2013 Banneker Key Scholarship

<p>Congratulations to those who got notifications. Question - was everyone admitted to the Honors College prior to receiving the notification?</p>

<p>My kid has a GPA of 3.95 UW and 4.86 W and SAT scores above 1500 (/1600) and has a lot of ECs as well, including leadership role in many of them.</p>

<p>Not received any mail yet.</p>

<p>Just curious what scores the recipients have.</p>

<p>florianCollege,</p>

<p>Those sorts of qualifications would put your child in the mix, though not everyone with high scores/grades/etc. gets offered a Banneker/Key, and not everyone offered has uniformly high scores/grades/etc.</p>

<p>I live in Baltimore, MD and haven’t gotten a letter yet. I have a 2300 SAT, 3.9 GPA UW, pretty much all AP classes and good ECs. I’m starting to get worried that I won’t get the B/K, which would surprise me a little, since apparently like 350 out of the ~1000 people accepted to honors college get the B/K invitation? Correct me If I’m wrong on that</p>

<p>Say I wasn’t invited to the B/K thing. In that case would Maryland consider price matching with UMBC, where I got the University Scholar Award for $18,000/yr</p>

<p>Saw posts about numbers people had: S received letter last week. Qualifications: 4.0 UW; NMF, AP World (5), AP Chem (5), AP Calc A/B (5), AP Psych (5), AP US (5); SAT 1560; many EC with leadership.</p>

<p>Does UMD give out any other scholarships (OOS specifically) besides the B/K</p>

<p>FYI - on the webcast just broadcast in the past hour, they said that B/K letters went out last week and that if you didn’t get one by now you are probably not going to. But that you can call them to double check, because of course sometimes there are problems with mail.</p>

<p>I got an invitation in the mail, too! I can’t wait to see what the program is like. And I hope I get the full ride… that would be awesome. Has anyone applied for a living-learning program yet?</p>

<p>I might call about it tomorrow, because I have the stats for it (1530/1600 SAT, 4.0 UW GPA) and I’m out-of-state. So it’s possible mail is weird, but I’m also really afraid I didn’t get it. Rutgers didn’t give me very much (and I was banking on that for Rutgers), so it’d suck to get very little from UMD as well. =/</p>

<p>My son is at Maryland now as a freshman on a full B/K scholarship. The event last year was very low-key and enjoyable. My son, DH and I were treated to a nice lunch (buffet style & then food brought to nicely decorated tables), at which there were a couple of speakers who promoted the university. The presentation was brief. The interview was probably not longer than 15-20 minutes, and at the end of the event, people stood around and munched on cookies and talked among themselves. My son didn’t have a sense one way or the other whether he’d receive a partial or full B/K, but he clearly did well enough to get the full ride. He absolutely loves Maryland, as does his twin sister.</p>

<p>As far as his stats, he graduated from a public science/tech magnet high school with a GPA of 4.22 on a 4.00 scale. He took 9 AP classes (score of 5 in seven of them) & was a National AP Scholar, plus he was commended for National Merit. He took three subject tests & did well (800 Math II, 760 Chem, 680 Latin), and he had an SAT score of 1490 for Math & CR–2230 overall. Lots of ECs, primarily music related. He’d interned at Maryland for his senior year & participated in lots of Latin competitions, among other things. He ended up beginning his time at Maryland with a total of 55 credits.</p>

<p>Good luck to everyone! Go Terps!</p>

<p>I don’t see how having 5’s on lots of APs would even affect one’s chance because if I remember correctly, there was no place on the Maryland application to post AP scores. So they might know the AP scores of some applicants but not know them for others. Not that that would be a problem for me since I got a 5 on four of the five AP tests I took.</p>

<p>I’ll call them tomorrow just to be sure. Even if it’s a no I’m not terribly worried because I just got an email from UPenn today saying they want to interview me!</p>

<p>anyone receive today?</p>

<p>anyone receive today?</p>

<p>No, and I thinking my son probably won’t.</p>

<p>I live an hour away from college park and I haven’t gotten a letter yet…that definitely surprises me. 4.0 GPA taking 13 AP classes (almost all 5s, two 4s), 1490 (of 1600) SAT, multiple leadership positions, many many awards, and amazing recs from a UMD Med School researcher (he basically said I was equivalent to a PhD. student). </p>

<p>Does anyone know if they’re sending the letters out in waves?</p>

<p>Based on my discussions with the Undergrad Admissions folks today, B/K scholarships are done for the year. Partial scholarships info will be sent out by early March.</p>

<p>My expectations were based on some of the numbers I saw on this website for last year. Looks like the bar has been raised significantly this year.</p>

<p>I was surprised as well that my kid who has a high GPA (3.95+) and SAT score of 1500+, 10 APs (all 5s), a lot of significant ECs with several leadership positions, internships at well-known institutions for the last 2 years did not get the scholarship.</p>

<p>Congrats to all those who got selected.</p>

<p>It would only make sense that in the most competitive applicant pool in the University’s history the standard for the B/K would be the most competitive yet.</p>

<p>With the sorts of objective stats being reported as passed over on this thread, I’m not sure it is fair to attribute rejections for B/K as being related to the competitiveness of the applicant pool compared to prior years. Certainly the candidates selected are strong, but you cannot persuade me that all 350+ candidates are 1500+ plus SAT/12 AP/Intel winners. </p>

<p>The selection process for B/K is no doubt holistic as it is for all such full ride opportunities and considers not only objective stats, but also the desire for diversity (the B/K scholarships originated as diversity scholarships after all), instate vs. out of state status, and likelihood that the offer of a scholarship will actually result in enrollment. In such an evaluation some exceptionally strong candidates will make the cut, others will not. My child didn’t make the cut at Maryland – but did make the cut at five other schools – some higher rated, others not. It is all part of the process of finding the right school and candidates who aren’t selected for these interviews really shouldn’t take it as a judgment of their personal merit vis a vis other students. Best of luck to those who have advanced and to those who did not, best wishes for finding the school that is your best fit where you are valued for what you can uniquely bring to the school. For some of you this may yet be Maryland, for others it will be elsewhere.</p>

<p>This is my third admissions cycle on College Confidential, so I should avoid words such as “always,” but for at least the last couple of years, B/K selection has been both inscrutable and clearly based on something harder to quantify than just grades and test scores.</p>

<p>If you can still get to the old B/K threads on College Confidential, you’ll find that every year there’s a mix of people who are delighted but surprised to have been invited and people who are nonplussed at having been passed over for candidates they seem to consider less deserving.</p>

<p>Called and found out I didn’t make it. Congrats to all those that did.</p>

<p>I’m just hoping this doesn’t predict my other college decisions…</p>

<p>Sent from my SGH-T959V using CC</p>