Honors Program

Saunders College students in the Honors Program fulfill the same requirements and are eligible for the same opportunities - including Honors courses, Honors options (add-ons to standard courses), research, and travel - as all RIT Honors Program students.

View Current Honors Students

Saunders College students in the Honors Program participate with Honors students from the Kate Gleason College of Engineering in an interdisciplinary, three-course seminar sequence, “Product and Service Innovation for a Global Economy.” Over three semesters, one-credit seminars help students develop an appreciation for the product and service development cycle, from concept to realization. Engineering and business faculty members along with local business leaders address how ideas for goods and services are conceived, how product concepts are refined and then produced, and the special challenges of developing and marketing products and services for a global marketplace.

Honors Program students from Saunders College have the opportunity to take business trips to domestic or international locations that include company visits across various industries. Students see first-hand how companies large and small address product and service development for domestic and global marketplaces. Recent trips have been to Seattle, Chicago, New York City, Silicon Valley, Toronto, and Dubai to visit companies such as Amazon, Bloomberg, Boeing, EY, the Federal Reserve Bank, Google, IDEO, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Alumni events, organized in conjunction with these trips, also provide the opportunity for students to interact with a wide array of business professionals.

RIT Honors Program students may complete a research experience. While not all research may be global in nature, Saunders College students in the program can apply for grants that will fund projects that have a significant global aspect and/or are completed abroad.

RIT has one Honors Program at the university and across all of its colleges, including Saunders College of Business. While some Saunders College students (less than 1% of all RIT first-year applicants) are invited to join the Honors Program at the time they apply for admission, Saunders College also encourages and accepts internal admit students for admission to the Honors Program during a special Honors Program application process each January. Saunders College freshmen and sophomores are eligible to apply for late-entry at this time and are considered based on their academic results and their application materials.

RIT Honors students applying to Saunders College of Business graduate programs can now qualify for a 50% scholarship and apply for a GMAT/GRE waiver. This applies to all applicants who successfully complete the requirements of the RIT Honors Program upon certification and are accepted into Saunders College.

Next steps? If you are interested in learning more about the scholarship and GMAT/GRE waiver incentives for RIT Honors students, set up an appointment by emailing gradbus@saunders.rit.edu, or attend a Graduate Information Session.