Hi - Does anyone know if B/K Scholars are selected from the general applicant pool without regard to major/advising college, or if they are selected to provide appropriate distribution across each advising college (i.e. engineering, education, etc.)?
Hi - The only thing I know is that they are selected from applicants who have been admitted to the Honors program.
Is BK consideration only for those invited to the Honors College? I was invited to the CP Scholars program and have many great stats, including ranking number one in my class and was hoping for consideration.
@gracelaced - The Banneker Key website states
“All freshman applicants to the University of Maryland who are admitted to the Honors College are considered for nomination to the Banneker/Key Scholarship. No additional application materials are required. The Banneker/Key Scholarship Selection Committee members carefully review the entire application of each Banneker/Key Scholarship nominee. Semifinalists for the scholarship are invited to campus for an interview as part of the final selection process. Each fall, we welcome about 150 new Banneker/Key Scholars to campus”
http://www.bannekerkey.umd.edu/
From what I can tell, following this forum for a couple years, only about 400 students are invited to interview for the BK and only about 150 get the full ride. The others get a partial BK,
There are other Scholarships awarded, but I don’t know much about them.
BK is not entirely about great stats – it is “based not just on grades and admission test scores, but also on a willingness to lead outside the classroom.”
Thanks so much for your guy’s insight! I guess I also meant to imply that I have good EC’s as well. But I’m not too worried as I will go where I am meant to be. 
Hey! Anyone know how many kids are accepted to the honors program? Just trying to figure out what percent of students receive any type of b/k award!
I believe 1,000 students are accepted to the Honors Program.
It’s true that about 1,000 students are enrolled in the honors college program, based on numbers enrolled per program.
However, the actual number of students accepted to honors is much higher (remember not everyone accepted chooses to attend Maryland). I remember another parent reporting that on Marquee Day they were told 25% of accepted students are invited to honors, and 25% of accepted students are invited to scholars.
Several people have reported that the number of students invited to B/K is 400 invited to interview, with only 150 full B/K awards given. There are plenty of other scholarships offered (primarily Presidential and Dean’s, in addition to some departmental awards)
@maryversity - Just wanted to correct some slight misinformation in the above post. I was admitted to the honors college and one of the options available to us are online chats that have been occurring this week. The first one was for UH, which I was present for. There were two hosts including the head of the honors college, Courtney Milton. Someone actually asked how many individuals are admitted to honors and how many actually attend UMD Honors. Ms. Milton responded saying that 1000 applicants were admitted and they expect about 500 to accept the offer, although they are prepared to handle more.
So it would seem to me that if one was admitted to the Honors program they would have a 40% chance of being invited to be interviewed for the BK. At the very least, those forty percent get some kind of aid; either the partial BK or the full BK.
I am happy to be corrected, as my sources are not first-hand in this case.
However, I just want to clarify that you are referring to info given during a discussion for University Honors. If you look at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eaJeLUK3-C0JAQ1b_Hitx4XEVHA-fapjj0XiRE004D0/pub and scroll down to the number of students, the 4th row, under the University Honors column, cite the number of first year enrolled student is 475. That supports Ms. Milton’s statement that “they expect about 500 people to accept the offer.” Given this, is it possible she was referring to the University Honors program specifically, and not the Honors College as a whole?
I think that 40% chance of Banneker Key scholarship invitation for honors college students is awfully high and doesn’t seem to match what I’ve read. Of course, I absolutely could be mistaken…
Dang, didn’t expect my link to be cut off…go to the honors page http://www.honors.umd.edu/overview.php, go to drop down menu in left column, clicking on “about the honors college” and a second drop down will appear. If you click on the “living-learning programs” link it will open the document I am referring to that delineates the differences in the honors college options and includes number of first year enrolled students per program.
1000 students in total are invited to the entire Honors College. They expect about 500 students accept their invitations to the honors college as a whole. I could have misinterpreted her (after all, I was reading what she said through a screen and not talking to her face to face). I would be surprised if she was only referring to UH in that 500 count because one is not invited to a specific college within UMDCP Honors; they get to choose.
I got the forty percent number because only students in the honors program are invited for BK. If it is stipulated that 400 are invited and if what I saw was correct about the 1000 total applicants invited to the honors program (which I hope it is considering it came from a primary source), then it would leave me with the 40%. That being said, I agree with you in that the number does strike me as really high considering how much even the partial BK could be worth.
Back to the question at hand…has anyone received their notification yet?
@fm0101. Have neither received any invite in the mail nor any email to look for something in the mail. But then again, if an admitted student doesn’t make the cut, they won’t be receiving either. I’m sure they do not notify if you are NOT invited.
It says on the honors college website that 1 in 10 applicants are invited to the honors college. I was given this same statistic back in Oct by the HC people on the chat when I was invited to an honors college info chat session. So figure 10% chance of being accepted.
I have not received any B/K message either.
When I called the Honors College on Monday to ask about choosing programs, I also asked about B/K interview notifications. She said that potential interviewees would be notified by the end of this week. I asked by email or mail. She said both; email will come first.
The numbers are confusing but here is my guess (numbers are approx, not exact):
Total number of Applicants: ~ 30,000 (from UMD web site)
Admit Rate: ~ 47% (~14,000 admitted)
Freshman Class Size: ~4000
Yield 4,000/14,000 = 28.6%
HC college incoming class size - 1000 kids
HC admission offered (guessing using yield) - 1000/0.286 = about 3500 (this is slightly over 10% of total applicant and, hence, “1 in 10”)
BK - about 400 invited from 3500 HC kids (so about 1 in 10 of HC invitees) or 1.3% of total apps received. About 1/2 of 400 kids invited turn down the offer. I think about 150 or so (full and partial) BK scholars register for Fall.
As a reference point, last year, during BK interview presentation, UMD said 1.4% of applicants were invited which is pretty close to 1.3% above.
My two cents.
Would you agree that about 10% of total admitted students (not enrolled) in honors will be offered B/K invite?
@lulu123456 - Personally, yes, I would agree with that. Last year’s number of invitee was “about 370” (according to the letter) which is pretty close to 10% 3500 kids. Good luck.
Nothing received here in Georgia, by email or snail mail, but I expect my daughter is on the bubble for an invitation.