Honors Classes: What They Are, How They Compare With AP, and How Colleges View Them
By Rona Aydin
What Are Honors Classes?
Honors classes are sections of a regular subject, such as English 9, Geometry, or Biology, taught at a faster pace and in greater depth. They cover the same course as the regular section, with harder texts, longer assignments, more independent work, and stricter grading.
There is no national definition. Each school or district writes its own honors curriculum and decides who may enroll. An honors class at one school can be harder than an AP class at another, and some schools offer no honors classes at all. That is why colleges ask each high school to describe its own program, a point covered in our guide to the high school profile.
How Are Honors Classes Different From AP and IB?
The difference is who sets the standard. Honors courses are internal to the school. AP and IB courses follow an outside curriculum and are measured by an outside exam.
| Feature | Honors | Advanced Placement | International Baccalaureate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who designs the course | The school or district | College Board | The International Baccalaureate |
| Outside exam | None | AP Exam in May, scored 1 to 5 | IB exams, scored 1 to 7 |
| College credit | None | Possible, depending on the score and the college | Possible, depending on the score and the college |
| Usual grades | 9 to 12, most often 9 and 10 | Mostly 10 to 12 | 11 and 12 for the Diploma Programme |
| Comparable across schools | No | Yes | Yes |
At most schools the two work in sequence. Honors courses in 9th and 10th grade are the preparation for AP or IB courses in 11th and 12th, and they are often a prerequisite for them. Our comparison of AP and IB covers the later choice.
Do Honors Classes Raise a GPA?
At many schools they do, on the weighted GPA. A common arrangement adds half a point for an honors course and a full point for an AP course, so that an A is worth 4.5 or 5.0 instead of 4.0. Each school sets its own scale, and some do not weight at all. The unweighted GPA is not affected.
Colleges know this, and many set the school’s number aside and calculate their own. The University of California publishes its method, which shows how selective the rules can be.
| Rule | What the University of California counts |
|---|---|
| Courses that earn an extra point | AP courses, IB Higher Level and designated Standard Level courses, transferable college courses, and school honors courses that UC has certified |
| Cap | 8 semesters of extra points in total across 10th and 11th grade, with no more than 4 from 10th grade |
| Grades that qualify | A, B, or C; a D or F earns no extra point |
| Applicants from outside California | Extra weight only for AP and IB courses; school-designated honors courses are not weighted |
| Years in the GPA | Courses taken from the summer after 9th grade through the summer after 11th grade |
The lesson reaches beyond California. A weighted GPA is a local number, and what travels is the list of courses and the grades in them. Our guides to weighted and unweighted GPA and the UC GPA calculation explain the arithmetic.
Do They Count as College Credit?
No. An honors course is a high school course, and no college grants credit for it. College credit in high school comes from two routes: a qualifying score on an AP or IB exam, or a dual enrollment course taken through a college. Each college decides which scores and courses it accepts.
How Do Colleges View Honors Classes?
They view them as evidence of how demanding a student’s program was, measured against what the school offers. Admissions readers do not compare a transcript with an ideal list. They ask whether the student took the harder option when one existed, and how the student performed in it. The school counselor answers the same question on the school report, which asks how the applicant’s course load compares with that of other students at the school.
This cuts both ways. A student at a school with few advanced courses is not penalized for their absence. A student at a school with honors sections in every subject who stays in regular classes will be read as having chosen the easier path. Our guide to course rigor describes how that judgment is made.
Is It Better to Take Honors or AP?
Where a school offers both versions of the same course in the same year, the AP or IB version is usually read as more demanding, because it is held to an outside standard. That does not make honors the weaker choice in 9th and 10th grade, when few AP courses are open to students and honors is the top level available.
The harder question is the grade. For Ivy League admission, Oriel Admissions is direct: a student needs the hardest classes the school offers and As in nearly all of them. A schedule of regular courses with perfect grades does not meet that standard, and neither does the hardest schedule with several Bs.
How Does a Student Get Placed?
Placement for 9th grade is usually decided in the spring of 8th grade, which is earlier than most families expect. Schools use some mix of middle school grades, teacher recommendations, standardized test results, and placement tests, and many allow a parent to request a review.
The decision matters because of what follows. Honors English and history in 9th grade lead to the AP courses in those subjects, and honors science and mathematics set the sequence that determines which AP sciences and which level of calculus a student can reach. Our guide to high school math classes shows the sequence. A student placed below ability in 9th grade can usually move up, but it takes a strong first semester and a request to the school.
How Many Honors Classes Should a 9th Grader Take?
For a student aiming at the Ivy League, the answer is every honors class the school offers in the core subjects, with As in nearly all of them. Oriel Admissions gives the same advice for 10th grade, and the load then moves to AP or IB courses in 11th and 12th. The number itself depends on the school, because some offer honors in every subject and some in only two or three.
Two mistakes are common. One is holding back in 9th grade and finding in 11th grade that the prerequisites for AP courses were never met. The other is treating 9th grade as a practice year, when its grades set the foundation of the GPA. Our guide to whether colleges look at freshman year grades explains how 9th grade counts. Our freshman year plan and four year high school plan show how to build the load year by year.
Frequently Asked Questions About Honors Classes
They are more demanding versions of regular courses, taught at a faster pace and in more depth. Each school designs its own, and there is no outside exam.
Usually not, but it depends on the school. AP courses follow a national curriculum and end in an outside exam, while honors courses are set by each school and vary in difficulty.
No. College credit in high school comes from qualifying AP or IB exam scores or from dual enrollment courses, not from honors courses.
At many schools they add weight to the weighted GPA, often half a point. Each school sets its own scale, and colleges often recalculate the GPA with their own rules.
Yes. They look at whether a student took the more demanding courses the school offers and how the student performed in them.
It gives extra grade points only for AP, IB, transferable college courses, and school honors courses it has certified, up to 8 semesters. For applicants from outside California it weights only AP and IB courses.
Schools place students using grades, teacher recommendations, test results, and placement tests. Placement for 9th grade is usually decided in the spring of 8th grade.
For Ivy League admission a student needs both, in the view of Oriel Admissions: the hardest classes the school offers and As in nearly all of them. A regular class with an A does not show that a student can handle demanding work.
Sources: University of California: GPA Requirement, University of California: Subject Requirement (A-G), College Board: AP Students, International Baccalaureate: Diploma Programme
About Oriel Admissions
Oriel Admissions is a Princeton-based college admissions consulting firm advising families nationwide on elite university admissions strategy. Our team brings deep expertise across every dimension of the application, and our distinctive 360 approach develops strategy, positioning, activities, essays, and interviews as one coherent whole. To discuss your family’s admissions strategy, schedule a consultation.
