First, visit the University Honors Program Admissions page to review admissions requirements and deadlines.

Second, determine if you have the appropriate cumulative GPA and determine your class status.

• Rising sophomores must have three years remaining in their program of study, at least 24 credits/two semesters, and a cumulative GPA of 3.40 or higher.
• Rising juniors must have two years remaining in their program of study, at least 54 credits/four semesters, a cumulative GPA of 3.40 or higher, AND a GPA of 3.5 or higher in political science or closely related classes (based on a minimum of four classes)
• Current juniors must have more than one year remaining in their program of study, at least 54 credits/four semesters, a cumulative GPA of 3.40 or higher, AND a GPA of 3.5 or higher in political science or closely related classes (based on a minimum of four classes). They should also sign up for and complete honors classes in political science in the semester that they are applying for the honors program in order to complete all necessary classes before graduation. You should also make an appointment with the POLS honors program director to ensure that you can finish all the requirements before you start your application.

Next, apply to the program using the following guidelines:

• Rising sophomore should apply directly to the University Honors Program. Forms are available on their website. You do not need to fill out a Preliminary Plan of Study with consent from the POLS honors program director, nor are you required to contact the POLS honors program director about your application.
• Rising or current junior  must fill out a Preliminary Plan of Study, contact the honors program director, and submit application materials to and obtain consent from the honors program director prior to submitting your application to the UConn Honors Program. Application forms are at the UConn Honors Program website; follow their application directions but add these additional elements or steps:
  • Essay A and B — Include in the essays why you chose political science as a major, why you want to pursue an honors in it, and emphasize extracurricular activities that relate to political science.
  • Faculty Evaluation Form – Ask your faculty evaluator to make two copies of the evaluation; send one copy to the POLS honors program director and the other to the UConn Honors Program. Alternatively, the evaluator can scan the evaluation and send it to the POLS honors program director electronically.
  • Preliminary Plan of Study – Email the POLS honors program director for assistance in filling out this form. You will need the director’s signature on this form before you can submit your application materials to the UConn Honors Program.
  • Submit Application to Honors Program Director — When all your application materials are ready (including the application cover letter and unofficial transcript), contact the POLS honors program director for review and signature. During the regular academic year, expect to meet in-person with the director for application review/consent. Outside the regular academic year, application review/consent may take place electronically. Please give yourself sufficient time to prepare these materials and consult with the director, particularly when application deadlines fall outside the regular academic year.
  • Submit Application to University Honors Program — After you have obtained consent from the POLS honors program director, submit your entire application to the UConn Honors Program.

If you have any questions about the application process or qualifications, please contact the POLS honors program director. Students interested in applying to the honors program should arrange an appointment with the POLS honors program director to review requirements and expectations before preparing any application materials or requesting any recommendations.

Non-Majors already in Honors: If you have been admitted to the UConn Honors Program but have not declared political science as your major, you will need to contact the political science advising office to complete a form to declare your major. You will then be assigned a POLS honors advisor. The advising office is located in Oak Hall 409B, (860) 486-3165.

The Department of Political Science follows all UConn Honors Program requirements for graduation as an Honors Scholar in the Major. The UConn Honors Program has the following requirements:

• Complete a minimum of 12 credits of upper-division honors coursework in the major, with no grade lower than a “B-”,
• Complete an additional 3 honors credits wither in the major or in a related field; these credits can be at any level,
• Complete and submit a senior thesis to the Honors Program office (which is usually part of the 12 credits) that meets departmental standards for creativity and rigor,
• Earn a Total GPA of at least 3.4 by graduation
• Complete the Engagement in the Major Field requirement in consultation with your major advisor
• Meet any specific and/or additional departmental honors requirements

In order to meet University requirements as a political science major, you must complete the 12 upper-division honors credits (four POLS courses), the additional three honors credit hours, and meet the senior thesis/graduation requirement and the engagement in the major requirement. Because our thesis process is 6 credits long and we want to ensure that your honors education has substantial political science emphasis, all 15 honors credits must be in POLS classes unless exigent circumstances exist. Exceptions must be approved by the department’s honors program director.

