Application Information
Admission to the Honors College is competitive for first-year, transfer, and current student applicants. Simply meeting the academic invitation criteria will not guarantee admission. When crafting each class, the Honors College considers program space and applicants’ fit. Selection criteria may include but are not limited to overall fit within the Honors College to create a well-rounded class, content and quality of the Honors essays, academic achievement, academic program of study, and extracurricular, employment, or leadership activities.
Honors Application Activities and Involvement
Applicants are asked to highlight their involvement in up to four extracurricular, employment, service, or leadership activities. We encourage applicants to select activities demonstrating a depth of involvement, highlighting their contributions to the organization, or connecting the activity to their academic or professional goals.
Honors Application Essays
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 essays will let us better see you as a future scholar in our community. The essays will also indicate your ability to write critically and effectively, which are key skills for success in the Honors curriculum.
Keep the following in mind:
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Exceptional responses will go above and beyond answering the prompt. They may include and reflect on personal experiences to support the applicant’s desire for Honors membership and demonstrate a researched understanding of the Honors College benefits, values, or program outcomes.
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Your essay should closely examine your ideas about your education and the Auburn Honors College experience.
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Your essay may take creative and intellectual risks but should address and integrate all prompt elements.
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Your essay should give the admissions committee insight into how you think, how you reason, and what you value.
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Be succinct, but make sure you thoroughly address the prompt.
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Proofread your submission. You may want to consider drafting your essays in a Word document first so that you can review and revise if necessary.
2025-2026 Essay Prompts
(completed by all applicants, 600-word limit)
Reflect on your educational goals, values and philosophy. What experiences or accomplishments have shaped your goals and values? What principles guide your learning, and how do you envision your college experience as a continuation of this intellectual and personal growth? In your response, consider how you plan to engage with academic opportunities and pursue meaningful challenges offered by the Honors College. Discuss how the Honors experience could support or enhance these aspirations.
(applicants will select one prompt, 600-word limit)
Prompt A: Tell us who you are, and who you want to become, by describing in detail a material object belonging to you or to someone in your family.
Prompt B: The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi famously used the word “flow” to describe a state of deep immersion in a task or activity, in which “The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.” Describe an activity that can put you into a flow state. What is that experience like, and how does that experience match with your educational plans?
Prompt C: Each year, the Honors College selects a quote to exhort the incoming cohort to aspire to the ideals of the College. In 2024, the quotation was from the seventeenth-century mathematician and philosopher René Descartes: “It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.” What quotation would you propose the Honors College adopt for the incoming honors cohort of 2026, and why? What does this choice tell us about you, your interests and your life goals?
