The Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Honors Program

Faculty Honors Committee

The Honors Committee ensures the day-to-day success and determines the long-term direction of the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Honors Program.

• Prof. Irina Catrina
• Prof. Maria Zaitseva
• Prof. David Lavinsky
• Prof. Matthew Incantalupo
• Prof. Shalom Carmy

Student Honors Council

This council serves as the main liaison between Honors Program students and the Program Director.

• President: Akiva Mehlman
• Vice President: Aiden Harow (Returning)
• PR Representative: Ezra Lebowitz
• Events Coordinator: Zachary Goldstein (Returning)

The curricular component of the Honors Program is distributed between the general education and the major: six required honors courses, typically in Core Curriculum areas, and the completion of a thesis, typically in the major field of study. Of the five required courses, two are completed in the students' first year of residence: a first-year-only, honors section of a Core Curriculum class in the fall term and Honors First-Year Writing (FYWH) in the spring. For the remaining four courses, students may choose from the variety of Honors sections of Core Curriculum courses, including HEB, JHI and BIB, offered every term. Students qualified to enroll in graduate-level courses may count these, too. 

To see the current semester's honors course offerings, please visit www.yu.edu/schedules:

1. First, select the current semester
2. Then, in the top box labeled "Campus/College," scroll down to select "UM Yeshiva College Full Term"
3. Next, in the box labelled "Attribute Requirement," type "Honors Course"
4. Finally, click "Search" beneath all of the boxes

You should now see the current semester's honors course offerings.

Criteria for Honors Courses

Al Honors Courses are designed to meet the following criteria:

• Sophisticated, challenging thinking: critical, analytic, quantitative, scientific, interdisciplinary, and/or creative.
• Active employment of current discourse, methods, techniques, and theories in the relevant field or fields of inquiry.
• Critical investigation of primary as well as secondary sources.
• Independent learning with opportunities to exercise intellectual initiative.
• Pursuit of one or more research projects.
• Experiences that take advantage of the rich cultural, intellectual, institutional, and environmental resources of the New York area.
• Synthesis of discourse, knowledge, methods, theories and/or modes of thinking from two or more disciplines.
• Intensive writing and revision which facilitate growth as a thinker and as a writer, with publishable writing as an ultimate goal.
• Substantive participation by students in relevant professional activities such as a conference. 

* Non-Honors students interested in taking an Honors course should complete the requisite online form:

JJS Honors Program, Yeshiva College Request to Register for an Honors Course 

Students will be informed by email of the status of their request in a timely manner. NOTE: Successful completion of this process does not guarantee enrollment. 

FALL 2026 REGISTRATION GUIDELINES FOR YC HONORS STUDENTS

● Students should generally enroll in at least one honors course per semester so as to fulfill the required 5 honors courses.

● Graduate courses, such as those at Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, count as honors courses.

● It is not recommended to take more than two honors courses per semester.

● Honors Thesis Course Sequence:

• If you intend to submit your Honors thesis this summer and apply for an Honors diploma for September 2026, or submit at the end of Fall 2026 and apply for a January 2027 diploma, email Dr. Trapedo directly for next steps (shaina.trapedo@yu.edu)

• Students currently in Honors Thesis Proposal (HON 4977) must submit a Proposal and receive a P grade, DUE May 1 (see Canvas). Once complete, you will be registered for the next appropriate Honors Thesis sequence for the Fall 2026 semester. Incompletes will not be able to move forward with the project or register for the next step and may be subject to Honors probation.
• Students currently in Thesis Preparation (HON 4980, see Canvas) can register for Honors Thesis Writing (HON 4920) on your own using CRN 93129 for the Fall 2026 semester.
• Students intending to graduate in May 2027, who have not started the thesis project yet, MUST register for Honors Thesis Preliminary (HON 4905, formally Honors Thesis Proposal) for Fall 2026 using CRN 93125 and book a meeting with the Honors Program Director here to avoid Honors Probation.
• Students intending to graduate in September 2027 or January 2028 should also start their Honors Thesis project in Fall 2026 by registering for Honors Thesis Preliminary (HON 4905) for Fall 2026 using CRN 93125.
• Students intending to graduate May 2028 will begin the Honors Thesis course sequence in Spring 2027. If you have questions, book a meeting with the Honors Program Director here. 
• Students pursuing one of our BS Computer Science programs MUST register for Honors Thesis Writing (4920) in their very last semester. The CRN for Honors Thesis Writing (HON 4920) for Fall 2026 is 93129.If you have questions, contact Sara Schwartz.

