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The Economics Department is now accepting applications for rising seniors who wish to participate in the Economics honors program in the 2025-2026 academic year. If you are an Economics major expecting to graduate in Spring 2026 or Fall 2026 and your overall and Economics GPAs are 3.40 or above, we hope you’ll consider submitting an application. This is an exciting option for our best students.

Participants in the honors program are required to take our fall seminar, Econ 4309, which provides 3 credit hours towards your Economics major. The seminar meets Tuesdays 3:30-6 and guides students in matching with a faculty advisor and developing an honors research topic. You should also take our spring seminar, Econ 4339, which does not count toward your major but will give you 3 hours of upper division elective credit and will guide you in writing your honors thesis and preparing for your defense. Students expecting to graduate Fall 2026 should apply to enroll in the Fall 2025 seminar so that the seminars can be taken in order.

To apply to the honors program, submit an informal copy of your transcript to Professor McKinnish (mckinnis@colorado.edu). Applications will be acted on a rolling basis up through the start of the Fall 2025 semester.

The primary criteria for admission to the economics department honors program is a 3.4 combined GPA on the three required 3000-level courses (3818, 3070, 3080). Students who have not yet completed this required coursework are usually told that they cannot be enrolled in the honors seminar until they provide an updated transcript showing satisfactory academic performance in these courses.

Honors students are encouraged to take Econ 4848 (Applied Econometrics) no later than the fall of their senior year. Because virtually all honors students conduct applied econometric analysis as part of their thesis project, the material in that course is particularly beneficial. In absence of taking this course, honors students will likely have to master much of the material on their own to execute their thesis research. Students also benefit substantially from Econ 4818 (Econometrics), which provides a deeper understanding of the econometric techniques used.

Participating in the honors program provides you with a unique opportunity to stretch beyond the standard undergraduate coursework and conduct original research on a topic of interest to you. It requires a deeper intellectual effort and a much more substantial time commitment than typical undergraduate courses. Honors students typically spend 150-200 hours on their thesis project during their senior year, and time demands during the spring semester are particularly severe. Students who successfully complete the honors program, however, find it a very rewarding experience and often find it beneficial when applying for jobs or to graduate school. 

More information can be found at the Arts and Sciences Honors Program.

January 2025