College Honors Programs: What Are We Really Doing for Gifted College Students?

Numerous colleges across the United States have honors programs to attract and cater to gifted and talented students. These programs include first-year experiences, advanced coursework, and special international programs. Students who have benefited from the vari-ous gifted and talented programs in high schools arrive on campus and carry their own unique challenges and developmental hurdles. Issues such as grade anxiety, diversity, identity conflict, and career development affect gifted students uniquely and require support that differs from the resources available for the typical student pop-ulation. This article cites the voids left by these programs and high-lights guidelines along which improvements must be made in order to effectively serve this important student subpopulation. All students possess strengths, weaknesses, and gifts that make them unique. Based on differences in age, race, ethnicity, personality, or geography, students inherently bring different combinations of these characteristics to their educa