The Pursuit of Excellence: An Analysis of the Honors College Application and Enrollment Decision for a Large Public University

Abstract

Honors colleges housed in public universities began only in the last half century, but have become nearly ubiquitous over the last 20 years. This paper, using recent data from the oldest stand-alone honors college in the country, is the first to study how the application and enrollment decisions of honors college students differ from the general population of students considering a large public university. Overall, the empirical results suggest that honors college applicants and enrollees are drawn from the right-tail of its host institution’s ability distribution, independent of residency status. Nonetheless, honors-college applicants are still more likely to enroll in selective and liberal arts institutions than the general pool of admits to a large public university, which is only partially offset by the effect of honors-college admission. It follows that honors colleges enroll academically stronger, but not the strongest, admits to a large public university.