All petitioned experiences must meet all eligibility criteria, which include:

• The experience must align with the student’s academic, career, and/or professional interests, goals and development.
• The student must have completed at least 45 hours of work as part of the experience.
• The student cannot be receiving or have received academic credit (such as through your academic department) for the petitioned experience hours.
• There must be a mentor/supervisor for the experience who can verify the student’s role, responsibilities and time commitment reported on the petition.

Final approval for any petitioned experience is at the discretion of the Honors College.

Some examples of successful petitions include:

• Supervised internship experiences completed without earning academic credit.
• Being a tutor or PAL through UB Tutoring & Academic Support Services (TASS).
• Mentored research experiences completed without earning academic credit, such as Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) at another institution or UB’s CSTEP program.
• Volunteering, such as at a hospital or nonprofit organization, or by participating in a UB Alternative Spring Break program.

Previously, the Honors Experience Petition process was embedded in the Experiential Learning Network’s (ELN) digital badge, allowing Honors students to earn both Honors Experience credit and an ELN digital badge through this partnership.

With ELN’s transformation into the Office for Undergraduate Research, the Honors petition process is being redesigned better to reflect the needs and values of our Honors students. As a result, the current process will close on May 20, 2026, and all ongoing Honors Experience petitions must be completed by this date. Students who do not expect to complete their petition by the deadline should plan to resubmit it when the new process launches in Fall 2026.

If you are graduating in Spring or Summer 2026 and need to submit a petition under the current process, please contact your Honors advisor.

To complete an Honors Experience petition, students will need to:

• Submit all details about their experience, including their roles/responsibilities, start and end dates, and total hours completed.
• Complete a reflection about why they chose to pursue this experience and how it has impacted their academic and professional development or goals.
• Provide an accepted form of confirmation to verify they completed the experience with the reported number of hours.

Once this process is completed, your earned credits will be awarded in the University Honors College section of your Academic Advising Report (AAR). While most credits are awarded within a few business days, please allow up to 2 weeks for the credit to appear in your AAR.

Petition credit will not be added to your Honors record without confirmation of hours.

The hours noted on this petition will apply only to Honors Experiences and will not count toward major or degree credit requirements.

For every 45 hours invested in the endeavor, the petition process would award you one Honors Experience credit, up to a maximum of six credit hours.