<p>So those letters are just likely letters of admission into honors college probably sent to strong applicants, nothing to do with the scholarships. Anyone in the know care to chime in.</p>
<p>I talked to an admission counselor today and she inferred that more goes into B/K scholarship than test scores, GPA, letters of rec. She would not directly come out and say it but she implied that socioeconomic background, ethnicity, first generation going to college… have an impact on decisions. I have no problem with that at all but then it is not really a merit scholarship. Problem if you are a middle class, white boy that is OOS University of Maryland does not offer much merit money. Guess I should have done a little more research in this area. Had no idea about history of B/K scholarship</p>
<p>33dmjjm - My sons HS last year had 6 students qualify for B/K. They are all white, would be considered upper middle class students, NONE first gen. 2 F, 4 M. 2 got full BK, 1 partial, 1 went on to Princeton, 1 to MIT and 1 UVA. No financial aid for any. FWIW.</p>
<p>hey, do you guys know if tomorrow (2/17) is the last day that we should expect these letters?</p>
<p>33dmjjm–more does go into B/K invites, but it has to do with the students’ accomplishments. Plenty of “middle class, white boys” get it. </p>
<p>Nearly all B/K recipients have acceptances from the the highest “rated” schools that don’t even offer merit aid; they have to weigh those against a full ride at UMD. (Most usually I always would recommend to go with UMD vs paying full freight at an Ivy , but everyone has to make their own decisions).</p>
<p>33d–Or you could have read a post I made saying those exact things almost a week ago. B/K was ORIGINALLY A MINORITY SCHOLARSHIP. That is why it seems like they tend towards different ethinicities. The truth is that way more white and aisan kids get the scholarship now. It just seems like a higher percentage of URM students do this is mostly because of the low number of them in the Honors College. The numbers however are in no way comparable. Of the 400ish students invited, I would be comfortable in assuming that at least 300 are white, or of Asian decent (including Indian), but the number is probably much higher. And since there are currently about 7500 out of about 32000 students in Maryland falling into these underrepresented minority groups…Wow isn’t that a comparable percent?</p>
<p>Just telling you how my conversation went today. Did not initiate conversation admission counselor actually contacted me. </p>
<p>ginab591 wrote “It just seems like a higher percentage of URM students do this is mostly because of the low number of them in the Honors College”</p>
<p>Why is this so?</p>
<p>If my sibling received the full ride B/K and rejected it, does that affect my chances? He had basically the same stats as me except higher SATs. But I have better ECs :/</p>
<p>“she implied that socioeconomic background, ethnicity, first generation going to college… have an impact on decisions.”</p>
<p>Were those questions on the admissions application? If not, where would they get this information? B/K doesn’t even require the fafsa.</p>
<p>lemoncookie–no, shouldn’t have any impact on you. Based on the numbers of apps that are reviewed, there isn’t remotely enough time to try to go back and link applicants like that. </p>
<p>Plum–good question.</p>
<p>Plum-That is true. UMD doesn’t use the common app (at least not for priority), and that has optional questions of that nature…unless they pick it up from College Board? But again all those questions are optional.
(I mean I know my ethnicity was obvious from the fact that I was a Hispanic Merit Scholar, but otherwise I don’t know how they would know.)</p>
<p>lemon-I know siblings already attending umd are looked at (It’s asked on the app) but the fact that your brother was accepted and didn’t go shouldn’t mean a thing.</p>
<p>If that information is not known where did get you get all the stats about white males getting B/K scholarships?</p>
<p>DD1 has met them at B/K functions she has attended over the last 4 years.</p>
<p>^ I was just about to say the same thing. Just going through the process allows one to observe.</p>
<p>…I have eyes.</p>
<p>Just one last post to all those parents that seem the need to be SO involved in the college that their child selects. Kind of makes you wonder who actually filled out the applications and wrote the essays…</p>
<p>so in a nutshell you are saying the vast majority of the students in the honors program at the University of Maryland and those that receive B/K scholarships are white… What does that say about the University of Maryland?</p>
<p>Nothing here.</p>
<p>It says that the population of Maryland as a whole is predominantly white…Also I’m not a parent…and the few parents that are here have had kids in the school for several years (some more than one).</p>
<p>Last year my DD received a personalized hand writting letter from her biochemistry department in December and she also received Full B/K. I remembered attending the honor open house with my DD and went to the financial aid/scholarships meeting myself. The financial aid staffs at UMD mentioned that the selection for B/K has always been very tough. I know for myself that my DD had decent activities that made her application stand out. I also know that she did put in a lot of time to carefully fill out and review the UMD application before submitting it.</p>
<p>sk8mom, Thanks for that information. My son got that personalized handwritten letter from Computer Science department. He is NMF and has almost perfect stats. His EC’s are good aligned with his interests. He goes to a Math & Science magnet school. He liked the UMD essay prompts so much, when he wrote the essays they just came out ready. He got excellent recommendations too. </p>
<p>Since he didn’t get Banneker/Key invitation, I am just wondering whether they sent these letters to all the honors college admits.</p>