack of note cards and flesh them out on paper. Or write through one point on a chapter outline. Those small bits of prose will add up quickly.

Just start! Even if it’s not at the beginning. Are you having trouble writing those first few pages of your chapter? Sometimes the introduction is the toughest place to start. You should have a rough idea of your overall argument before you begin writing one of the main chapters, but you might find it easier to start writing in the middle of a chapter of somewhere other than word one. Grab hold where you evidence is strongest and your ideas are clearest.

Keep up the momentum! Assuming the first draft won’t be your last draft, try to get your thoughts on paper without spending too much time fussing over minor stylistic concerns. At the drafting stage, it’s all about getting those ideas on paper. Once that task is done, you can turn your attention to revising.

Peter Elbow, in Writing With Power, suggests that writing is difficult because it requires two conflicting tasks: creating and criticizing. While these two tasks are intimately intertwined, the drafting stage focuses on creating, while revising requires criticizing. If you leave your revising to the last minute, then you’ve left out a crucial stage of the writing process. See our handout for some general tips on revising . The challenges of revising an honors thesis may include:

Juggling feedback from multiple readers

A senior thesis may mark the first time that you have had to juggle feedback from a wide range of readers:

• your adviser
• a second (and sometimes third) faculty reader
• the professor and students in your honors thesis seminar

You may feel overwhelmed by the prospect of incorporating all this advice. Keep in mind that some advice is better than others. You will probably want to take most seriously the advice of your adviser since they carry the most weight in giving your project a stamp of approval. But sometimes your adviser may give you more advice than you can digest. If so, don’t be afraid to approach them—in a polite and cooperative spirit, of course—and ask for some help in prioritizing that advice. See our handout for some tips on getting and receiving feedback .

Refining your argument

It’s especially easy in writing a lengthy work to lose sight of your main ideas. So spend some time after you’ve drafted to go back and clarify your overall argument and the individual chapter arguments and make sure they match the evidence you present.

Organizing and reorganizing

Again, in writing a 50-75 page thesis, things can get jumbled. You may find it particularly helpful to make a “reverse outline” of each of your chapters. That will help you to see the big sections in your work and move things around so there’s a logical flow of ideas. See our handout on  organization  for more organizational suggestions and tips on making a reverse outline

Plugging in holes in your evidence

It’s unlikely that you anticipated everything you needed to look up before you drafted your thesis. Save some time at the revising stage to plug in the holes in your research. Make sure that you have both primary and secondary evidence to support and contextualize your main ideas.

Saving time for the small stuff

Even though your argument, evidence, and organization are most important, leave plenty of time to polish your prose. At this point, you’ve spent a very long time on your thesis. Don’t let minor blemishes (misspellings and incorrect grammar) distract your readers!

Formatting and final touches

You’re almost done! You’ve researched, drafted, and revised your thesis; now you need to take care of those pesky little formatting matters. An honors thesis should replicate—on a smaller scale—the appearance of a dissertation or master’s thesis. So, you need to include the “trappings” of a formal piece of academic work. For specific questions on formatting matters, check with your department to see if it has a style guide that you should use. For general formatting guidelines, consult the Graduate School’s Guide to Dissertations and Theses . Keeping in mind the caveat that you should always check with your department first about its stylistic guidelines, here’s a brief overview of the final “finishing touches” that you’ll need to put on your honors thesis:

• Honors Thesis
• Name of Department
• University of North Carolina
• These parts of the thesis will vary in format depending on whether your discipline uses MLA, APA, CBE, or Chicago (also known in its shortened version as Turabian) style. Whichever style you’re using, stick to the rules and be consistent. It might be helpful to buy an appropriate style guide. Or consult the UNC LibrariesYear Citations/footnotes and works cited/reference pages  citation tutorial
• In addition, in the bottom left corner, you need to leave space for your adviser and faculty readers to sign their names. For example:

Approved by: _____________________

Adviser: Prof. Jane Doe

• This is not a required component of an honors thesis. However, if you want to thank particular librarians, archivists, interviewees, and advisers, here’s the place to do it. You should include an acknowledgments page if you received a grant from the university or an outside agency that supported your research. It’s a good idea to acknowledge folks who helped you with a major project, but do not feel the need to go overboard with copious and flowery expressions of gratitude. You can—and should—always write additional thank-you notes to people who gave you assistance.
• Formatted much like the table of contents.
• You’ll need to save this until the end, because it needs to reflect your final pagination. Once you’ve made all changes to the body of the thesis, then type up your table of contents with the titles of each section aligned on the left and the page numbers on which those sections begin flush right.
• Each page of your thesis needs a number, although not all page numbers are displayed. All pages that precede the first page of the main text (i.e., your introduction or chapter one) are numbered with small roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, v, etc.). All pages thereafter use Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.).
• Your text should be double spaced (except, in some cases, long excerpts of quoted material), in a 12 point font and a standard font style (e.g., Times New Roman). An honors thesis isn’t the place to experiment with funky fonts—they won’t enhance your work, they’ll only distract your readers.
• In general, leave a one-inch inch margin on all sides. However, for the copy of your thesis that will be bound by the library, you need to leave a 1.25-inch margin on the left.

How do I defend my honors thesis?

Graciously, enthusiastically, and confidently. The term defense is scary and misleading—it conjures up images of a military exercise or an athletic maneuver. An academic defense ideally shouldn’t be a combative scene but a congenial conversation about the work’s merits and weaknesses. That said, the defense probably won’t be like the average conversation that you have with your friends. You’ll be the center of attention. And you may get some challenging questions. Thus, it’s a good idea to spend some time preparing yourself. First of all, you’ll want to prepare 5-10 minutes of opening comments. Here’s a good time to preempt some criticisms by frankly acknowledging what you think your work’s greatest strengths and weaknesses are. Then you may be asked some typical questions:

• What is the main argument of your thesis?
• How does it fit in with the work of Ms. Famous Scholar?
• Have you read the work of Mr. Important Author?

NOTE: Don’t get too flustered if you haven’t! Most scholars have their favorite authors and books and may bring one or more of them up, even if the person or book is only tangentially related to the topic at hand. Should you get this question, answer honestly and simply jot down the title or the author’s name for future reference. No one expects you to have read everything that’s out there.

