Application Process for Incoming Freshmen | Fall 2024
Qualified incoming freshmen will receive an invitation to apply to the Honors College after they have received their official acceptance to Auburn. Invitations are sent on a rolling timeline and are dependent on when a student applies and is accepted to Auburn. Invitations will be given to students who are accepted to Auburn by December 1, 2023.
This invitation is digital and will be sent to your Auburn email address as well as the personal email address listed on your application to Auburn. It will also include information about the Honors College, a link to the application, and the deadline for submission.
In order to be accepted, you must complete the application and submit it. The deadline to apply is January 5, 2024.
The Honors College will send notices of acceptance before March 1, 2024. Accepted students must acknowledge their spot by May 1, 2024 or their spot will be given to someone on our waitlist.
The deadlines are firm, and we will not accept any students after the final acceptance date.
Accepting a spot in the incoming Honors College is not binding and does not commit a student to coming to Auburn; students will still have until the university deadline to decide. Membership in the Honors College has no ties to university-level scholarships. A student can receive top scholarships and choose not to be in the Honors College.
*Note that this timeline is subject to change based on the university’s admissions decisions release dates and calendar*
Honors Housing
If a student is interested in Honors housing, you must acknowledge your spot in the college by March 1, 2024. Space for Honors housing is limited and there is no guarantee that you will be placed in an Honors-specific residence hall. There are only 200 of beds available for students. We strongly suggest that you request and apply for Honors housing as soon as the housing portal opens. Portal open dates and more information can be found on the university’s housing website. The Honors College has no input, or say, in housing and it is the student’s sole responsibility to obtain housing. Students interested in Honors housing must have a roommate who is also a member of the Honors College.
Didn’t receive an email? Check your email account folders …
Please check your spam/junk folders in both the email that was listed on your application to Auburn, and your official Auburn email account. The subject of the email with your invitation to apply is: “Honors College at Auburn University Invitation,” or “A Message from the Honors College at Auburn University.”
Application Information
Honors College applications are reviewed individually and separately from the Auburn admissions application. By meeting the eligibility criteria for both the test score and GPA, you received an invitation to complete the following application. Your admission into the Honors College will be based solely on the quality of the essays. Faculty and staff reviewing the applications will use a standardized rubric in scoring each essay.
The Honors College application essays allow you to address the admissions committee in your own voice. We have a deep interest in knowing why you are considering joining the Honors College, and your essay will let us better see you as a future scholar in our honors community.
The essays will also heavily contribute to the assessment of your ability to write critically and effectively, key skills for success in the honors curriculum.
Keep the following in mind:
- Your essay should closely examine your ideas about your education and about the Auburn Honors College experience.
- Your essay may take creative and intellectual risks, but be sure to address and integrate all elements of the prompt.
- Your essay should give the admissions committee insight into how you think, how you reason, and what you value.
- Be succinct, but make sure you thoroughly address the prompt.
- Proofread your submission. You may want to consider writing your essays in a Word document first so that you can review and revise if necessary.
2024 Essay Prompts
Each applicant must complete two essays. Information on each can be found below.
Essay One
The first essay is a 2-part question, both parts MUST be answered, 550-word limit.
Part One
Amid a complex time shaped by complicated problems and issues, you made the decision to pursue a university education, to engage in a course of study, and to now apply to the Auburn University Honors College. Underpinning these decisions are two simple questions: What matters most to you and why? Please answer these questions and then address how your answer shapes your desire to attend Auburn University as an Honors student in the Honors College. Be as specific as space allows.
Part Two
The Honors College experience can best be encapsulated by our value statements:
ENGAGE: We serve others with compassion.
EXPLORE: We pursue truth with courage and conviction.
ELEVATE: We participate in the creation of a more just world.
EXPERIENCE: We value the diversity of the human experience.
Please tell us which value statement most resonates with you and why?
Essay Two
Choose one (1) of the following 3 options for the second essay, 500-word limit.
- “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” – Albert Einstein. Write about an experience or social/political issue that has piqued your curiosity. What questions has this subject inspired you to answer? What actions have you taken to become more knowledgeable about the subject? What strategies have you used to address answers that you find unsatisfying?
- Sometimes food gains a seasoning of cultural meanings. People who crave hot dogs at a ballpark who might otherwise disdain them. In the 1970s, one company tried to identify its brand with patriotic Americanism using the jingle “Baseball, Hotdogs, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet.” Marcel Proust wrote his seven-volume novel Remembrance of Things Past (the English title) to probe a whole cultural experience and the idea of involuntary memory, for which the emblematic example early in the first volume was a powerful reaction to the taste of a madeleine (a small cake) that called forth a rush of memories from his childhood. Is there a food in your personal experience or in the larger communities of which you are a part that carries important cultural meaning for you or for your networks? Why? What is involved in such a connection? What meaning could you attribute to it that reaches beyond an individual experience? Be bold and speculative in thinking about what that food connection might embody.
- Within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a curious dichotomy separates two power objects. While Mjölnir, the enchanted hammer wielded primarily by Thor, has a magical failsafe that prevents anyone who is not “worthy” from picking it up and being endowed with the power of Thor, the Infinity Stones, whether by themselves or united in the Infinity Gauntlet, only require a user to be able to withstand their power for repeated use. Mjölnir and the Infinity Stones are neither infinitely powerful nor indestructible, and each has seen relatively few characters capable of wielding them. Choose one of these objects and consider, if it existed as a real source of power in the contemporary world, who, in your opinion, could actually use it. Why do you believe the person you’ve selected meets the use requirements? Are there any situations wherein this person would refuse to use this object and its associated power? What are they and why would the user make that choice?
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