<p>Washington County Maryland
White Female</p>
<p>GPA: 4.0 (Weighted not sure but all A's all 4 years including APs)
SATS: 1240/1600 (800 on writing but I know that doesn't count, and math a little low @580)</p>
<p>Class Rank: 3/300
At least 8 AP courses</p>
<p>Class President, sports, many, many extracurriculars and community service
Great teacher/counselor recommendations I assume</p>
<p>Thanks everyone (I'm more nervous than she is!)</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s any question that she’ll certainly get accepted. Her SAT scores probably will mean that she won’t get any merit aid (UMD is not known for being generous in the first place!), but her grades, and having taking that many AP’s would have put her in the “no question about it” category…assuming she applied by the priority date?</p>
<p>THanks very much, yes, she did apply priority.</p>
<p>I’ve been through this once before and I’ve learned never to count my chickens.</p>
<p>It’s stunningly difficult when your kid doesn’t get into their first choice, especially when they - and you - feel they should qualify.</p>
<p>Thanks again.</p>
<p>You’re right about that…I think that sometimes those unexpainable “thanks but no thanks letters” are harder on the parent than on the kid. That being said, UMD is very numbers-driven. I can’t see them NOT admitting a MD resident with a 4.0 GPA and 8 APs, unless the teacher recommendations were heinous. which I’m sure was not the case!!!</p>
<p>Yeah, there is NO question about it! Of course she’d be in. If she were rejected, I would have the guidance counselor appeal it, it would be so unbelievable. She’s definitely in the honors programs, but merit aid would be iffy. Perhaps she would receive something if she applied to a non math intensive major.</p>
<p>Actually, I heard recently from what seemed to be a good source that the reason UMCP puts more emphasis on SATs than grades is because of the variation in public school instruction in Maryland. (Not to say this isn’t the case in many states, but this particular person was talking about Maryland in particular.) Apparently there are some schools that are just not rigorous, and the only way for them to really judge the caliber of the students is to compare them across some type of national measure, such as SAT scores. </p>
<p>When I read the OPs post, it is somewhat amazing to me that a kid can be number 3 in their class and only have a 1240 out of 1600 on their SATs. It would be interesting to know what the mean weighted GPA is in the OP’s school. In our school, the val and sal both have scores in the 1500s, and our mean <strong>weighted</strong> GPA is a 3.0.</p>
<p>I realize that some kids are simply not good test takers, which is why the school profile should be used…but with big schools like UMCP, I just can’t imagine that is happening that much. However, I do expect that some high schools get “quality points” added to their total GPAs when applying to certain colleges.</p>
<p>Yes, I understand ReadyToRoll’s point and that is the crux of my concern.</p>
<p>Let me state (immodestly) that D is no doubt one of the top students in Western Maryland, but it <em>is</em> Western Maryland and the schools aren’t what they are perceived to be in say Howard or Montgomery. (at least reputation-wise, but they are by no means slouch schools. You just don’t have the college-bound mentality out here). Nonetheless, she did get all A’s but one in 11 APs (correcting an earlier post). Extracurriculars and recommendations are stellar.
*
I pushed her to take the SAT’s again to bring up math, but she refused. 
She is looking at marketing and/or journalism-type majors, so the hell with math. But some of her APs were math and she did get A’s.</p>
<p>My hope is that UMD is motivated to “balance” students from across the state and wants to take a fair number from the hinterlands as well as Balt and the DC burbs. After all, we all pay taxes to support the school!</p>
<p>In any event, she’s already accepted to JMU and UMBC, so she has <em>somewhere</em> to go, but College Park is her first choice by far.</p>
<p>Thanks to all for the interesting input.</p>
<p>relgnaps…did you daughter take all of the AP exams? How did she do? Did you send the scores to UMCP?</p>
<p>RtR:</p>
<p>I don’t have complete info at hand, but I think she took 6 or 7 of them and got mostly 4’s with maybe one 3 and one or two 5’s. True to her interests, the ones she took and did well in were non-quantitative like English, Government, History. We sent those to Maryland.</p>
<p>I am not surprised at the discrepency between rank and SAT scores…</p>
<p>Both in HS and college, one can do well by working hard - one doesn’t have to be a genius test taker in a sense that one is going to get a 1550/1600 first go on the SAT, to get an A in advanced HS or college classes. That is why recent studies have shown HS grades to be a better indicator of success in college than SAT scores - which I’m sure adcoms are aware of. While there were many people in my HS who received perfect or near perfect scores on the SAT first go around (and they also received quite good grades), there were also many people near the top of the class who did not do so flawlessly at first - including myself. I scored 560 on the math section the first time. 560. With a bit of studying, I raised it to 720. I wasn’t sick or having a bad day. I’m just the type of person who needs a little preparation for things. So when I say it doesn’t surprise me that OP’s D was #3 in class but didn’t get a hot shot SAT score, it REALLY doesn’t surprise me haha, because I know how much a bit of studying probably would have benefited her (that’s unfortunate, really, that she didn’t want to take it twice, but what’s done is done!).</p>
<p>It’s easy to take kids doing well on the SAT for granted, but some people do not study, do not understand the format, and just don’t do well the first time - whether they are at the top of the class or not. As you can see by the HUGE range in my scores, it’s not really a matter of “Am I smart enough to get a good SAT score” but really, “Do I know /how/ to get a good SAT score”.</p>
<p>That said, UMD is a very numbers driven school, because they get so many gosh darned applicants. They just don’t have time to review as holistically as some of the schools that don’t accept SAT scores AT ALL. There’s no way they’d reject OP’s D - just no way. And if they did, it’d be cause for a phone call and an explanation. OP’s Ds grades are above average, FAR above avg. for a MD admit. And while her scores don’t match up to her grades per se, they’re still not BAD by any stretch of the word…I know plenty of students at MD with a similar SAT score. So while scholarships are somewhat iffy, acceptance overall (and to the journalism and business school to boot), are probably gaurunteed.</p>
<p>She did get in - Honors College!</p>
<p>umcp11, I think you described me in a nutshell. Very insightful post.</p>