• Why did you choose this particular case study to explore your topic?
• If you were to expand this project in graduate school, how would you do so?

Should you get some biting criticism of your work, try not to get defensive. Yes, this is a defense, but you’ll probably only fan the flames if you lose your cool. Keep in mind that all academic work has flaws or weaknesses, and you can be sure that your professors have received criticisms of their own work. It’s part of the academic enterprise. Accept criticism graciously and learn from it. If you receive criticism that is unfair, stand up for yourself confidently, but in a good spirit. Above all, try to have fun! A defense is a rare opportunity to have eminent scholars in your field focus on YOU and your ideas and work. And the defense marks the end of a long and arduous journey. You have every right to be proud of your accomplishments!

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Atchity, Kenneth. 1986. A Writer’s Time: A Guide to the Creative Process from Vision Through Revision . New York: W.W. Norton.

Barzun, Jacques, and Henry F. Graff. 2012. The Modern Researcher , 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Elbow, Peter. 1998. Writing With Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process . New York: Oxford University Press.

Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. 2014. “They Say/I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing , 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

Lamott, Anne. 1994. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life . New York: Pantheon.

Lasch, Christopher. 2002. Plain Style: A Guide to Written English. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Turabian, Kate. 2018. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, Dissertations , 9th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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How to Write Winning Essays on Honor

Honor is the quality of having respectability and worthiness that affects the evaluation of an individual. It’s all about having a sense of pride in integrity and responsibility. This means recognizing the power that you have and making sure you are using it well and carefully, not misusing your power. Honor means having respect for you and others. The golden rule that says, “Treat people the way you want to be treated” explains the true meaning of honor. It means that you should think of other people the way you want others to think of you. Speak to people the way you want them to talk to you.

Being able to respect someone who doesn’t respect you makes you the bigger person. People have different ways of dealing with things. Your view on a particular subject may differ from another person’s. Therefore, listen to different thoughts before dismissing someone. It is proof of honor when you show compassion and respect by not judging anyone because you don’t know what they’re thinking or feeling. If someone does you wrong, there is no need of tarnishing their name or spreading lies and rumors about them. You could feel good about it in the short run, but eventually, it will disturb you in future. It’s natural to want to get back and plot revenge on anyone that hurts you or does you wrong. But how will that help the situation? Such people need someone to guide them to the right decision.

Being an honorable person means understanding people. People do things using logic. If you understand what their motives are, you get to understand their actions hence understand them as individuals. Nowadays, people don’t have time for each other. People complain about not having time to:

• get enough hours of sleep, or
• meet up with friends to catch up.

Being a person of honor means creating room and time for others especially if they need you. For you to thrive in life, you should be able to find time to put people first before your needs.

When you think about essays on honor, you should keep in mind that your words matter. Gossiping about people can make people change the way they look at you. It involves betraying confidence and spreading sensitive information about someone.  When people are talking, they like telling stories in a way that’s advantageous to them. You could find them changing certain bits of the story to make it more interesting and more believable. When you meet a gossiper, you have to look at the intentions of the person. Are they doing it to feel superior or just to get attention and have the upper hand in a conversation? Honor means getting yourself from situations or people you know like speaking about others. Or if someone tells you something, there’s no need of spreading it to someone else. The ball can stop at your court.

What to consider when writing essays on honor

Working in a team has its own dynamics. Everyone has their ideas and opinions to share. Egos tend to fly high because everyone thinks their idea should be implemented. Now you being a person of honor should know that just because an idea didn’t come from you, it doesn’t mean that it is a bad one. Giving everyone a chance to share openly in a group means that you respect everyone. And who knows, you actually might learn something new from the team.

Living with honor every day will make people respect you more in society. Telling a lie and getting away with it doesn’t make it right. People have also accepted being lied to. It’s no longer a big deal to tell or hear the truth. As tempting as it is, to tell a small lie, always tell the truth. It will help you in future.

In conclusion, we write custom essays on topics such as the one you have read and term papers , dissertations, and other types of essays. Professional writers write essays from scratch. We guarantee you high-quality papers, plagiarism-free.

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What is Honor?

I. Introduction

Not relegated to our fairy tales only, honor is also found in all of the great stories of history, both told and untold. Men and women of honor speak to the soul; they speak to that which in every living human is real and true. The reason for this is because honor, whatever it is determined to be, is itself honest, good, beautiful, and true. Man honors God, the prophets, and his parents. He honors his promises, his vows, his laws, and his debts. He honors his athletes, scholars, and the myriad other high achievers in our society.

What, then, is honor? What follows below is a look at various ideas of honor through the ages, followed by what honor in its present state means for mankind, and finally a few concluding thoughts. This is, regrettably, only a primer on the issue and is hardly a comprehensive work.

II. Aristotle’s “Great-Soul Man”

Though not immune from academic criticism, the concept of the “Great-Souled Man,” as laid out by Aristotle in his Nichomachean Ethics , is certainly an early rendition of what a man of honor looked like. Many have criticized Aristotle’s conception, which makes it a stellar place to touch down for further investigation into the matter of what makes a man honorable.

In Book IV of the  Ethics , the philosopher gives a very simple account of the conduct and demeanor of a man whose soul is great. Some of these points seem honorable, while others appear to fall into the popular conduct and ideals of the modern age, which is among the most transient of human generations. For instance, Aristotle claims that a man of great soul does not take small risks and will gladly do favors while at the same time shunning a similar show of charity. These characteristics certainly seem honorable enough. However this same Great-Souled Man is apt to show favor to those of high station, as to show favor to those of lesser station is below him. The Great-Souled Man is also he who lives his life as he chooses, as to submit to the will of others would be too closely likened to slavery.

Aristotle thus paints a convoluted picture, at least to modern conception, of the meaning of honor. Despite his great intellectual and philosophical prowess, Aristotle is not infallible in his conclusions. He presents a picture of a figure who is comfortably compared to the modern day aristocrat. Aristotle, having come from a different place and time, may present conclusions that are the product of his age. Might one then assume that honor is relative? I believe that this is a false and dangerous conclusion.

