Calvin offers special opportunities for students of outstanding academic ability throughout their undergraduate education. The Honors Program is intended to provide for the discovery, nurturing, and rewarding of academic excellence, and to prepare outstanding students for leadership in service to the immediate community and the world.
Incoming students are invited to apply for admission to the Honors Program as part of their application to Calvin College. Students accepted into the program will typically have an ACT composite score of 29 or higher (= SAT 1290) or Canadian cumulative marks of 91% or higher. Current students whose cumulative GPA at Calvin is 3.3 or higher are also eligible to participate. Other students may apply to the director by completing the online “Application to Participate in the Honors Program,” available on the Honors Program website.
Students in the Honors Program may register for designated honors courses, contract with a professor to take a regular course for honors credit (for which extra work is required), propose interdisciplinary programs of concentration, and participate in various extracurricular events for honors students. Honors classes generally assume a high level of motivation and initiative on the part of the student and aim at greater depth of learning than a regular class.
To graduate with honors, students must complete at least six honors courses (a minimum of eighteen semester hours with at least two of these courses outside their major), maintain a GPA of at least 3.5, and fulfill any other conditions established by the department in which they major. These departmental requirements are spelled out on the Honors Program website. Regular interim courses with grades of “H” are not counted toward graduation with honors. Students should plan their honors work with their advisors as early as possible. They must also submit an “Application to Graduate with Honors” at the beginning of their final semester.
For further information, contact the director of the Honors Program, B. Berglund (History department), or see the Honors Program website.