The Senior Honors Thesis is the capstone project at the end of every Honors scholar’s Yeshiva College career. It is an opportunity to find mentorship from a favorite professor, investigate a pet interest with one-to-one guidance, and improve upon an academic resume. Thesis students will push their writing and analytical skills to their limits as they explore a question that matters to them in a meaningful, satisfying, and hopefully exciting way.  

A well-written and original thesis of high quality may substantially improve your chances for admission to the top graduate and professional programs around the country and abroad. Students who have completed theses have been successful in winning high academic honors: 50% of the valedictorians of Yeshiva College are graduates of the program, and honors students have garnered a disproportionate number of the graduation awards each year. They also have become very competitive in applying for the most prestigious fellowships: the winners of Rhodes, Goldwater, NSF Graduate Fellowships, and most of Wexner Fellowships have all been graduates of the program. Theses have been published as scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, chapters of books, or even books in their own right in the humanities and/or Jewish Studies.

The process of writing a thesis involves the following steps (described below)

This calendar is tentative and the specific circumstances of a student (field of research, post graduate plans), etc might require to move forward or backwards those deadlines, so please read the document carefully. 

For more information, please contact the Honors Program at ychonors@yu.edu.

Finding a Mentor

Writing a thesis should grow organically out of your regular academic program.  Specifically, while you are taking classes or working in a lab, keep mental notes about ideas you would want to explore further or people whose work interests you. As you think, consider who might mentor you through the process. To find a mentor, you can:

1. Choose your mentor first, and find out what he or she is working on. Ask the potential mentor if you can join his or her research team by contributing to one aspect of his or her project. Working with the mentor, you can find a topic for your project that fits within the mentor’s research.
2. Choose a topic, and then find a mentor willing to work with you. Consider the topics that interest you and will help you further your intellectual, academic, and career goals. Then find a professor who has both the expertise and the inclination to help you conduct the research that interests you.

It is quite acceptable to tell a professor that you are interested in doing research in his/her field of expertise, but that you do not have a specific project in mind. This will give him/her the opportunity to suggest several research possibilities for you to consider. You can begin researching who might be a suitable mentor here, via our faculty webpages.

The Honors Program can help you with ideas for professors whose interests match yours. If no appropriate professor is on the YC faculty, the Honors Program can help you find a professor at another college.

Drafting the Proposal: Getting Your Feet Wet

In its written form, the honors thesis proposal is the crucial first step for every student who aspires to complete this final requirement of the honors program. It sets forth in a concrete way the student’s commitment to write a thesis, the topic to be studied, and the faculty member who will serve as mentor. There is no “one form fits all” in the case of the honors thesis proposal nor is there a set length. However, every thesis proposal must have the following several elements:

• Cover Sheet. This sheet should be filled out and signed by both the student and the mentor. The faculty mentor must indicate his/her approval of the proposal. You can find that document here https://www.yu.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/PROPOSAL%20COVER.pdf.
• A Working Title. While the title may be modified as time moves on, in its initial form, it should clearly indicate the topic and scope of the thesis.
• The Thesis Statement. The thesis statement should discuss what it is the student wishes to accomplish in the thesis and/or the question(s) he wishes to answer. Depth of discussion is not the objective here, i.e. the proposal should, in summary fashion, go over previous scholarship, provide a sense of the methodology to be pursued, e.g. a thesis in the social sciences might employ a questionnaire if statistical analysis is the goal, and clarify how the thesis will contribute to the current state of research in any field of academic/intellectual endeavor.
• Bibliography. Finally, the proposal should have a bibliography of primary and secondary sources appended which indicates that the student has investigated published books and articles relevant to the thesis topic. This bibliography should follow the citation format of the particular academic field of the thesis and thesis writers should familiarize themselves with such prior to submitting their proposal.
• Once your proposal is finished you will need to submit it to the Honors Program, along with any other relevant paperwork. Upon submission of the proposal, you will need the following paperwork: proposal cover page and finished proposal with expected bibliography