III. Chivalry and Noblesse Oblige

“Chivalry is dead,” so many today suggest, and perhaps those who believe this sentiment are quite right. The chivalric code was the code of conduct for knights of the Middle Ages. To abide by this code, though certainly variable from one group to the next, a knight was expected to protect the poor, the weak, and the defenseless; to serve the good, to seek justice, and to generally be upstanding in his conduct. From this does the most readily identified sense of honor come.  

Perhaps the closest and most relatable and reliable idea of honor comes from that bastion of desire for honor, France. It is from the land of the guillotine and champagne that we receive the concept known in the French tongue as Noblesse Oblige . Translated into English as “Nobility Obligates,” Noblesse Oblige suggests that with wealth, power and prestige come social responsibilities; it is a moral obligation to act with honor, kindliness and generosity. In our modern throw-away culture, it is unsurprising that such a notion should fall out of vogue. Not solitary in the blame, one must also acknowledge that a certain unsettling cynicism has invaded the modern conservative psyche, in which the individual believes either by choice or by force that those who are less well off than they are only so due to their own poor choices, and thus undeserving of the help of those in higher, more privileged positions. To this, we shall return further on.

In a society such as ours, in which the civic onus is placed squarely on the law, it is common for the concept of honor to quickly lose relevance in the shadow of the almighty law. If man has the law, he has no perceivable need for honor or morals or ethics, for it is the law that tells us what is right and wrong. To determine right and wrong in such a way is laziness, and nothing more.

Soviet exile-turned-titan of conservative intellectualism, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, spoke on this very issue while speaking truth to the graduating class of Harvard University in 1978. To wit,

“Western society has given itself the organization best suited to its purposes based… on the letter of the law… Any conflict is solved according to the letter of the law and this is considered to be the supreme solution. If one is right from a legal point of view, nothing more is required. Nobody will mention that one could still not be entirely right, and urge self-restraint, a willingness to renounce such legal rights, sacrifice and selfless risk. It would sound simply absurd… Everybody operates at the extreme limit of those legal frames.”

A lover neither of lawlessness, nor of totalitarianism, Solzhenitsyn nonetheless recognized that an over-dependence on the authority of the law can kill the soul, and the greater the dependence thereupon the quicker the death. Again he states,

“A society with no other scale than the legal one is not quite worthy of man either. A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities. The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relations, there is an atmosphere of moral mediocrity, paralyzing man’s noblest impulses. And it will be simply impossible to stand through the trials of this threatening century with only the support of a legalistic structure.”

Solzhenitsyn speaks of man as if he is not living up to his potential, as if he chooses to limit himself because in so doing he need not worry about stepping out, taking risks, or truly making decisions of consequence. With the authority of the law as the guiding light, man’s mind is made up before he is ever put into a situation requiring him to do these things. How very clean cut; yet in this man’s moral blade becomes blunted and edgeless.

VI. What, Then Is Honor?

After all this, what is honor? I must again defer to Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard Address for a most flawless conclusion. In summing up his thoughts on the West’s over-dependence on the power of the law in the governing of human interaction, he states,

“The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals. It’s time, in the West—It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.”

The defense of “human obligations .” Aye, there is the rub! The very mention of such a phrase may well send many a modern conservative anywhere but where such an abhorrent idea is spoken. After all, in the land of the free, who has authority to speak to his neighbors’ obligations? Man should be free to do as he chooses, as long as no harm comes to others, so the modern philosophy goes. But in so doing is harm not done to others? Stated another way, in his choosing to do as he will are not others being harmed? Every choice of every man’s life will inevitably create a ripple effect. No man is an island; neither are his choices, and if man has proven anything over the annals of history it is that selfishness—known in modern academia and in the modern conservative lexicon by the much cleaner term “self-interest”—factors ever more significantly into his decision-making process. To do the honorable thing, which most often involves a certain degree of sacrifice, is only a viable option if the primary actor profits, but if he does in fact profit, how honorable was his act of so-called honor?

Man, to be honorable, must defend human obligations, and in a society much more focused on the individual and the material than on the spiritual and the good, the honorable option often requires a break from modern ideals. Returning to the conservative notion that those who are in a lower socio-economic position have only their own poor choices to blame, the honorable response and certainly the unpopular one, is, “What difference should that make?” Honor does not pass blind judgment and determine who is worthy of a dignified response. Honor witnesses a human obligation that has gone unfulfilled, and it acts. Leave the punditry to lesser men.

To do the honorable thing is to submit the whole of one’s being to the belief that there is underlying all human life and interaction, and indeed all of existence, a universal sense of right and wrong. Some call it natural law, others objective truth; regardless of its designation, it remains one and the same—an unalterable law by which all men are not only expected to adhere in their dealings with others, but also by which all men may hold a reasonable expectation to be dealt with by others. To seek to live honorably is naught but to satisfy that innate urge felt inside all men and women when presented with a choice between genuine right and wrong.

As the social cancer of moral relativism continues to spread throughout modern society, our collective sense of honor continues to wane. How can one act honorably if the very basic understanding of right and wrong is replaced with a pseudo-philosophy that states right and wrong are only social constructs, relics of a bygone age? I am reminded of a story told to me by my college mentor, a certain Lieutenant-Colonel Armstrong. While in the Iraqi desert during the first Gulf War, he and his company were driving through the flat desert with not a single landmark in any direction as far as the eye could see. After a time, someone noticed something small on the horizon, as if very far off. Whatever it was, surely it was quite large given how far off it appeared, and yet in a matter of seconds they came upon the object—a single oil drum. Without any other object to which it could be compared, there was no measure by which to judge its size.

Such can be said of our present moral compass. If man suggests that there is no objective right and wrong—a most ironic claim given that this is itself an objective statement—and if he lives a life that reflects this indifference to objective goodness and evil, then he has no basis upon which to build a better world, and therefore no grounds for complaint when the world continues to collapse around him.

If honor is worth anything, then its dictates are such that they remain unchanged across the generations. Either that which is considered honorable today would be so considered in the era of knights and kings, or else it is not today, nor was it then, nor will it ever be considered an act of honor.

We must be thankful that relativism is only a shadow, and not an object capable of producing a shadow. We must be joyful that while on the wane, honor is not now, nor ever will it be, dead as long as there are those who desire to live lives of honor. Finally, we must remember that to be honorable, to live according to an objective code of right and wrong will never be an easy path to trod, but in the words of the old gospel tune, “straight is the gate and narrow is the way.”

