Cook Honors College Admissions
Whitmyre Hall, Room 136
290 Pratt Drive
Indiana, PA 15705
800-487-9122
honors@iup.edu
Why Study in the Cook Honors College?
You’ll do things differently at Cook Honors College. There are no tests in our core classes. This shifts the focus from finding the right answer to asking the right questions. We’ll read together, write together, and exchange ideas in classrooms where experiences are the foundation of genuine self-knowledge. With classes of about 20 students, you’ll evaluate evidence, workshop ideas, and create new understandings of yourself and the world.
You’re guaranteed a scholarship
All Cook Honors College students receive four-year, renewable scholarships. We invest in all of our students and value every student’s contribution to our community.
You can apply for additional funding for development
You'll have the advantage of our Cook Achievement Fund, which helps our students pay for additional learning opportunities such as studying abroad, attending a professional conference, or doing an internship. Students have visited and studied in countries around the world with help from the fund.
You’ll receive support and advising
You’ll get the kind of mentorship that makes all the difference. We think going to college is about more than just earning a degree—it’s about what happens to the whole of you during these four years of your life. We help you work out a four-year plan that makes the most of this time and places you on your own personal path toward your goals.
You’ll enjoy small class sizes
You’ll enjoy the benefits of our selective admissions policy, which limits the number of students in the program (freshman to seniors) to around 400 total. This gives you a big advantage compared to students in other honors college programs that, in some cases, admit more than three times as many students.
You’ll be extra-prepared for life after graduation
You’ll have the kind of scholarly preparation that has helped our alumni go on to study at a long list of graduate schools and law schools, including Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Chicago, and find career success at employers like Alcoa, Bayer, NASA, Chevron, the Cleveland Clinic, and KPMG.
You’ll have access to best-value housing
All Honors College freshmen live together in Wallwork Hall to build friendships and support each other. Whitmyre Hall will be your "home" at IUP, including cozy lounge areas, a kitchen, a music practice room, a game room, a science resource room, and the central Great Hall. You’ll have 24/7 access to Whitmyre regardless of where you live.
Our Typical Student
At its heart, you’ll find the Cook Honors College is a strong, inspiring place because of students like you. Intelligent, dedicated, amazing students choose to come here, year after year, and reject the old-fashioned, stereotypical, stuffy model of higher-level learning for one of openness, scholarly debate, hands-on experiences, service to others, and leading-edge thinking.
It’s not just a matter of welcoming you into “our” community, but rather having you join us as a member of the Cook Honors College family. You and your friends in the CHC build your own dynamic as you come together as a connected, collaborative, accepting group, creating an intellectual climate of your own.
