To be eligible for departmental honors, students must minimally have an overall GPA of 3.5 and a major GPA of 3.5 upon enrollment in the appropriate capstone course. In addition, students seeking departmental honors must submit an application to the departmental honors subcommittee for pre-approval early in the academic year in which students plan to complete the capstone research project; approved honors thesis work is then coupled to the capstone course requirements. Upon completion of the capstone course requirements, the departmental honors subcommittee, along with the faculty of the department, will determine whether the application and the final research project qualify for departmental honors.

For departmental honors, thesis work must be of outstanding quality and must involve original independent laboratory or field research and/or in-depth analysis. For example, students may complete a project in the lab or one that requires data analysis. Job shadowing, data collection/organization (without analysis), or research summaries will generally not be sufficient for consideration. It is recommended that students eligible and interested in the departmental honors pathway begin looking for and meeting with their capstone project advisor as early as possible and request the departmental honors application from the department chair.