Honors Program

Why Honors?

The Chesapeake College Honors Program provides high-achieving students with meaningful opportunities to engage deeply with the world around them. Whether it’s having robust class discussions in an honors course that provides smaller-than-usual class sizes…conducting an individual field study while pursuing an honors contract…or travelling with peers to see world-class speakers on the TEDx stage…being a member of this “community-within-a-community” is a game-changer for many learners.

Benefits include:

Smaller class sizes in honors: 15:1
One-on-one work with Chesapeake’s best professors
Cultivating stronger leadership, presentation, and soft skills
Personalized advising for transfer to four-year institutions
Experiential learning through off-campus events and opportunities
Conference attendance
Research and field experience emphasis
Resume booster—employers love honors students!
Access to scholarships

Honors Program Graduate

Students can complete as much or as little of their degree with honors as they like, but many students work to receive “Honors Program Graduate” recognition at graduation.

Students who complete at least 15 of their 60+ credits with honors—in at least three different disciplines—with a 3.0 GPA or greater will be awarded a medallion at commencement. Learners must earn a final overall grade of “B” or higher to receive Honors credit in courses. Honors Program Graduates possess institutional transcripts that recognize their status, which looks great when applying for jobs, internships, scholarships, or for transfer to a four-year institution.

Requirements upon award - students receiving Chesapeake's Presidential Honors Scholarships MUST:

Complete 15 credits worth of honors coursework during their tenure at Chesapeake College. At least 6 credits in honors must be completed during the student's first two semesters.
Maintain a 3.0 cumulative GPA to retain their scholarship.
Pursue a full-time course load in courses required for their academic major as a Presidential honors scholar.

Additional scholarships: Other merit-based scholarships may be available for high-achieving new and existing Chesapeake College students. Please review the “What Funds are Available” page for more information.

Program Eligibility

Admission to the Chesapeake College Honors Program requires no application and no initiation—you simply need a 3.0 cumulative GPA in your high school and/or College coursework to register for an honors course or to engage in an honors contract in ANY class at Chesapeake.

Two Ways to Earn Honors Credits

Chesapeake offers great flexibility for students to earn honors credit in courses:

1) One way is to take a section of a course that is designated as “Honors.” Three to four classes, mostly general education courses, are offered every semester as “honors.” For example, your HIS 102 honors section will be smaller than a non-honors section—no more than 15 students—it will be more discussion-based, it may study more challenging texts, and delve deeper into a portion of the course. And there’s a good chance your honors course will have a field-trip or field-study component—getting students off-campus, interacting, and experiencing the world around them.

2) The second way is to enter into an honors contract. Honors contracts allow students to make ANY credit course at Chesapeake College an honors course. Contracts are semester-long projects that often replace existing assignments in the course. Developed together by the professor and the student, honors contracts foster self-directed learning in an area of the course that is of upmost interest to the student. For instance, in a CIS course a student may learn, hands-on, a 3-D modeling software that is only mentioned in the textbook. Or for a recent Anatomy and Physiology honors contract, a student visited the Medical Examiner’s office and witnessed an autopsy—it doesn’t get much more experiential than that!

Phi Theta Kappa at Chesapeake College

While not a formal part of the honors program, many Chesapeake College honors students are also members of Phi Theta Kappa (PTK), the international honor society for two-year colleges. Admission into PTK is by invitation only to students who possess a 3.5 cumulative GPA or higher with at least 12 completed credits at Chesapeake College. After joining PTK, students must maintain a 3.0 cumulative GPA to remain in the society. Invitations are sent out within the first few weeks of each fall and spring semester via Skipjack student email

PTK gives you:

Connections with other high-achieving students on campus
The opportunity to hold positions within the society at the local, regional, national, and international level
Access to regional and national conferences
The ability to compete for over $1 million in available scholarship money when you graduate from Chesapeake College
A wavier on the institutional application fee for PTK society members when applying for transfer to many four-year colleges

You do not have to be a Chesapeake College honors program student to be a member of PTK (but many enjoy membership in both programs).