Honors vs general degree Forum

[CoolHouse]

At my school we have the option of doing an honors BA, or a regular BA. The honors BA takes 4 years to complete, and the regular BA takes 3 years to complete. Would there be any significant difference in chances of being accepted to T14 schools, if the 3 year regular BA was taken, as opposed to the 4 year honors BA?

[Mikey]

Won't be anything really. GPA is all that counts from undergrad. It might be a soft factor, at best IF it's even considered anything.

That's interesting though. A regular BA is 3 years at your school? What country are you in? U.S colleges require 4 years for a regular BA or BS..

[CoolHouse]

Won't be anything really. GPA is all that counts from undergrad. It might be a soft factor, at best IF it's even considered anything.

That's interesting though. A regular BA is 3 years at your school? What country are you in? U.S colleges require 4 years for a regular BA or BS..

I'm in Canada and I think it is specific to the school I'm in though. I don't know if other Canadian schools have three year BA degrees.

[mjb447]

Won't be anything really. GPA is all that counts from undergrad. It might be a soft factor, at best IF it's even considered anything.

That's interesting though. A regular BA is 3 years at your school? What country are you in? U.S colleges require 4 years for a regular BA or BS..

I bet you could also find a more interesting soft during what would have been your fourth year.

[youngwarrior]

Won't be anything really. GPA is all that counts from undergrad. It might be a soft factor, at best IF it's even considered anything.

That's interesting though. A regular BA is 3 years at your school? What country are you in? U.S colleges require 4 years for a regular BA or BS..

I'm in Canada and I think it is specific to the school I'm in though. I don't know if other Canadian schools have three year BA degrees.

I'm also Canadian, many schools do have regular 3 year BA's. An acquaintance of mine got a regular 3 year B.A from McGill and got into YLS last year, it shouldn't make a difference either way, pretty sure all schools care about is your grades.

[tk421991]

At my school we have the option of doing an honors BA, or a regular BA. The honors BA takes 4 years to complete, and the regular BA takes 3 years to complete. Would there be any significant difference in chances of being accepted to T14 schools, if the 3 year regular BA was taken, as opposed to the 4 year honors BA?

An extra year would give you the opportunity to do some nice things, especially if you're in an honors program. You could:

Boost your GPA with more solid grades, or maintain a 4.0
Take more time to study for the LSAT, as long as you're in a good environment to do so
Get involved in a student group or some sort of volunteer work (politics, working with homeless, so on and so forth)
Simply do things you're proud of in life, like academic accomplishments

I say this however with a caveat - an extra year is fine as long as you can afford it and it won't be a significant burden to yourself and your family. If it is, I would just get everything done in 3 years as well as possible.