The senior thesis/graduation requirement satisfies six of the 15 upper-level honors credits in the major (two of the five courses). The requirement involves a two-semester commitment during your senior year which can be met in one of two ways. You can either write a thesis by taking a two-semester course sequence of POLS 4997W/H & POLS 4994 in the fall and POLS 4997W/H in the spring. Or you can take two POLS graduate-level courses, one in the fall and another in the spring, write a research paper for each, and submit those papers to the honors program director Professor Singer for approval in lieu of a traditional thesis. Both options require POLS honors program director’s approval and the graduate course option requires permission from the course instructors.

POLS 4997W, POLS 4994, and graduate-level courses can be counted on the major plan of study in Section C — the non-distribution part of the major requirements. POLS 4997W can be used to satisfy the writing in the major requirements. POLS 4994 counts as POLS credit and is required as part of the thesis sequence, but students do not receive honors credit for it. Additional information on the thesis/graduation options are provided below.

POLS 4984 is now a required prerequisite for POLS 4997 and should be completed in the spring of your sophomore or junior year. This course is a one credit S/U graded seminar where students attend and write about weekly research presentations by faculty members and learn about the research process. This course is taught only in the spring semester so students should plan ahead.

The remaining nine upper-level honors credits required in the major must be satisfied outside the thesis/graduation process. Students may do so by enrolling in honors sections, completing honors conversions, taking graduate courses, or any combination of these three. For additional information on these options, see below.

Graduate courses that count toward the honors degree may not be used toward a graduate degree.

Students entering UConn in fall 2018 or later are also required to complete the Engagement in the Major Field Requirement. Most students do this by participating in the Research Excellence in Political Science (REPS) poster session in the spring of their senior year after completing their thesis. For more information, please consult with your major advisor.

Students can earn honors credits in political science by enrolling in sections designated as honors sections, converting a non-honors class to an honors class, or completing a graduate seminar. Students must earn at least a B- in the class in order to earn honors credit.

The Department of Political Science makes an effort to offer honors sections or courses at the 1000 level each year and honors-designated courses at the 2000 or higher level each semester. A listing of honors-designated courses by major is provided by the UConn Honors program during course registration. Students enrolled in a designated honors section or a graduate-level course do not need to complete a conversion form as these automatically count as honors credit.

For conversions, students should contact individual professors at the start of the semester to discuss whether they are open to allowing a conversion of a class for honors credit and their expectations for a conversion. POLS faculty are usually open to helping individual students or groups of students convert a class, although faculty are not obligated to agree to a conversion. Whenever possible, students should seek to convert classes with members of the full-time faculty rather than graduate students or adjunct professors. Once a student has arranged an honors conversion with an individual instructor, the student needs to complete an online honors conversion form. Please see the UConn Honors Program website for instructions and forms.

Study Abroad and Conversions

Using the conversion option, it is possible to obtain POLS honors credit for a relevant study abroad course not already designated as honors credit. It requires advanced preparation on the part of the student and approval from the POLS honors program director who must approve the course as appropriate for UConn POLS honors credit.

Students who wish to pursue this option must decide which study abroad course(s) would be appropriate for conversion and discuss a conversion project with the course instructor and POLS honors program director. Students should make an effort to contact (via email) the course instructor and the POLS honors program director prior to the start of class, though this is not always possible.

Once the course instructor and POLS honors program director agree to the conversion, the student must complete the online honors conversion form available at the UConn Honors Program website. The POLS honors program director is considered the instructor of record for the conversion project and would consult with the course instructor on site to confirm its successful completion.

An alternative, but less common, method for obtaining POLS honors credit while studying abroad is to work under the supervision of one of the POLS honors advisors from a distance to complete a conversion project for a study abroad course taken while abroad. This option is typically only available in POLS when the research projects of an honors advisor and a student coincide. The POLS honors advisors are not obligated to provide such supervision or approval.

