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Honors Major

  • The Department offers an honors major for students of outstanding academic promise with an overall GPA of 3.5 or higher.
  • Political Science 381 is a prerequisite for admittance to the honors major.  Typically, PS 381 is offered both Fall and Winter terms.  At the conclusion of the course students apply for admission to the honors major.  
  • Admission decisions will be announced by the end of final exams. Students taking the course before Winter term of their junior year may be admitted provisionally, with final admission contingent on maintaining the required GPA through the end of junior year.   

Applications to the Honors Major will be evaluated on the following criteria:

  • Overall and major GPA,
  • Overall performance in PS 381 (generally in the A range),
  • Quality of the research prospectus (written in PS 381), 
  • Success at obtaining a faculty advisor. 

Honors students elect Political Science 493 and 494 (the Honors Thesis seminars) during their senior year and write a major research paper under the direction of a member of the faculty. Students complete the research paper and defend it in an oral examination at the end of their senior year.  

The application for the 2023-2024 Honors Cohort has closed.

Other Honors

  • The Political Science Department certifies students for membership in affiliated honorary societies.   
  • Students with a 3.3 overall average and 3.5 in Political Science are eligible to join Pi Sigma Alpha (the honorary society in Political Science).

The application to join Pi Sigma Alpha will reopen in early Fall 2024.

Please contact Undergraduate Program Coordinator, Alice Austin, at adodd@umich.edu if you have any questions.