I will conclude this essay on honor with a quotation from a man who was himself a titan of honor far beyond the reach or understanding of the common man. Let the words that follow serve as an encouragement to those wearied by a world without honor.

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense.” – Sir Winston Churchill Harrow School, 29 Oct., 1941

The Imaginative Conservative  applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider  donating now .

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About the author: jeremy a. kee.

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11 comments.

I hardly think that honor is dead. The fact that it is sneered at by certain segments of academia and the self-proclaimed “Intelligentsia” doesn’t make the concept of honor any less valid than the fact that some people cheat and lie makes the concept of honesty invalid.

Good morning Eric! Thank you for your comment, but it seems that you have misunderstood my conclusion. I don’t believe honor to be dead; rather, I hold it to be such a misunderstood concept that it is simply ignored and forgotten. As I state in my conclusion, it is not something that can be killed, and so long as there are those who insist upon living honorably, it will always be with us. Honor, like any other tradition, is one that must be taught and encouraged in the younger generation, that it may proliferate to proceeding generations. Live long and honorably, my friend.

This is such a load of tripe I don’t know where to begin. I wonder what the author thinks of the laws “Thou shalt not covet” “Thou shalt not steal” and others if he feels a strict adherence to the law is “laziness”. The Bible from ages ago has established the right to private property ownership and individual liberty. The Apostle Peter to Ananias in the NT confirmed this concerning property Ananias sold ” Acts 5:4 Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power?” The NT thus also reinforces the Biblical teaching of individual liberty and private property ownership. I think this article is more of an attack on that than anything else.

There is a reason that greed is not illegal. The Bible does not make it illegal unless or until you steal someone else’s property, then the “laziness” of the LAW is imposed on that individual.

Our system of gov’t, among others things, is to protect the individual and his ability to accumulate the material possessions of this life – (based on Biblical teachings of private property ownership) – with the freedom to dispose of them at his own bidding, and leave his judgment up to God as to whether he has fulfilled his “civic” obligations to the poor, and not government to come in and determine what should be taken and given to those of the gov’t choosing. This is theft. It is our gov’t exercising and fomenting covetousness, and if I’m guilty of laziness for standing up for the LAW of God in this person’s eyes, so be it. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not steal.

You do greatly err.

Good afternoon William! Thank you for your thoughtful reply to my essay. I am sorry that you feel as you do, particularly considering the nature of the essay I am presently writing with the hopes of publication on this fine site. I will leave you with this: if ours were a world in which the government, and the mission thereof, was our highest power, calling, and aspiration, I would see no counter to your argument. This, however, I do not believe to be the case. I hope you will continue to read my work, and to offer your thoughts accordingly.

Beautiful essay.

Thank you very much, Marcia! I went to great pains to craft this essay, and was all in committed when I realized that I was myself none too sure what honor is. This essay, then, is the flow of my thoughts from the question through to conclusion. I hope you will continue to read my work!

A most persuasive essay. The notion of human obligations is what I think separates conservatives from Libertarians. And it is spot on. Thank you.

Thank you, Manny! From the first time I read Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard Address, the term and idea of human obligations has been at the fore of my mind. I absolutely love to have a phrase to apply to this belief that there are certain actions the performance of which all men are held to account. And you are absolutely right. In fact, I would go a little farther by suggesting that human obligations are what separate conservatives – true, traditional conservatives – from all other factions who have a dog in the fight. Thanks for reading, old boy!

Mr Kee You have chosen to work on a very important subject. A book by James Bowman called Honor and Francis Fukyama’s controversial but insightful book End of History both deal with the subject in historical and philosophical depth. I would caution you not to expect that such a deeply traditional notion as honor is going to be considered the same for men and women. It really isnt true that men and women went after dragons. As Chesterton says The dragon threatens the beauty and the Knight slays the dragon and wins the beauty. The dictates protective obligations for men are very diferent than those of women. Women protect children and men protect cities and nations. The public character of male protective duty has always given cowardice by males a very different meaning than a woman running from a brute. Keep up the good studies. DrP

This, I feel, is the central issue of our time. It is so very heartening to see one so young having such insight. I absolutely, however, disagree that this is a conservative attribute. Honor can’t be imposed through the law, nor is it conferred on one who simply obeys the law. Obedience to the law can merely be fear and be devoid of honor. Liberty, on the other hand, can only exist where honor prevails. Our Founders had a sense of honor for the rights of individuals. Conservatives do not respect individuals, but have a collectivist view of society that diminishes individuals. When the law is made to produce a uniformity of behavior, one cannot be certain of the actual morality of individuals. Where laws are held to a minimum, the individual’s honor becomes far more significant.

What a great article

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Ace Your National Honor Society Essay with These Tips

Entering the National Honor Society can be a student's dream and requires devotion, good grades and expanding your interests into social activities, sports, and volunteering in your community. The NHS application is a sumptuous procedure and you'll need to compose an appropriate national honor application essay to get accepted. This essay will generally work as a recapitulation of your academic history, your dreams, and aspirations and your future plans. It is a decisive part of the application and needs to be written super carefully, with flair and method.

In fact, most chapters of NHS require an essay as part of your application for membership. The philosophy behind the essay varies; it might be a broad overview description of your academic achievements so far or work as a response to a specific question set and then insert your personal touch. Difficult as it might sound, the essay is, in fact, an opportunity to develop your full personality and convince the committee that yes, you are worthy of their attention. This means that acing it is a big step towards your goal to be accepted at the NHS, and there are tips to help you in the process.

Understand the philosophy behind the essay

Before even starting to write the essay structure, it is important to fully understand the philosophy behind the essay. In general, the NHS concept is based on four pillars: scholarship, leadership, service, and character. Define the criteria and prepare your thesis to meet them all. Make sure you make some preparatory notes of all your scholarships and grants, activities that would show the leader in you (i.e. captain of the school football team) and list all volunteering work you have done in the past. Remember to explain why volunteering to the specific cause is important to you and makes you passionate in your side notes-you will need them as you proceed writing the essay.