The better option for students planning to study abroad is to plan ahead and to do two honors courses in the semester of the academic year that they are not planning on studying abroad to ensure that the student does not violate the Honors Program’s requirement of completing two honors courses every year to maintain enrollment in the program.

Students might also consider the Honors Congressional Internship Program as a study abroad (in Washington, D.C.) experience. See the Honors Program website for information, application materials, and timelines. Questions should be directed to the UConn Honors Program.

Both options give you six POLS honors credits. The thesis option provides an additional three POLS (but not honors) credit and it takes care of your W in the major. Both options require permission numbers from the respective instructor(s). Both options are, in different ways, academically rigorous and demanding but also rewarding and worthwhile.

Thesis Option

A thesis involves the research and writing of a lengthy paper in which you develop an original argument within the context of the scholarly literature about your topic. You will learn how to correctly conduct social scientific research, collect data appropriate to your topic, develop a literature review and research design, and write drafts of your thesis during your senior year. There is no set page limit for a thesis; a thesis can range from 40 to 100 pages depending on the topic, argument, research design, and preferences of your thesis advisor.

To pursue the thesis option, you will need to find a thesis advisor and determine a general topic no later than the second semester of your junior year. The POLS honors program director serves as your second thesis advisor and instructor for the thesis courses you will take in your senior year. You will write a first draft of the thesis by December, a final draft by the end of March, and in April you will orally defend your thesis before your advisor and the POLS honors program director.

You will be expected to attend the Thesis Workshop Dinner in the spring of your junior year, develop a working annotated bibliography for your thesis over the summer between your junior and senior years, attend the annual POLS honors professional conference field trip in the Fall, and participate in the Spring Frontiers of Undergraduate Research.

POLS 4984 is now a required prerequisite for POLS 4997 and should be completed in the spring of your junior or sophomore year. This course is a one credit S/U graded seminar where students attend and write about weekly research presentations by faculty members and learn about the research process. This course is taught only in the spring semester so students should plan ahead.

Graduate Coursework

Graduate courses have workloads with reading, writing, and research that vary according to the instructor’s preferences. Most graduate courses meet once a week for several hours and require you to read a book a week or equivalent numbers of articles/book chapters. Some graduate courses require a series of short-papers, with a longer paper at the end. Others require a research paper on a topic related to the course. Graduate courses are relatively small in comparison to undergraduate courses and the discourse in a graduate course will be at an advanced analytical level. The expectations for writing quality and presentation are also advanced and undergraduates are expected to perform to the level demanded of the instructor. At the end of your senior year you will hand in a final paper from each of your courses which will, collectively, constitute your thesis project. These papers should be submitted to the instructor and to the POLS honors program director at least a week before the end of the semester to give you time to do revisions in order to ensure that the papers are of sufficient quality to serve as an honors thesis.

You will be expected to attend the annual POLS honors professional conference field trip in the Fall and will be encouraged (but not required) to participate in the Spring Frontiers of Undergraduate Research. These activities are paid for by the Alan R. Bennett POLS Honors Fund (luncheons with course instructors & the POLS honors program director might be arranged on a case by case basis).

Of the courses you take to fulfill your POLS major, five POLS courses (15 credits) must be designated as honors (core honors courses, conversions, or graduate courses), with no final grade lower than a “B-“. Two of the POLS courses you take to fulfill honors must also fulfill the thesis/graduation requirement in your senior year.

To fulfill this requirement, you can either write a thesis or take two POLS graduate courses. Either option takes care of two (6 credits) of the required five (15 credits) POLS courses you will need to graduate with honors in the major. The thesis option will also fulfill your W in the major requirement and provides another three POLS but not honors credit. On the major plan of study, the courses used to fulfill the thesis/graduation requirement are counted in Section C (the non-distribution part of the major requirements).

