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My university offers some special degrees; for example

  • Bachelor of Engineering (Scholar) (Honors)
  • Bachelor of Mathematics Advanced

If you want to get into any of these degrees, you will need to have an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank of 95 or above.

The normal version of these degrees are

  • Bachelor of Engineering (Honors)
  • Bachelor of Mathematics

If you want to get into any of these normal degrees, you will need to have an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank of 80 or above.

From my comparison both the special and normal degrees are the same with the exception that the special degrees have one or two subjects where students have chances of doing undergraduate research and other benefits:

  • Access to a wider range of subjects
  • $500 study grants to buy textbooks each year for the minimum duration of the degree
  • Being paid as research assistants in summer

Are the special degrees just an advertisement? What difference would doing a Bachelor of Engineering (Scholar) (Honors) make when you apply for PhD in USA? Will the admission committee really care if you did this degree or just a normal degree?

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    Not sure what you mean with "advertisement", but it sounds like the advantages that you list are fairly real and well-defined.
    – xLeitix
    Dec 23, 2016 at 9:16
  • When applying for a PhD, the admissions committee are interested in your potential to perform good research. You can demonstrate such potential regardless of your degree title.
    – astronat supports the strike
    Dec 23, 2016 at 9:30
  • When applying to the US you'll certainly need to explain the meaning if it is important to your application. Honors means one thing in the US (usually under 'Honors and Awards', where it's most often a competitive award given for some specific scholarly reason), something else in the UK, and clearly something else entirely in Australia.
    – BrianH
    Dec 24, 2016 at 17:13

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I will answer this part of the question: "when you apply for PhD in USA?"

Faculty in the USA know very little about Australian degrees and Australian universities. They will only appreciate the difference between degrees if you explain it to them in your application.

To be eligible for an American PhD program, someone with an Australian Bachelors will need an honours or a masters, because three year degrees are not sufficient. Expect to need to explain what an honours is, and that it is not like a UK honours.

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