Then tell your personal story-in writing

Your life story is what makes you unique and the NHS appreciates personal journeys that are built with dedication and passion at a young age. Think of the essay as an introduction of who you actually are, where to do aim to go and then try to communicate it efficiently. Building the essay around a general idea will also help you focus; for example, if your passion is getting to college to acquire a Math Ph.D. then focus your writing on jour personal journey with Math in high school-your Grades, extra work assignments, and awards. If animals are your passion, volunteering in an animal's shelter can show your devotion to later become a vet, so work your way around it.

Introduce yourself in a professional yet unique way

Perfection is a matter of balance-and your essay should be an example of both professionalism and flair in equal doses. Don't reinvent your writing style in the process or try to experiment with writing styles that are not you. Be clever yet professional. If you are generally a funny person, add your touch with a funny intro, if your style is more academic, and then keep it simple and clean. What is important is that the style expresses your personality as much as the content and that both assist your final goal-to be accepted in the NHS.

Talk in detail about your grants and scholarship achievements

The NHS aims to include the best of the best and provide them opportunities for the future so you have to convince them you belong to the elite. Again, make a list of your grades, awards, and scholarships. Then structure a big part of your writing around them-but in detail. Speak about the grants or scholarships you won, the Physics award or about being top your class in the first semester-in this process, the more the better. Excelling in activities outside school is also important but keep that separate-your academic life should be your primary focus here. You can also list prestigious classes you attended or name the teachers you have worked with and helped you obtain your top grades-in this section, the more is the better.

Include your non-academic achievements and activities

The next step in composing your essay is to include all your community or volunteer work, your activities and hobbies. Don't just list them-the idea here is to showcase your character traits and full personality. Again, the NHS is focusing on leadership, service, and character so structure them in order to meet those criteria. Where you the captain of a sports team? Did you do volunteering work at your city's animal shelter? Or participated in the theatre group at your school? Write them all down and then describe your character and qualities through them. Creativity, leadership and a collaborative manner within a team all work in your favor so don't be shy to mention your problem-solving qualities or focus on your best moments.

Acing the essay doesn't require you exaggerating on your achievements—the board members are well seasoned and can see past an essay whose focus is to impress. The key here is to be sincere-present your qualities and then mention your flaws. Make note that yes, you do have flaws but you are working to better yourself constantly. This is the kind of devotion that can make your flaws even work in favor of your application if presented correctly. Mentioning, for example, that you are a perfectionist but you are working to leave space for more creativity in what you do cannot do you harm—on the contrary.

Structure it appropriately

Writing a long essay is an arduous task—what makes a great one stand out and grasp the attention of the reader is structure. Decide what the focus of the essay should be and then structure all your information accordingly. The focus can be your love for a specific class or your future aspiration to be a lawyer and what you do to help you get there. Start from academic achievements, then pass to grants and scholarships, then mention your non-academic activities. Double-check you are following the structure in a way that your essay is clear, easy to be read and that communicates your message. This uniqueness will also make you stand out from the crowd and be remembered.

Introduce your paper in a clever and catchy way

Another great tip is to introduce your paper in a clever and catchy way; pick a life incident that you feel is important and then develop the whole essay around it. A trip with the boy scouts, a school incident or you starring at the school play can work well if you find the right angle, the one that will showcase your devotion and wit. You can also write about your experience working with a particular teacher or on a particular project that you loved. The introduction is where you can both catch the attention of the reader and evolve your full essay after it, so be creative. Again, balance is key, so never lose sight you are actually writing a well-structured NHS essay and not the intro of a novel so stay focused throughout your writing.

Write a killer conclusion

You have written all the boring stuff, elaborated on your academic qualities and presented your community work; now it's time to close the essay with a killer conclusion the board will remember. This, in fact, is the part where you can become more creative and show that you are also good at communicating your message so use whatever you feel best represents you. A school incident where you show your values or leadership qualities can work and so can your aspiration to enter college and get the job of your dreams. More of a creative type? This is the place where you can use a famous person's saying that best represents you and elaborate on it-or a moment in your school life that has defined you.

Proofread it, and then again!

Proofreading is key; you just can't convince your readers you are a straight-A student with spelling mistakes, and even the smallest of them can very well ruin an otherwise perfect essay so be focused and double-check everything. Then have a member of your family, your teacher, or a professional editor to check it again for mistakes you can spot by using automatic spell correctors. A crown is different from a crowd but it's hard for the spell checker to spot what you are trying to say, so be extra careful. Make sure the essay flows effortlessly and that you don't exaggerate on promoting yourself—this can be alienating and not work on your favor. Be perfect but be yourself along the way.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 70+ academic honors examples for your college application.

College Admissions

College applications are all about showing off to the admissions committee, and what better way to do so than to lead with your most impressive academic awards.   What are the best academic honors and awards to put on a college application?

In this guide, we give you 7 0+ academic honors examples to give you an idea of what types of achievements colleges like to see most on applications.   In addition, we explain what counts as an academic honor or award, go over different impressive academic honors and awards examples you can get, and give you useful tips for effectively talking about awards on your application.

What Is an Academic Honor or Award?

First things first, what counts as an academic honor or award?

Generally speaking, an academic honor or award is any major achievement you’ve made and been recognized for in some way.   The form of recognition can range from an actual object, such as a trophy or plaque, to prize money, a title, or verbal recognition.

Typically, an academic honor will fall into one of the following categories:

• Distinction, honor, or honorable mention  for which you won’t usually receive a physical object or award—just the title
• A diploma or certificate indicating the completion of a program or recognizing an accomplishment in a program or other activity
• Prize or award won from a contest, competition, or tournament
• Scholarship given in recognition of an outstanding (academic) accomplishment
• Membership in a highly selective and competitive group or society

If you’ve won any awards for specific activities such as a sport you play or a club you’re part of, it’s better to list these in the extracurricular activities section of your application instead of in a separate awards section.

So what are some honors and awards to put on a college application? Up next, we'll take a look at more than 70 academic honors examples.

Academic Honors and Awards Examples

Here, we give you a list of 70+ academic honors and awards examples you could include on your own college application, from prizes won in national and international contests to school-based distinctions and awards.

All the academic honors examples below are grouped by category and listed alphabetically.

Note that this is not an exhaustive list of all academic honors and awards you could possibly have, so if you have an achievement that doesn’t exactly match one of the examples below, don’t worry—you can still put it on your college application!

