Unless otherwise specified, the following policies apply to all students in the Honors Program.
You can also view or download a printable summary of these requirements:
In order to remain in good standing in the Honors Program, students must demonstrate that they are participating regularly in Honors coursework and earning Honors credits.
Students who complete 24 hours of Honors credit are exempt from further participation requirements.
Students must earn a grade of "C" or better in order to receive Honors credit. This includes both Honors courses and courses in which a student completes an In-Course Honors Project. Students should not to complete Honors work in a class being taken under the Credit/No Credit option.
If a student completes more than 3 hours of Honors coursework in a semester, the extra hours may be "banked" and used to fulfill the requirements for future semesters. Honors coursework completed in the summer may also be used in future semesters.
Effective Fall 2010, students who earned Honors credit at Illinois State prior to being admitted to the Honors Program may consider those hours to be banked. However, these banked hours, earned prior to admission, may not be used until at least a student's second semester in the program.
Education majors:
Students are only exempt from the participation requirement the semester they are registered for Student Teaching (STT 399.xx). The first semester of the PDS program or field-based semesters are not the same as student teaching and are not exemptions to the participation requirement. Plan ahead to bank hours for PDS or field-based semesters, or complete an In-Course Honors Project.
BS/MPA Accounting majors:
Once students in the BS/MPA program are classified as graduate students, they are no longer required to complete Honors coursework unless they are choosing to earn an Honors designation and have not yet completed the requirements. Students are still required to have a minimum cumulative undergraduate GPA of 3.3 to remain in good standing in the Honors Program. Some Honors graduation designations require a higher GPA.
Other exceptions to the participation requirement are made for students who will be involved in study abroad, National Student Exchange, full-time internships, or co-op experiences. Exceptions beyond these are rare and are made on a case-by-case basis by the Honors Program staff.
Honors students are required to maintain a 3.3 cumulative GPA. Students whose cumulative GPA falls between 3.0 and 3.29 will be assigned Honors probationary status, which allows them time to raise their GPA while continuing to enjoy the benefits of the Honors Program.
Students whose cumulative GPA falls below 3.0 are dropped from the Honors Program. An exception is allowed for first semester freshmen, who will be assigned probationary status with a GPA between 2.7 and 3.29.
Freshmen students on Honors Probation must earn a 3.3 GPA each semester they are on probation. They must achieve a 3.3 cumulative GPA by the end of their fourth semester in order to remain in the Honors Program.
All other students on probation will have two semesters to attain a 3.3 cumulative GPA. To remain on probation during those two semesters, students must achieve at least a 3.3 semester GPA. Students who do not meet the minimum probationary GPA requirements or who fail to raise their cumulative GPA within the designated two semesters will be dropped from the Honors Program.
Exceptions for students other than first semester freshmen are made on a case-by case basis by the Honors Program staff.
*Note: Summer term is not a semester. Students are not placed on probation at the end of summer term, nor are they removed from probation. Students who believe an exception should be made can petition the Honors Program.
Students who do not complete 3 hours of Honors coursework and do not have banked hours will be put on suspension for the following semester. During the suspension semester, students lose the privilege of early registration. In order to be removed from suspension, students must complete 3 hours of Honors work. Students do not have to make up the hours from the previous semester.
There is only one suspension semester. If students fail to complete Honors work in a future semester, they are dropped from the Honors Program and are not eligible to reapply.
Students who have been dropped from the Honors Program as a result of not meeting grade point average requirements are eligible to reapply after their cumulative GPA has surpassed the required 3.3 minimum. Students who are successfully readmitted typically have been out of the program for two or more semesters and have shown strong semester GPAs, leading to steady improvement of the cumulative GPA.
