Last weekend, Houghton hosted its final Honors interview weekend for the academic year. The weekends serve not only as the process of determining which students will be invited to join the Honors programs, but also as a form of advertising to students why they should choose to receive an education from Houghton.
The Houghton College website claims, “We were one of the first colleges to introduce a serious, developmental curriculum for top incoming students, and our honors opportunities remain among the best anywhere.” During Honors interview weekends, the school had the opportunity and challenge to prove itself worthy of the statement.
Director of the Honors Programs and Professor of Philosophy, Benjamin Lipscomb explained while other colleges are increasingly offering Honors programs and interview weekends, “Our process is more rigorous and, from what we hear back, it’s more impressive than what other schools do with their honors interview weekends.” He continued, “We dig a little harder here, press people a little more, and that makes an impression on them. So I keep hoping we can maintain that edge and I think there are certain reasons to hope that we might.”
Different from other schools is the length of time for which Houghton has been working on this process. Lipscomb offered, “I am blessed to be the inheritor of a long tradition going back to the mid 90’s of ‘Sure, let’s’. And there is that Houghton communal spirit; we’re good at this barn raising sort of thing, which it really is. And that enables us to impress our candidates of what we’re able to put on.” According to Lipscomb, to host an Honors weekend it requires “a ton of work to get these files to faculty to read ahead of time, to give up a whole Saturday. Two faculty members looking at each candidate that comes in and engage seriously with the material they supplied. It’s a lot of work and I think if you don’t already have a tradition of faculty working that hard and coming in on their off time, it’s hard to do that.”
One change to this time-honored system, is the recent practice of telling students from the first two weekends of their acceptance as soon as it’s decided, rather than waiting to hear until after decisions are made from all three weekends. When explaining the reasoning behind the decision, Lipscomb said, “Students are making their college decisions earlier and earlier. This is in the Honors pool and outside the Honors pool. People who would have waited until March or April to make these decisions, because of changes in how financial aid processing works.” He added, “And if we can give them something particularly appealing to think about before the end of February…there is a definite admissions strategy to telling them early.” He argued that the physical visit to the campus is “a very appealing part of the pitch to come”.
Anna Schilke ‘19, who will serve as the teaching assistant (TA) for those accepted into next year’s London honors program, recalled her experience from going through the honors weekend interviews, “I remember walking in as a prospective to honors weekend, and it was so cool,”Schilke stated. Even as someone who grew up in the community, she said she found it an impressive display of the college.
She noted “Honors weekend brings together the best of Houghton College, it brings together the faculty and staff, it brings together the student body, it brings together our ability to send students to the world and really make that tangible.”