Newly Admitted Student Resources

Let's Get Started

• Next Steps

  If your student portal has been updated with an invitation to join the Honors College, congratulations! We hope to see you this fall. 

  Whether you choose to accept or decline our invitation, you will need to:

  1. Log in to your Clemson Admissions Portal
  2. Find the Clemson Honors section
  3. Click on “Decision Form”

  Please note that the Clemson Honors decision form is separate from, and in addition to, your Clemson University Decision Reply form. You must accept both in order to be enrolled at Clemson University as an Honors College student. The deadline for your Honors decision form is May 1.

  After you accept your invitation to join us at Clemson Honors, review the new student checklist to find out what happens next. 

• Housing

  If you have recently been admitted to Clemson University and to the Clemson Honors College as a first-year undergraduate student, you can access Honors housing information within 24 hours of submitting your:

  • Honors admission decision reply form in your undergraduate portal.
  • Enrollment deposit, which must be paid before you can apply for housing (housing information will appear 24 hours after payment).

  You Need to Know

  • Undergraduate students are required to live on-campus during their first year as an undergraduate student; however, housing in the Honors Residential College is not mandatory or guaranteed.
  • Housing priority at Clemson University is determined by your undergraduate application submission date. So the earlier you applied to Clemson, the better your chances are of getting your first choice of housing.

  Visit the Honors Residential College web page for details about living in the on-campus Honors community. 

  You can also find more information about campus housing through Clemson Home. 

  Finding a Roommate

  Some Honors students have found roommates through the general Class of 2027 Facebook group. Also, you can search for Honors roommates in the housing application portal once you have completed your housing application and have chosen the Honors Residential College as your community choice. Honors students are given priority for Honors Residential College spaces.

• Orientation

  Each summer, incoming Clemson students participate in a new student orientation experience.

  If you have accepted your invitation to join Clemson Honors in the fall, please visit the University's orientation website for important updates regarding New Student Orientation.

  As a Clemson Honors student, you will receive priority course registration during orientation as well as additional support, resources, and programming from the Honors faculty and staff throughout your orientation experience.

  Watch your Admitted Student Portal for information about Honors-specific orientation events. We always look forward to connecting with our incoming Honors students!

• Honors Admitted Student Events

  Watch Your Student Portal

  Use the "Visits and Events" tab in your Admitted Student Portal to find details about upcoming events and other information that may be useful to you at Clemson University.

  We'll be adding events to that tab as they're confirmed!

  How to Find and Register for Welcome Events

  1. Log in to your Admitted Student Portal.
  2. Click the Events tab.
  3. Register for each event you want to attend.
  4. You will receive an email confirmation for each event you register for. In addition, you will receive automated email reminders 24 hours and 1 hour before the start of the events you are attending.

  Please note that attendance to these events is not mandatory, but prior registration is required.

• Honors Alumni Profiles
  

  Aaron Gordon ('17 - Civil Engineering)

  I was a Clemson Honors student for all four years and I loved every minute of it. During my time, I was fortunate to participate in the Dixon Fellows Program, the Dixon Global Policy Scholars Program, and several Honors seminars courses. It's not a coincidence that my favorite classes at Clemson were all Honors seminars. These small classroom experiences helped me develop close relationships with professors in nearly every department. My seminars involved amazing discussions including how to influence public policy in the United States, the relationship between the Civil War in the 1860s and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and the impact that cults and conspiracies have in our society. I met many of my best friends and my fiancée through the tight-knit community of the Honors College and it made a large school feel small. Clemson's Honors College defined my overall Clemson experience. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

  I am currently a structural engineer at Kimley-Horn Associates in Atlanta, GA. My focus has been large transportation projects with an emphasis on bicycle/pedestrian infrastructure. Most of my work has been for the Atlanta Beltline, a network of trails and light-rail transit that will one day connect the entire city of Atlanta. In addition, I am wrapping up a Master’s degree at Georgia Tech in Civil Engineering which I’ve been doing part-time.

  Since my projects are in the public sector, the Honors College played a huge role in preparing me for tackling the intersection between engineering and public policy. Planning, designing, and constructing transit projects requires a robust understanding of local politics, funding mechanisms, and legislative priorities. All of these topics and more were covered by the Dixon Global Policy Scholars program and the Honors seminars that I took. These experiences revealed my passion for serving the public through engineering and I don’t think I’d be where I am without them. Furthermore, the education I received at Clemson through the Honors College did an excellent job preparing me for the challenges of graduate school and the responsibilities of balancing work and the classroom.my field of study, and I had opportunities to study abroad in South Africa and the United Kingdom. These opportunities, combined with invaluable mentorship that I found in Clemson Honors, helped me discover the field of infectious disease epidemiology, which is the perfect intersection of my skills in mathematics, my interests in medicine and public health, and my commitment to social justice.