Graduate courses that count toward the honors degree may not be used toward a graduate degree. Graduate-level independent study courses cannot be used to fulfill the thesis/graduation requirement.

Both options provide a challenging and rewarding honors experience. The choice between them depends on your situation and what you would like to get out of your POLS honors experience.

Practical Matters

• While both options give you six POLS honors credit, the thesis option gives you an additional three POLS (but not honors) credits. It also fulfills your W in the major.
• Both options are by permission only and require permission numbers from the instructor. For the thesis option, you will need to obtain permission from the POLS honors program director and will enroll in POLS 4997WH & 4994 in the fall (these meet concurrently) & in POLS 4997WH in the spring. A permission number for the spring POLS 4997W is not provided until after your thesis advisor and POLS honors program director have assessed your first draft and determined that you have performed adequately in the fall courses.
• Note that because POLS 4994 must be taken at the beginning of the thesis process and is only offered in the fall, if you wish to choose the thesis option but graduate in less than four years you would need to begin the thesis class sequence in your junior year.
• For the graduate course option, you will need to obtain permission numbers directly from the instructors of record. While most POLS faculty are happy to have honors undergraduates in their graduate courses, they are under no obligation to provide permission numbers. The advanced or specialized nature of a particular graduate seminar may also make it inappropriate to use for the honors thesis/graduation requirement. Questions you have on specific graduate courses should be directed to the instructor of record.
  In terms of scheduling, the fall thesis course (4994 & 4997WH) is scheduled during a regular undergraduate course period; the spring thesis course (4997WH) is a supervised independent study and does not meet in person. Graduate course work in POLS does not conform to undergraduate course schedules; courses meet in the afternoons in 2-3 hour blocks beginning at 1:30.

Graduate or Law School Applications

Both options are good preparation for graduate or law school, but in different ways. A thesis prepares you for the rigors and expectations of independent research. Graduate coursework prepares you for the rigors and expectations of coursework at an advanced, professional level. Doing well in either track will look good on graduate or law school applications (while doing poorly in either track, but particularly in graduate course work, will have the opposite effect).

Faculty Interaction, Depth vs. Breadth, Guidance

The thesis provides an opportunity for one-on-one interaction with faculty members and allows you to devote your full attention to a topic, becoming an expert on it. Thesis advisors do not have to be POLS faculty and can be drawn from any discipline. There is more structured guidance during the thesis process, with course work and specific deadlines set throughout the year.

Graduate coursework provides the opportunity to learn from two different POLS faculty members with expertise in two different topics, thus allowing for variation of interest. There is less one-on-one interaction with faculty members than with the thesis option and graduate courses taken to fulfill the thesis/graduation requirement must be in POLS. Guidance with regards to writing and research will vary according to instructors and is typically less structured than the thesis option. Because you may not receive the same amount of feedback on your work, the number of requested revisions at the end of the process may be higher and you run the risk of the paper not being of sufficient quality to pass as an honors thesis. Students are encouraged to meet with their instructor consistently as they work on their papers to get feedback.

There are a number of factors to consider in finding a thesis advisor or choosing a topic.

Thesis Advisor: If you already have a close working relationship with a faculty member (whether in POLS or another discipline), ask them to serve as your thesis advisor and discuss possible topics with them. The same is true for a faculty member whom you may have had for an interesting class, but don’t know very well yet. Most POLS faculty have specific areas of research which means they work on different empirical topics and can provide good thesis advice on a wide-range of subjects.

If you don’t have a particular professor in mind but do have a topic you’re interested in, look through faculty webpages at the Department’s website or contact the POLS honors program director to obtain a POLS faculty research bio sheet. The sheet is also circulated with the thesis applications. From this you will get some good ideas on the kinds of themes POLS faculty work on and who might be appropriate to your topic or interests. If there are a few that might seem appropriate, feel free to “interview” some of them to see if they are a fit with your project and personality. Many faculty enjoy working with honors students even if they don’t know you, so don’t be afraid to approach them (and if they are too busy, don’t take it personally). If you would like more guidance on how to find a thesis advisor, don’t hesitate to contact one of the POLS honors advisors.

