At my university, honors students had more opportunities to take electives rather than fewer — because there were plenty of honors courses available.

As for parties — I don’t believe that honors students aren’t invited to parties. They certainly were where I went to school. If he isn’t going to parties — it is probably because he isn’t meeting enough people — and dropping out of this program isn’t going to help him.

I was in a freshman honors program with our own dorm, seminars, and extra courses we had to take. A couple people ended up leaving the program because they didn’t want to take the honors course instead of a course for their major. Overall, I am glad I stayed in the program, because the honors courses were very high quality and way beyond what a freshman normally takes.

However, my school in general, and my fellow honors students, were not that competitive. There was only one insanely competitive girl who transferred to Cornell because UCD wasn’t hardcore enough for her. But most of us in the program could have gone to Berkeley, but didn’t because of the insane competitiveness.

My advice is that he sticks with the program for at least one quarter/semester before he quits, to see if he changes his mind.