2013 Honors Essay Prompts

We have closed applications for the Honors Program for Fall 2013.

If you applied between March 29 - April 15, we will respond via email no later than May 1. If you applied after April 15, we will respond via email, however it may be after May 1.

The LSA Honors Program is community of individuals who are interested in ideas, discovery, and intellectual and cultural exchange. We seek academically talented students who want to be part of such a community. To help us determine whether you might thrive in the Honors community, you will respond to one of the posted prompts.

In this process, individuals complete an essay of 500-1000 (but not more than 1000 words).  You will put your name along with UM ID number at the top of your essay, indicating the prompt to which you responded. (You will save your essay as a pdf, and name the file with your last name, first name, and UMID: “doe,tammy13131313.pdf.”)

As Examples: Essay Prompts for the Fall 2013 Freshman Class

  • “This must be Thursday," said Arthur. "I could never get the hang of Thursdays.” How do you get the hang of Thursdays? 
  • Why is there air?                 
  • Lost in Translation. It’s been a lament of many people, a concern of scholars the world over, even the title of a movie. Elaborate on an example from your own life when you lost something in translation.
  • In the second century BC, Terence said in Eunuchus, “In fact, nothing is said that has not been said before”. What do you have to say?
  • Describe an American innovation that would convey some sense of our nation’s distinctiveness in the world.1

1. See Delbanco, Andrew. 2012. College: What it was, is and should be. Princeton University Press, pg. 1.