To qualify for honors option credit in a class, a student must have satisfied the necessary scores on the English or Math Placement Exam, or have achieved the required GPA (3.5), or have been recommended by a professor or the honors coordinator.

An honors option allows a student to receive honors credit for what normally is not an honors-designated course. To do this, the student should approach the professor within the first two weeks of class and ask if he or she may take an honors option for the course. This early identification of the student's seeking honors credit is crucial because the honors option should not be an afterthought; it should be a project that progresses throughout the semester, with the guidance of the professor.

If the professor agrees to work with the student, the student should explain what he or she would like to explore beyond the normal work required for the course. The student should then propose a project that will provide the enrichment that an honors course involves. Professor and student should agree to that project.

The student's honors project may consist of an in-depth experiment in a lab; it may involve additional study of the causes and effects of a war; it may deal with an extended paper on an additional reading assignment of substance. To meet the criteria of an honors option, however, the project should involve several meetings between the professor and student; these meetings should start at the beginning of the semester and continue throughout the term. During these meetings, the professor and student should discuss the specifics of the project and explore that topic beyond what the other students are doing in the course. The honors option should not merely involve a student's reading an additional book and doing a paper on it at the end of the semester.

Once the project has been completed, the student should pick up a blue form—The Honors Option Form—from Robert Brunner's desk, in Room AA252. The student fills out the top of the form, and the instructor fills out the bottom, then signs it. The signature indicates that the student has completed the project satisfactorily. The instructor or the student then returns the form to Mr. Brunner with one week left in the semester. Mr. Brunner will then see that the student receives honors credit for the course. If the form is not returned within this time frame, the student may receive honors credit for the course but not in a timely fashion. This may be important to a student who wishes to transfer to another college or university but whose transcript may not indicate the honors credit the student has earned.