Questions about Honors College program

Received an admit into UNM Honors College for next fall start. If you are an UNM Honors College student or graduate, can you please speak to your experience? What's your experience at UNM, in or about the honors program, its classes, its professors, it's students. etc. Would UNM Honors be a good fit for me?

Honestly, I applied to UNM as a safety school, but it's looking pretty sweet. UNM has offered a generous (but not full ride) financial aid offer which makes UNM much less expensive than my in-state costs at the UCs (!). And I keep hearing that the public university honors programs are, in general, really very good. I'm not (too) motivated by prestige or brand-naming my education, I figure undergrad is a step to graduate school, and if UNM Honors can prepare me to be a viable applicant for a PhD program at places like UChicago or Berkeley that's to the good. UNM certainly has the best price point, but the parents have planned long term for CSUs and UCs so the choice is not just cost driven.

Here is some background about me: I an out-of-state HS senior in a large, kinda rough but good, very diverse urban school; I have a very high weighted GPA, very high test scores on SAT and APs. I want to study mathematics, with a possible transition into astro-physics or economics.

I am EA admit to Colorado College and Reed (some funding). I have pending decisions at University of Chicago, Columbia University, Berkeley, UCSD, UCSC, and UCDavis.

UChi, Columbia, ColCol and Reed are attractive to me as a STEM student because of these things: \*required undergraduate humanities core curriculum, \*close mentorship and research opportunities as preparation for graduate/PhD program, \*small class sizes with lots of Socratic seminar style classes, \*super engaged, curious and learning community, and \*viable housing options on-campus and/or in the surrounding community (the UCs have a real problem with students housing insecurity). What is your experience with UNM honors college with respect to this.

what else? I READ a ton of fiction (right now I'm on a Margaret Atwood and E.L. Doctorow kick), and I like to have deep conversations about literature, politics, economics, film, etc. I lean left but I'm not a culture-warrior. I am skeptical that there is really such a thing as "wokeness" or "cancel culture." I am an gentle but secure atheist. I believe that our democracy is strengthened by celebrating 360 degree social diversity (racial, class, gender, sexuality, religious, ability, age, etc.). In conversation I dig deep into and expect substantiation, evidence, data, and clarity. I am a mountain biker (foggy redwood forests, yeah !), play classical cello, irish fiddle, and sing. I am not vegan, but try to avoid eating pigs and octopus because they are probably smarter than us (but bacon, yum....). We have good friends in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, and distant family who I don't know in Roswell and Dexter.

\[Disclosure: my mom posted this b/c I dont have a reddit account, but the questions and set up are mine\]