English Honors Application

We are interested in learning about your experience as an English student and as a writer, so please take the time to respond as fully and thoughtfully as possible to the questions below. You can either use the spaces provided on this application form, or send in your responses as a separate Microsoft Word or PDF document. You must also supply us with a sample of your critical writing—any essay that you think best shows your skills as a reader of literary texts, films, or other media. Even if you are a creative writing major or plan to write a creative thesis, we ask that the writing sample be a piece of expository or analytic prose, so we can gauge your preparedness for the research-based Honors Seminar.

Submit writing samples to the department, as Microsoft Word or PDF documents, via email to matthew.omelsky@rochester.edu and csmith73@ur.rochester.edu.




List the English courses you have taken at Rochester (or another university, if applicable) with the name of the instructor and the grade you received.
Outside the English department, what is the most stimulating college course you have taken? Why?
Choose a book that you have read recently, one that you had a strong response to—either positive or negative—and describe how and why you think it worked on you as it did.
In what ways would your participation in the English Honors Program serve your intellectual, personal, academic, or professional goals?