Advanced Placement (AP) Awards

• AP International Diploma (APID)
• AP Scholar with Distinction
• AP Scholar with Honor
• DoDEA AP Scholar
• International AP Scholar
• National AP Scholar
• State AP Scholar
• IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) Certificate

National Awards

• Governor’s Volunteer Award
• National Student Volunteer Award
• President’s Award for Educational Achievement
• President’s Award for Educational Excellence
• President’s National Service Award

PSAT Awards

• National Hispanic Scholar
• National Merit Commended Student
• National Merit Finalist
• National Merit Scholar
• National Merit Semifinalist
• School-based National Merit Scholarship winner

School-Based Awards

• Foreign language award
• High class rank (e.g., top 10%)
• Honor roll/GPA award
• National Honor Society membership
• Perfect Attendance Award
• School-specific award
• School subject-specific award
• Student of the Month/Term/Year
• Subject-specific Honor Society membership (e.g., Science Honor Society)

Competitions and Contests

• AAN Neuroscience Research Prize
• Academic Decathlon
• Academic Triathlon
• American Regions Mathematics League (ARML)
• B.E.S.T. Robotics Design contest
• Conrad Spirit of Innovation Challenge
• Davidson Fellows Scholarship
• Doodle 4 Google
• Google Science Fair
• Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF)
• International BioGENEius Challenge
• International Chemistry Olympiad
• International Mathematical Olympiad
• International Photography Awards (IPA)
• Kids Philosophy Slam
• Microsoft Imagine Cup
• MIT INSPIRE
• MIT THINK Scholars Program
• National Academic League
• National Academic Quiz Tournament
• National Economics Challenge by CEE
• National Geographic Bee
• National Geographic Student Photo Contest
• National High School Mock Trial Championship
• National Science Bowl
• National Science Olympiad
• PhysicsBowl
• Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS)
• Regional/National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium
• Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
• Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision Awards
• University Interscholastic League (UIL)

Miscellaneous Awards

• Boy Scouts/Eagle Scouts awards
• Employee of the Month
• Girl Scouts awards
• Merit scholarships for college
• Musical performance award
• National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) winner
• National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) winner
• Publications (such as short stories, art pieces, essays, etc.)
• Volunteer award
• Work award or promotion

The Best Honors and Awards to Put on a College Application

Of the dozens of academic honors examples above, which ones will look the most impressive on a college application?  Here, we explain the top four qualities a truly impressive academic honor will have. 

Note that an honor doesn’t need to have all  these qualities, though if it does, then it is definitely an excellent one to put on your application!

#1: It’s Highly Selective

One quality you want to highlight on your application is the selectivity of the award or honor you’ve won.  In other words, the academic award will be one that a lot of students try to win, making it difficult to achieve.

For example, because national and international contests and competitions draw so many student competitors, winning an award like these would certainly impress the admissions committee.

The more selective an academic honor or award is, the more impressive it’ll look on your college application.

Academic Honors Examples of Highly Selective Awards

• Google Science Fair winner

#2: It’s Unique

Admissions committees see a lot of honor roll and National Society honors on college applications (not that these are bad — they’re just fairly common). So if you've won a particularly unique or rare award, definitely include it on your application, as this will  help you stand out from the crowd.

A unique award can be highly selective; it can also be one that is less well known or that highlights something creative, surprising, or impressive about you.

For instance, maybe you won the Most Innovative Employee award at your part-time job after you pitched the idea to create and manage a social media page for the company.

Academic Honors Examples of Unique Awards

• Specific school-based awards (e.g., Most Confident Speaker in Chinese Class)
• Local or community-based awards 

#3: It’s Relevant to Your Academic Interests and Strengths

Another academic award or honor that's  great to include on your college application is one that’s relevant to your academic interests and strengths.  These are typically subject- or field-specific awards, such as English or writing awards, math awards, etc.

For example, if you’re planning to major in engineering, you'd want to detail any awards you might have won in science, math, or engineering contests.

Relevant awards indicate to the admissions committee not only that you’re truly committed to the field you want to study, but also that you’re one of the most promising students in your field.

Academic Honors Examples of Relevant Awards

• Writing award or publication (if you’re an English or creative writing major, for example)
• STEM award (if you’re a STEM major)
• Model UN (if you’re a political science or IR major, for example)

#4: It Highlights Your Leadership Potential

An impressive academic honor or award will also emphasize your leadership potential.  These are typically   awards that involve group or collaborative work.  S o if you ever led others to success — as a captain or president, for instance — this kind of honor would look great to potential colleges.

Just make sure that you explain on your application what kind of role you had and how your leadership specifically led your team to success.

Academic Honors Examples of Leadership/Group Awards

• Volunteer awards
• Girl Scouts or Eagle Scouts awards

How to Talk About Honors on Your College Application: 4 Tips

Since you likely won’t have a lot of room to write about academic honors and awards on your application, it's important that   you present your academic achievements in an effective, impressive way.  Here are some tips on how to talk about the awards you've won.

Tip 1: Open With Your Most Impressive Awards

Admissions officers don’t usually spend a lot of time with each application they get, so you want to make sure that you’re catching their eyes right away by starting with your most impressive honors and awards.  These will generally be awards that are highly competitive and required a lot of work and commitment on your end.

Tip 2: Focus on Your Spike

A "spike" is a particular academic passion you have.   For example, if you’re a science buff who plans to major in chemistry, you'd want to emphasize your spike on your application by focusing primarily on your chemistry- and science-related activities and awards.

Having a spike will ultimately help you stand out from other applicants.  To learn more about how you can develop a spike, check out our guide on how to get into Harvard and the Ivy League .

Tip 3: Describe Awards That Are Vague or Unclear

Not all academic awards and honors are well known or obvious, especially if they’re unique to your school or area. Therefore, m ake sure that you’re using the space you have in the awards section of your application to describe any academic honors that the admissions committee is probably unfamiliar with.

The last thing you want an award to do is confuse admissions officers, so be clear about what it is, how you won it, and what makes it impressive.

Tip 4: Explain the Competitiveness of the Award

For each academic award or honor you’ve won, you want to clarify its level of competitiveness by explaining the scope of the competition.  For example, was the science tournament you won a national one? A local one? A school-based one?

