<p>Sometimes life decides to make you skeptical and incredibly worried. Sometimes it likes to throw in scholarship rejections and mean valetines in the same day. Sometimes it forgets to email you about an upcoming special package in the mail, while simultaneously leading you to a thread where several of your peers report such an email. And then sometimes it decides to send you an early write to a reach school (after having anxiety dreams about a rejection the previous days) and a Banneker Key invitation (after giving up on it). All within 24 hours.</p>
<p>It’s been an incredible 24 hours for me, and I’m so happy to receive this invitation (and a $500 travel reimbursement!) If I can convince my parents to let me go to this (still about $400 in travel after the reimbursement), I’ll be there on March 3!</p>
<p>(For reference, 34 ACT, Whasian, rank 1, my most major award was won an UMD-CP, gv’t major, geographical diversity as I’m about as OOS as you can get while being in the US, essays about my losing faith and my cultural diversity [ I may be Whasian, but I have some stuff going for me that’s not about being white or Asian] and my conservative community and my liberal self and my interest in gender stuff.)</p>
<p>For everyone still hoping on a package: I didn’t get an email. This is important. NO EMAIL DOES NOT MEAN NO INVITE. I haven’t received any emails since the release of admission decisions. My teacher rec wasn’t even turned in until the 15th of November. I do live in rural Oahu, but in some cases, mail has been delivered faster to here than it has to CA. They still might be coming.</p>
<p>nhdmaniac…congrats…just curious what major did you apply for and were you accepted to Honors College? I also have never heard someone refer to rural Oahu as conservative. My mom grew up there.</p>
<p>Government major, you have to get accepted into honors to get BK letters, so yeah. </p>
<p>Hawaii is not really as liberal as people really perceive it to be, btw. The people are accepting, yes, but progressive? Nah. There are pockets of conservatism in Hawaii, an my immediate community (like maybe 10 mile radius) is one of them. </p>
<p>I’m a NMF, and I got the NMF earlier this week (and as of today, the B/K invite). (Unless you’re inquiring about something about NMF from UMD-CP, in which I have no clue). </p>
<p>Pure speculation, but I really don’t think most colleges that don’t give out NM-specific scholarships care too much about NM status. Even some of NM-giving schools, like UChi (I think), Carleton, USC, deny plenty of NMFs each year. </p>
<p>Just as a reminder, if you are a National Merit Finalist and are intending/considering enrolling at UMd, make sure you follow all the instructions on listing Maryland as your first choice. If you receive a full B/K as I have, your NMS scholarship ($2K/year for four years) is ADDED to your full B/K award. You can actually receive merit $ up to the entire published COA. Congrats everyone. </p>
<p>in state applicant, 2370 SAT, 4.80 GPA, Rank 3/400, Published a scientific paper WITH A COLLEGE PARK PROFESSOR, varsity sports, president of two clubs, and more ---->></p>
<p>Still didn’t get anything in the mail or in my email. :(</p>
<p>To all of those interviewing tomorrow, good luck and definitely report back on CC how the day was.</p>
<p>Looking back in this thread and past threads, I’ve seen that there’s kind of a sentiment towards a need to go to the campus for the interview. They claim that if the on-campus interview is not attended, they’ll just boot you down to the Presidential Scholarship (12k OOS and no book allowance). However, just to clear this entire thing up, I’d like to note that such sentiment is untrue, well, at least the B/K people suggest that (and I kind of doubt that most of these speculators have inside knowledge).</p>
<p>I’m having an interview, but I’m not flying to the campus. I emailed about logistics and called, and the first thing that was suggested was a Skype interview. Let me say that again – I don’t have a Skype interview because I begged and made a case that flying out to UMD was economically nonviable (which it kind of is – even w/ the waiver there’s $600 in airfare and 2 nights in a hotel), I have a Skype interview because that was the first thing that was offered when I called a B/K coordinator. She said that they’ve conducted such interviews in the past for those who cannot make the trip. And, here’s the important part, the means of the interview doesn’t have a bearing on who gets the full-ride and partial. </p>
<p>I guess it’s too late for this information to have any bearing on anyone this year, but if anyone is anything like me, they’ll be searching this thread for whatever info they can get. </p>
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