Sawyer Business School Honors Program

The Sawyer Business School Honors Program offers BSBA students with exceptional academic promise and motivation a unique program that provides innovative challenges.

Honors curricula include honors sections of required courses in the business core and certain general education requirements. These and other honors courses allow students to customize their academic experience, and include:

  • Electives within most business majors
  • Special topics courses
  • Honors tracks within marketing major
  • Challenge courses
  • Internships
  • Independent study

A host of co-curricular experiences are offered each year. Academic and social events promote leadership and involvement while rounding out a strong educational foundation. Honors students participate in case competitions, service projects, career development programs, and social events as well as plan and lead such initiatives to meet their own needs. Students are also encouraged to consider Suffolk’s Alternative Spring Break program, study abroad, and juniors and seniors are encouraged to take a global travel seminar. Incoming freshmen planning to live on campus may also apply through Residential Life and Housing to be a part of the Honors Living Learning Community (LLC). The Honors LLC provides academically distinguished students an opportunity to ease their transition to the university by residing in a community of their peers where they have access to out-of-class learning, peer mentoring, study groups, and social events.

The Honors Program also features outstanding mentoring and recognition events from orientation through graduation. The annual Alumni Networking Event connects students to our very active alumni group. Students develop robust networks both within and outside of the Business School through interaction with local executives and alumni, gain career advice, internship leads and even job offers. Other benefits of the Honors Program include early registration, priority consideration for campus housing, and social and career programs each semester.

Numerous honors scholarships and other merit and need based funding are available through the Office of Student Financial Services. Incoming freshmen who are invited into the Honors Program in the fall receive this information along with their Honors Program offer letter. Spring semester admission typically comes with limited financial aid resources due to the timing in the financial aid cycle. Students entering in the spring semester or continuing students who are invited into the Honors Program should discuss scholarships and financial aid with their assigned financial aid counselor.

Entry requirements for new students:

To be considered for the Business School Honors Program, entering new freshmen and new transfer students must meet two of the following criteria. For more information on the application materials and process, please contact the Office of Undergraduate Admission at 617-573-8460.
Academic GPA minimum of 3.75
High school class rank within upper 15%
SAT scores of 1850
ACT scores of 28
TOEFL scores of 100 if Internet based or 600 if Paper based.

Entry requirements for continuing students:

Continuing students with a college GPA of 3.5 who have completed 30 credits of coursework at Suffolk (but not more than 44 credits) may submit an application to the Honors Program available through the Business School’s Undergraduate Programs Office. Students will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Program requirements:

Academic requirements for Honors Students in Sawyer Business School include:

  • completing a minimum of 25% of coursework in honors sections
  • completing SBS H101 Honors Business Foundations
  • completing SIB H429 Honors Strategic Management (the BSBA capstone)
  • taking a minimum of 3 credits of challenge courses*
  • maintaining a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.5

Freshmen who enroll at Suffolk’s Madrid campus will have options for honors courses and/or faculty who will work with students to create honors alternatives that meet the program requirements.

*Note: a total of six credits of Challenge Courses may be used to fulfill a maximum of two free elective courses in the program of study.

Honors students must be in good standing at the university with no disciplinary actions against them.

The above requirements must be met for students to graduate with the Honors Program designation on their transcript. Students who do not maintain the minimum required GPA will be placed on program probation for a semester and be required to meet with their advisor and program director. In extreme cases students will no longer be eligible to participate in the program. The subsequent semesters’ GPA of honors students on program probation must be 3.5 or greater to remain in the program while working to regain the overall program GPA. If this is not mathematically possible within two semesters, the student will no longer be eligible to participate in the program.

Honors Courses

Any student who meets the GPA minimum for a course may sign up for that course through the normal registration system. Most honors courses have a 3.3 GPA requirement.