THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES (founded in 1863) is the oldest and the largest of the undergraduate divisions of Boston College-a private Catholic, Jesuit-sponsored university on the western edge of Boston.
THE HONORS PROGRAM within the College is one of the oldest in the country. It was started in 1958 to challenge superior students to work to the best of their potential, to provide a more integrated approach to the core subjects which all Boston College students are required to take, and to organize these studies historically, in the belief that students should have a solid foundation for the more specialized studies they subsequently do in their majors.
ABOUT 140 STUDENTS enter the Program annually. They generally have combined SAT's in the range of 1450 and are usually in the top 5% of their high-school classes, though we try hard to hunt out the off-beat students who may not score as well but who have several years of Greek or have founded literary journals or worked at interesting jobs or have earned unusual recommendations from their high-school teachers. Superior first-year students are also admitted to the Honors Program as sophomores each year, on the recommendation of instructors in their first-year courses. The total number of A&S students in all four years of the Honors Program is approximately 500. About 100 seniors complete the requirements and graduate with Honors standing each year.
There are also honors programs in the Carroll School of Management, the School of Nursing, and the School of Education. Their requirements differ from those of the A&S Honors Program.
