Honors/Awards

[Elliephant]

Hey everyone,

 

I need some advice on what to put in the "honors" section of one of my applications. The online app asks me to "List all honors, financial assistance, awards, fellowships, scholarships and assistantships received." I'm an international student and universities in my country don't really hand out any honors or awards etc to anyone (unless my acceptance to a competitive study abroad program counts?). So what do I put here? This is what I can think of:

• I was on the Dean's Honors List at a Big Name US university (2 of 3 quarters)
• I was on the Honor Roll at a community college (5 of 5 semesters)
• Treasurer of an honor society (cc)
• Honors program (cc)
• Two small scholarships ($250–$450) (cc)--I should mention I am kind of proud of these as very few international students received scholarships at this college

I also held several paid teaching assistant/reader/tutor positions at the cc, but I assume those don't count as honors even though the instructions mention assistantships.

 

Also, it's been a while since I attended the cc (4-5 years), so it feels strange to have a big gap in my list of honors.

 

ALSO, if I want to list more than 3 awards, I have to send them in an e-mail because there's only room for 3 in the online app. Is it worth sending any of the above in an e-mail or are they not significant enough? They're on my CV anyway.

 

Thanks in advance!

[juilletmercredi]

I don't think any of these are significant enough to list in a separate email, so I would just pick the top 3 and list those.  I would select the dean's list at your university (since it's more recent) and the scholarships - or maybe one of the scholarships and the honors program + dean's list.  You can notate the honors program elsewhere (presumably it's on your CV), and honor roll is kind of implied by your GPA - plus it's relatively meaningless across schools (the requirements for honor roll at one college might be lower than that of another college).

 

You can include a very brief notation about the competitive nature of the scholarships if people are unfamiliar (e.g. Fancy Pants Scholarship ($250) - awarded to the top 5 students in the country) AND if the scholarships are very competitive.  BUT if it's simply that international students don't get the scholarship that often at your college, I don't know that I would mention that.

[Elliephant]

Great input. Thanks!