Please note: some faculty (due to their research interests and experience teaching others honors classes) may be approached by multiple students to supervise a thesis. Supervising a thesis is an intensive process and most faculty find it difficult to work with more than one student at a time. So students should start approaching faculty members early to discuss thesis topics.

Thesis Topic: If you are not sure what kind of topic to write about, discuss this and some ideas you might have with possible thesis advisors and/or one of the POLS honors advisors. Many topics will be appropriate to a political science thesis. The key to a successful thesis is to narrow the topic’s focus and develop an argument in the context of the scholarly, peer-reviewed literature about the topic.

While your thesis advisor will guide you in this process, you should start looking at the academic literature on topics you are considering as soon as possible. This will give you a feel for what kinds of arguments and research you can build from. Google Scholar is one of the best search engines to use for this kind of initial exploration. The “Thesis Workshop Dinner” held for thesis students during the second semester of your junior year will also give you some guidance on how to begin narrowing a topic and developing an argument about it. The most essential element of an academic argument is to build from what has already been researched and argued by scholars about the topic.

Bennett Research Assistant (RA) Program
This program allows faculty members to hire a POLS honors student to assist them on a POLS research project. There are a limited number of awards each year and preference is given to proposals intended as the basis for an IDEA, SURF or SHARE grant application later in the semester. The POLS honors program director solicits applications for the Bennett RA Program from POLS honors students and faculty members every August. [Note: due to funding changes, the 2020-2021 Bennett RA program will be pushed until Spring 2021 and, contingent upon funding, applications will be solicited in January 2021 for new honors students].

Academic Conference Field Trip
Every fall the POLS honors program sponsors a fully-funded, day-long field trip for its honors students to attend the Northeast Political Science Association (NPSA) Annual Conference, International Studies Association-Northeast (ISA-NE) Annual Conference, or some other conference in November. Attendance acquaints honors students with the professional expectations of political science research. Thesis students are required to attend this event; remaining spaces are offered to POLS honors students on a first come, first serve basis. Email announcements about the trip begin in early October.

Research Excellence in Political Science (REPS) Poster Session and Reception
Every spring the POLS honors program hosts a poster session and reception to celebrate the research projects undertaken by its honors students during that academic year. Thesis students are required to present at REPS. Research undertaken by other POLS honors students and undergraduates are also included. REPS is typically held the week following the spring semester’s Frontiers of Undergraduate Research.

Luncheons with Speakers for POLS Honors Students
Luncheons with visiting speakers related to POLS are sponsored throughout the academic year and allow students to have one-on-one conversations with visiting professors, professionals, and alumni in POLS. Luncheons are organized on a case-by-case basis. Space is typically limited to 10 or less students and offered to POLS honors students on a first come, first served basis. Invitation-only receptions with visiting experts for POLS honors students are also organized.

Thesis Workshop Dinner
The POLS honors program director hosts a working dinner annually in late spring for all students who intend to write a POLS honors thesis in the next academic year in order to review thesis expectations, scholarly literatures, and methodology.

Thesis Advisor Luncheons
Individual advising luncheons for POLS honors thesis students, their faculty thesis advisor and the POLS honors program director are organized throughout the fall semester in order to provide more personalized thesis and career advising.

Posters for Spring Frontiers in Undergraduate Research & REPS
All POLS honors thesis students are required to present their research at the Spring Frontiers of Undergraduate Research and REPS poster sessions in April. The cost of professionally printing the posters via UConn’s printing services is covered with Bennett funds.

Travel Funding for Conference Presentations
Travel funds for conference presentation or research by POLS honors students are available through the Bennett funds on a case-by-case basis as funding allows and is intended to supplement travel and research funding from other sources.