@fretfulmother you made a great summary, you’re right on target. It’s what I remember reading in this forum. Regarding your son, I think it is probably just the fact that he’s out of state. The pool out of state is huge and the spaces are few. I’m sure your son has #4 and everything else required since he had wonderful acceptances already. Congratulations!
@ReminiscingDad - thank you so much! Everyone who was selected for BK should feel incredibly proud, because it’s an amazing opportunity for an outstanding education!! 
@ReminiscingDad - I was with my daughter all day except 15 min or so when she was called in for her interview. The whole thing is really informal.
@fretfulmother - I enjoyed reading your observations. I also think there’s a fair amount of luck involved. It’s not a totally objective process.
Thank you @fretfulmother! @FromMD thank you too, I’m glad we’ll be able to stay with our son most of the day.
Let us know how it goes tomorrow! (today i guess heh)
I’m outside the ballroom, I’d love to meet anyone who’s here (I’m in the blue flowery scarf)
It was a really exciting day, a full program with excellent organization. We enjoyed every minute of it. @safireonfire I’m sorry we missed you, I just see the post, we just came home. We were impressed especially by the lab tour of the engineering school. The Fire Protection major had live demonstrations in the lab, the nanotechnology lab took us through a walk in time up to the modern day up to the final product. I was particularly impressed with this lab, its space, how modern the building and equipment are, very state of the art research! The interview was short and intense but pleasant, done by two professors. We enjoyed the ice cream social at Prince Frederick hall (what a building!) it’s so new, it looks like a modern world class hotel. I wonder how difficult it must be to get a dorm there. We’ll await the decision which I think it will be in about two weeks according to what we heard. It is seriously a great opportunity, Maryland is growing in building capacity and research funds year by year. It is exciting to see this growth and we feel very blessed to have this possibility so close to our home. Go Terps! :)>-
Does anyone know when we will be notified if we won the full scholarship? Also, does anyone know how many full scholarships they give out approx?
@gracie21 what I heard yesterday is that it will probably be two weeks until we find out, and approximately 150 students will get the full BK scholarship.
I actually asked Ms. Lisa Davies yesterday, and she said 250/400 get the full BK scholarship.
Thank you @safireonfire , do you know if the decision is communicated via email?
@ReminiscingDad @safireonfire Thank you!! fingers crossed!
@gracie21 best of luck to you too, I think the odds are good if it’s 250/400
@ReminiscingDad I got my decision in the mail a while later (not sure how long I waited tbh)
Oh, thanks @safireonfire , do you know if it was before or after the RD decision date for most universities (March 31st)?
Last year’s BK letter was dated 3/20 from Dr. Loh.
Thank you @EastCoast1 ! very helpful information. Do you or anybody else have an insight as to whether any factor/s play a role in the decision of full vs partial? In-state/out-state, stats, level of interest, recommendations…? Any idea? Thank you
@ReminiscingDad - I really don’t have any “definitive” insight. I know a lot of people have opinions but I have not seen anything on UMD web site to answer your questions. I think, historically speaking, BK was two separate scholarships and I believe UMD still wants to honor “spirits” of old scholarships. Banneker was a scholarship for URM and Key was pure merit based scholarship (someone please correct me if I am mispoken). As for IS vs. OOS and full vs partial, who really knows. I think UMD is aware with partial scholarship, it will lose many of BK kids - particularly OOS kids. How much they factor that in their decision, I don’t know. Good luck.
I know the state was sued before and now it’s not for any particular minority/race group, but open to all qualified applicants regardless of their background.
@EastCoast1 thank you for the information, I guess we’ll have to wait still a couple of weeks