ACT: 34 (35 superscore)
GPA: 3.62 UW and 4.18 W
Course load: IB student until senior year. Now taking 4 AP (Calculus AB, Physics C, Government, and Literature)
AP Scores: AP World History (5) AP US History (4)
Class rank: 38/381
Potential Major: Economics
Extracurriculars: Varsity football (2 year starter at wide receiver for a 1600+ student public high school in Alabama)
Key Club (100+ volunteer hours)
NHS
Model United Nations (Premier delegate 2 years in a row)
Paid work as a busboy at a restaurant for past 2 years
Received 50 IB CAS service hours for volunteering at the local animal shelter
Teacher rec: should be good
Counselor rec: should be good
Essay: honestly think i did really great on it
Demographic: White male from Alabama. Large public school. $60,000-$70,000 income
-My extracurriculars aren’t that great, but I do have a couple D3 offers so that may be a factor. Football down here is a huge time commitment so having time for other ECs is hard
-I quit IB before senior year because there was a schedule conflict with football, not because I couldn’t handle it
Thanks to all who respond!
While I typically don’t participate in public “chancing,” I did have a pretty amazing track record of predicting (at least to myself) how applicants would fare…until last year. Things changed because they added a new program to the mix last year.
Prior to last year, talented students would either be invited to Honors or Scholars (or some other living learning program).
Last year, they added a research program called FIRE (First Year Innovativation & Research Experience) as another program that they offered for talented incoming freshman. (The program started just a few years before last but was not part of the admissions invites prior to last year).
I’m not sure what the parameters are for those invites as compared to honors or scholars, so I don’t know if anyone can hazard a guess with any authority about it just yet…?
I am going on my past experience with my kids who applied and did not get into the Honors College. Based on their experiences, I believe it is highly unlikely you will get into the Honors College because of your GPA. You may get into Scholars or Fire-- not sure what criteria they use. By the way, this past admission round for Fall 2017, anyone who wanted to be in Fire was able to fill out an application, and spaces were awarded first come, first served.
Hi! I’m an Honors Ambassador at UMD, so I’d like to give my input on this. Honors students are rarely chosen just based on GPAs and scores, so don’t necessarily believe chances based on that. UMD Admissions holistically looks at your application based on 26 different factors (https://admissions.umd.edu/apply/admission-review-factors-and-process). Then, they rank all their applicants based on those factors. The top 3,000, I believe, they choose to offer Honors to. If you do not get into Honors, they will then review your application for a potential offer into Scholars.
So, from what I can tell, they don’t just look at your application stand-alone. They compare you to other applicants to UMD. There is no way to chance you, since we don’t know about anything about the other applicants you’re competing with.
Let me know if you have any Honors related questions, and I’ll try to answer them as best as I can!
@whenyoubelieve@rdtjgk Balancing IB coursework with 3 to 4 hour long football practices was a struggle and my GPA reflects that. There aren’t very many IB students that not only play football but also start on varsity in a talent-rich area of the country so hopefully that adds to some aspect of diversity. Also, I’m in the developmental stages of creating my own platform app for small businesses, if that gives me anything. I’m really excited about how everything is coming together, and I did write my essay about it so I hope that helps.
@YeetBlue
The first thing that you need to understand about Honors College at Maryland is that it is different than most schools’ honors college. The fundamental difference is that it is not straight up only for the kids with the highest stats, and being invited to one of the other special programs such as College Park Scholars or FIRE (First year Innovation Research Experience) or something else is NOT an insult.
Yes, most of the students in honors college have the highest stats, but definitely not all! There are absolutely a good number of students in scholars that have higher stats than (some) students that were invited to honors, and that seems more prevalent in recent years. I’m not sure where FIRE fits on the spectrum of stats since it is new, but discussions of those invited were also very impressive. So, what is the difference? They are very different programs for academically talented students who approach academic challenges differently. It really is about fit. There is no standard numeric thresholds for the stats to be considered for each program.
This is my assessment of the differences between Honors College and College Park Scholars (again, FIRE is not something I can speak about because it’s new but obviously is a research-based program): Students invited to honors college tend to like challenges in the classroom (basically they took as many AP’s as they could based on what their school has to offer in a variety of subjects). Students invited to scholars tend to challenge themselves outside the classroom more (read they took AP’s (but maybe not as many) and have very impressive EC’s, so clearly the scholars is a better fit).
That’s NOT to say honors don’t have impressive EC’s or that scholars don’t have a lot of AP’s, because they both do, as do FIRE invitees. However, the point I am trying to make is that honors college is not the only program for academically talented students at Maryland.