  Over the past 15 years, since graduating from Clemson and earning a Master's of Public Health from Emory University, I have worked within research institutes, universities, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization to better understand the impact of infectious diseases on population health in low- and middle-income countries. My work as an infectious disease epidemiologist has covered a range of topics in settings around the world - from managing data and clinical departments for HIV prevention studies in East and southern Africa and modeling the impact of public health interventions for tuberculosis in South East Asia, to establishing surveillance systems for emerging zoonoses and other infections in the Eastern Mediterranean and assessing pandemic preparedness and response capacities in the Western Pacific. I am grateful that my time in Clemson Honors started me on a path for such an interesting and meaningful career.

  

  Shannon Kay ('16 - Industrial Engineering)

  The Honors College and my Clemson experience proved transformational. Between living in the Honors Residential College and taking honors classes each semester, I found myself surrounded by intellectually engaging people, some of whom remain my best friends today. My life philosophy morphed dramatically while at Clemson, as I learned about and discussed ideas I had never considered before and took classes that challenged my intellectual capabilities in the most rewarding ways.

  Today, I’m pursuing a dual-degree Master of Engineering Sciences and Master of Business Administration at Harvard University. Clemson and the Honors College contributed greatly to the trajectory I have taken, primarily by nurturing my curiosity and encouraging me to set and passionately chase ambitious goals. While I constantly strive to review my life philosophy, no other time period has proved quite as formative as my experience at Clemson.

  

  Rebecca MacPherson ('18 - Genetics)

  My name is Rebecca MacPherson and I am a second year Ph.D. student in Genetics at the Clemson Center for Human Genetics, originally from Anchorage, Alaska. In 2018, I graduated from Clemson with a B.S. in Genetics and minors in Microbiology and Psychology. I was also a member of the Honors College and graduated with Departmental and General Honors. Simply put, the Honors College changed my life forever. Not only did I meet my husband through the EUREKA! Program, but the experiences afforded to me by the Honors College made applying to graduate school a painless process.

  The EUREKA! Program, a 5-week long residential research summer camp offered to incoming freshman, gave me relationships that led to recommendation letters for graduate school, research opportunities, multiple jobs, appearances in weddings, a “tailgate family”, and a head start on college. My transition from high school in Alaska to college at Clemson was much easier than I anticipated. Thanks to the EUREKA! Program, I already was familiar with campus and had a swarm of students and Honors College staff that I could lean on for support, before the school year even began.

  As I continued my undergraduate degree, my involvement with the Honors College continued to contribute to my success. I found that many of my closest friends were also members of the Honors College, living alongside me in the Honors Residential College and taking the same Honors courses. We were all united by a passion for learning, but diverse in our interests outside of classes, which made for many intellectually stimulating late-night discussions and just as many unforgettable adventures. The Honors courses I took also greatly contributed to my academic success. The smaller course sizes made me feel more comfortable asking questions and allowed for more one-on-one instruction in my more challenging science courses. Compared to non-Honors courses, Honors courses were on much more interesting topics, which fostered enthusiasm for my classes and further motivated me to succeed.

  By taking advantage of opportunities available to me through the Honors College, I built an extremely solid resume for applying to graduate school for a Ph.D. in Genetics. EUREKA! gave me my foot in the door for research and my Departmental Honors undergraduate thesis gave me a taste of how to be successful in graduate school. Additionally, I had an excellent GPA, in part due to the Honors courses that cultivated academic success. At the end of my four years with the Honors College, I had my pick of research programs, research mentors, and stipend packages. As it turns out, I was heavily recruited by my current Ph.D. advisor, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, even though she wasn’t originally planning on taking a student. Just like the transition into undergraduate, my transition into graduate school was made far easier by the opportunities given to me by the Honors College, and for that I am grateful!

• Campus Tours

  We often say there's "something in these hills" at Clemson. When you visit campus (either in-person or virtually), you'll see why.

  You can sign up for an in-person tour, which are being conducted in a limited capacity this spring, or for a guided virtual visit to Clemson University campus.

  You can also take this virtual tour at your convenience:

  Virtual Campus Tour | 2020 from Clemson University on Vimeo.

• Questions?

  We're happy to help! Email honorsadmissions@clemson.edu and we will respond as quickly as possible!