Note that if the award has the word "national" or "international" in it, you shouldn’t have to add much explanation to its description since it'll be obvious that the award is fairly selective.

The overall point here is to show off!

Recap: Honors and Awards to Put on a College Application

As you can see, there's a huge variety in the types of academic honors and awards examples you can put on your college application. The 70+ academic honors examples listed above are just some of the possible honors you could include.

In general, the best academic honors to include on your application will have some or all of the following qualities:

• They’re highly selective/competitive
• They’re unique
• They highlight your academic interests and strengths (your "spike," that is)
• They emphasize your leadership skills/potential

You won’t have a ton of space on your application to explain the academic awards you’ve won, so it’s important to use the room you have wisely. To reiterate, h ere are our four best tips for how to talk about your academic awards and honors on your application:

• Open with your most impressive awards and honors
• Focus on your spike —i.e.,  your biggest academic passion and commitment
• Describe any vague, unclear, or lesser-known awards/honors you've received
• Explain the competitiveness of the award

Now get out there and win some awards!

What’s Next?

Lots of colleges use the Common App . If you're going to be using this platform to apply to college, make sure you know what to expect with the Common App honors section .

Planning to take AP tests in the spring? If you're hoping to snag a distinguished AP award , read our guide to get tips on how you can do this.

Honors can prove that you're a serious and ambitious college applicant.  Check out our expert guide to learn what high school honors is and how you can achieve honors status at your own high school.

Hannah received her MA in Japanese Studies from the University of Michigan and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California. From 2013 to 2015, she taught English in Japan via the JET Program. She is passionate about education, writing, and travel.

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My Understanding Of Honor And Dignity

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• Dignity. Wikipedia. Retrieved March 17, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity
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• Honor. Wikipedia. Retrieved March 17, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honour
• Retrieved March 17, 2019, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dignity
• Retrieved March 17, 2019, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/honor

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11+ Academic Honors Examples for Your College Application

Are you preparing to enter college next year?

It might sound too early, but the fall is actually the perfect time to start working on assembling your application materials! As you begin to look at schools and consider your coursework, it's smart to go ahead and get your accolades in order, too.

Did you know that admissions officers read every application, paying close attention to any academic honors you've received? In addition to your Honor Society membership, there are many others you should be sure to list.

Today, we're sharing 12 examples of academic honors that you may be able to include on your college application. While some might be obvious, others are easier to miss, so let's get started!

The Honor Society

Are you a member of The Honor Society? We're a  nationally recognized society  focused on leadership and academic merit, dedicated to recognizing and rewarding students across the country. From scholarships and career services to networking opportunities and valuable discounts, there are many perks to joining our ranks!

Members are absolutely encouraged to list this distinctive membership on their college applications! We can also help you find Honor cords, tassels, and more to make your graduation truly memorable. 

The College Board allows high school students to take college-level courses and  earn college credit  through its Advanced Placement (AP) program. Every year, the AP Program recognizes a select group of AP Scholars from those who participate.

You can become an AP Scholar by receiving a score of 3 or greater on three or more AP exams. Above this rank, there are other distinctions, including AP Scholar with Honor and AP Scholar With Distinction. 

When you were younger, you might have been able to cash in your honor roll recognition for free ice cream or pizza in town! Now, however, the rewards are much sweeter.

Listing your honor roll participation on your college application reveals your dedication to academic integrity. It proves that, even as you juggled extracurriculars and other duties, you didn't let your studies slip.

Grade Point Average

Your honor roll placement and your grade point average (GPA) go hand-in-hand.

If you've made the A or A/B honor roll, your GPA is likely pretty high! This is a short and simple addition to your honors section that can speak volumes to prospective colleges.

National Merit Scholar

To win National Merit Scholarship, you'll need to take the PSAT by October of your junior year of high school.

If you score around the top 1%, you'll enter the running as a semi-finalist for the scholarship, receiving notification by September of you senior year. From there, you can compete to become a finalist, which requires submitting an application that includes your academic record; a recommendation, and an essay.

If you receive the award, you'll become recognized as a National Merit Scholar, which can definitely give your college application a boost.

The President's Award

There are two different  President's Education Awards  given to elementary, middle and high school students. They include the President's Award for Educational Achievement and the President's Award for Educational Excellence.

The former is awarded to students who have shown remarkable growth and improvement in their studies, while the latter is reserved for those who achieve high academic success in the classroom. Both are to be applauded and can enhance your application.

School Subject Awards

Does your high school recognize certain students for their excellent performance in a given subject? For instance, five of the top graduating seniors might receive an award for excelling in AP math. 

While these awards will vary in name from school to school, they're all equally illustrious and certainly worthy of a spot on your college application!

Class Rank Recognition

Sometimes, an academic honor isn't commemorated by a plaque or medal. Rather, it's simply a number.

Are you one of the top 10 students in your graduating class? What about the top 5% or 10%? Your guidance counselor can let you know your exact class rank so you'll know how to accurately list it.

Attendance Awards

Don't scoff at a Perfect Attendance award or think it doesn't deserve a place on your application. This is an important distinction that shows admissions officers that you've worked hard in high school, possessing a great degree of dedication. 

Of course, one that spans your entire, four-year academic career is the most impressive!

Academic Contest Prize

Did you compete in the Quiz Bowl? What about the National Science Bowl or National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)? From spelling bees to book trivia contests, there are many different kinds of acacemic contests that allow high school students to showcase their knowledge.

If you or your team did well in any of these contests, include your rank in the academic honors section of your application!

Student-of-the-Month Award

Many high schools will award special students who go above and beyond, demonstrating impressive leadership skills, character traits or academic excellence.

Did you receive such an award at any point during your high school career? If so, list it with pride!

Foreign Language Award

Deciding to learn a foreign language is an impressive endeavor at any age, let alone while you're also trying to juggle your high school studies. 

Any foreign language award received is a high honor and one to definitely list. One of the most recognized ones is called  The Seal of Biliteracy , though there are other organizations that also recognize students who graduate knowing more than one language.

List Your Academic Honors With Pride

You've worked hard to earn the academic honors you receive. When you're ready to begin thinking about college, don't forget to remember these recognitions!

Sometimes, achievements that you might not consider particularly noteworthy reveal the depths of your character and commitment. Give this step plenty of thought and you'll be well on your way toward crafting an attention-worthy application!