From Proposal to Thesis: Writing the Thesis

During the thesis writing process, you should meet regularly with your mentor to ensure steadier progress. The mentor should help you to determine deadlines for individual pieces of the project. He or she should also guide you through the general aspects of thesis writing, like time management, organization, introduction and conclusion writing, research documentation, revision and editing, and oral presentation.

While working on your honors thesis, set up an individualized consultation with a YU librarian. They will help you locate and cite journal articles, books, and other credible sources to strengthen your research.

Get started by booking a research consultation or stopping by the library.

Librarians have also created a Research Jump Start page to help familiarize you with the library’s many resources. You can also reach them via email or contact them via Live Chat. YU Librarians are always happy to help you!

Please note that while you write what past graders have said about the thesis. When asked about the qualities of a successful thesis, they answered that a thesis should be an original, compelling, sustained argument, written effectively, lucidly, correctly and interestingly.
 

Thesis Submission: The Home Stretch

Theses must begin with a cover page and follow formatting guidelines available here https://www.yu.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/Thesis%20Cover%20Template.pdf. A signed publication consent form must accompany your submission. 

Once we receive your thesis, the evaluation process starts. In previous years, the thesis had two different readers, each one of which submited a review, and a grade for the work. One of them was the thesis mentor, while the other was designated by the program in consultation with the student and mentor. The final grade was arrived at by averaging the grades submitted by the readers. In the very unusual case of a discrepancy between the grades proposed by the two readers by more than a full letter grade, the program might request the opinion of a third reader.

As of Fall 2024, “second readers” no longer play a role in this process. The mentor alone will evaluate and grade the Honors Thesis. This change from past years was made, in conjunction with the Stern College honors program, to simplify the grading / commenting process and lessen the overall workload for faculty. 

The final version of the thesis is bound and kept in the honors library, and is also stored electronically in the Yeshiva University Library. Since the electronic version is accessible from outside the University, students have to give consent for this publication.

Students may see past theses in the YU Library for reference.

Important FAQs

• Does the thesis have to be on a topic related to my major?
  For many students, the answer is yes. But, it is not unusual for a student to choose a topic from an academic field in which he is minoring, or one connected to some other interest of his, for example Jewish studies.
• May I choose a mentor who is not a member of the YU faculty?
  Although most students find a mentor within the YU community, over the years some have chosen to work with someone from, for example, Columbia, NYU, Bar- Ilan University, and the University of Pittsburgh. You will need to get approval from the honors program for any outside mentorship requests.
• May a collection of short stories, a novella, a portfolio of artwork, or the making of a film, for example, fulfill the requirements for completion of an honors thesis?
  Several recent thesis writers have submitted works of fiction, a photographic essay, or a musical piece as part of the thesis, always under the mentorship of a faculty member, and as part of an academic project. We encourage these types of submissions, and can help explain the specific requirements.
• May I begin my thesis work before the beginning of my fourth year on campus?
  By all means, we strongly encourage it. At the beginning of your third year on campus, you should start to think about possible topics and mentors.
• By when must a thesis be submitted?
  Draft and final draft due dates will be posted to Canvas for each semester. 

Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Student Honors Theses, maintained by YAIR (Yeshiva Academic Institutional Repository), can be viewed here:

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12202/3977

All forms below are PDFs.

• For Honors students in their final year interested in registering for a senior Honors thesis:
  Application for Honors Thesis
• For non-Honors students interested in taking Honors courses:
  Request for Permission to Take an Honors Course (form)  
• For non-Honors students interested in matriculating into the JJS Honors program:
  Honors Transfer
• For faculty who are senior Honors thesis graders:
  Reader's Report
• Template and guidelines for thesis format:
  Thesis Template
• Consent form for thesis publication:
  Honors Thesis Consent Form