Looking to add more distinctions to your list?  Join The Honor Society  today and start reaping the benefits!

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Articles you may like

Today, we're sharing 12 examples of academic honors that you may be able to include on your college application. While some might be obvious, others are easier to miss, so let's get started!

Are you a member of The Honor Society? We're a  nationally recognized society  focused on leadership and academic merit, dedicated to recognizing and rewarding students across the country. From scholarships and career services to networking opportunities and valuable discounts, there are many perks to joining our ranks!

Members are absolutely encouraged to list this distinctive membership on their college applications! We can also help you find Honor cords, tassels, and more to make your graduation truly memorable. 

The College Board allows high school students to take college-level courses and  earn college credit  through its Advanced Placement (AP) program. Every year, the AP Program recognizes a select group of AP Scholars from those who participate.

You can become an AP Scholar by receiving a score of 3 or greater on three or more AP exams. Above this rank, there are other distinctions, including AP Scholar with Honor and AP Scholar With Distinction. 

National Merit Scholar

To win National Merit Scholarship, you'll need to take the PSAT by October of your junior year of high school.

If you score around the top 1%, you'll enter the running as a semi-finalist for the scholarship, receiving notification by September of you senior year. From there, you can compete to become a finalist, which requires submitting an application that includes your academic record; a recommendation, and an essay.

There are two different  President's Education Awards  given to elementary, middle and high school students. They include the President's Award for Educational Achievement and the President's Award for Educational Excellence.

Does your high school recognize certain students for their excellent performance in a given subject? For instance, five of the top graduating seniors might receive an award for excelling in AP math. 

Are you one of the top 10 students in your graduating class? What about the top 5% or 10%? Your guidance counselor can let you know your exact class rank so you'll know how to accurately list it.

Don't scoff at a Perfect Attendance award or think it doesn't deserve a place on your application. This is an important distinction that shows admissions officers that you've worked hard in high school, possessing a great degree of dedication. 

Deciding to learn a foreign language is an impressive endeavor at any age, let alone while you're also trying to juggle your high school studies. 

Any foreign language award received is a high honor and one to definitely list. One of the most recognized ones is called  The Seal of Biliteracy , though there are other organizations that also recognize students who graduate knowing more than one language.

You've worked hard to earn the academic honors you receive. When you're ready to begin thinking about college, don't forget to remember these recognitions!

Looking to add more distinctions to your list?  Join The Honor Society  today and start reaping the benefits!

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Essay On Honor: What Does It Mean For You?

It seems that everyone thought even one time in the life what exactly is the honor and what does it mean. In the ancient times, people protected their honor, killed because of it and were afraid to lose it. Of course, you will not find these facts nowadays, but it does not mean, that modern people do not have the honor. Everyone should know what it is and how not to lose it. The answer to these questions you will be able to find in this article.

What does it mean?

The meaning of the word “honor” includes some social aspects. It is connected with the qualities of the person. It is possible to name such qualities like loyalty, justice and generosity, which are included in the meaning of the word “honor”. But what does exactly the honor mean? It is the quality, which the person has and without it the life is impossible.

In the past, the honor was associated not with the inner world of every person, but with the fact of being in the society, some rules of the behavior.

The honor is very close to the honesty . First of all you should not lie to yourself. You need to have some restriction of understanding what you can do and what you cannot do.

What is it for people?

What is the honor? This essay is the popular task, which pupils need to write. If you have any difficulties with the honor definition essay, you can order it here and we will be glad to help you. The children get this task, because it develops their personal qualities and it is possible to discuss this theme a lot. Every child can show his/her own point of view and to understand other children better. Because there is not one simple answer to the question what is the honor.

Some people can say about lords from the different poems if they are speaking about the honor. For other people it is to be calm in different conflict situations. You can choose the most appropriate option for you, because you will be right in all ways.

The honor is the respect and the feeling that you are needed and the possibility to find the solution for the different situations, but at the same time not to broke your own principles. We have this quality when we are born, but it depends only on us if we wish to develop it.

This quality will help us to understand not our own importance, but also the importance of all other people, that live around and which we can see every day in our life. People, which have this quality, respect other people and they cannot afford themselves to be rude or impolite. Also, the honor can give you the confidence in your power and to change your life in the better way. If we estimate ourselves higher, it means, that we will have more opportunities to do something new and useful.

Does every person have the honor?

It seems, that everyone was in the situation, when he felt that he was miserable and no one respected him. People have such quality as honor from the childhood and it is impossible to lose it or forget somewhere. The honor is protected by the law and if someone humiliate your honor, he will be punished.

But in the real time, it is not true, that people think, that no one respects them. They just did something bad and they understand it and because of it, they have these thoughts and it seems for them that all people know the truth and do not respect them.

As a rule, such people do a lot of good actions after that, because it is very hard for them to live with this feeling and people start to respect them again, but you should be very careful, because if you do it very often, you can lose your reputation and it will create you a lot of problems. If you wish to order honor code essay, you can do it right here and our professional writer will do it for you. The result will exceed all your expectations.

7 simple advices

It is not very easy to improve your honor and some people can say, that it can be even complicated, but if you wish and if you are ready for it, you will get the success. It is better to start with the smallest things and to reach your goal.

• You should do something good every day. It does not matter what exactly, the main purpose is, that it should help someone. For example, you can help your old neighbor to bring the heavy bag to the flat or to give the homeless cat to the special organization, give the advice to your friend if you are more experienced in this question. The list of such actions can be very long.
• Start to cooperate with any charity organization.
• You should be really glad for other people if they reach their goals or are successful.
• Just learn to hear people and help them.
• Understand, that all people are equal and have the same rights.
• Be patient to other people.
• You should like all around you. For example, you should like your family , your friends, your country.

Also, there are 3 qualities which you need to forget about forever.

• You should not be angry, because people will not want to speak with you.
• You should not think, that other people have something better than you. It should be the motivation for you to develop yourself to reach the same level of the life as that person has.
• It is impossible to be rude with people and animals. If you are rude, there is no sense to advise something to you.

Of course, there can be a lot of negative qualities in every person, but if you change yourself, this world will be changed in the better way and all people will be happy. You should just follow the advices and you will see, that you will reach your goal.

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