So, just to make things easier for those interested, I am starting this thread where I will post some info (mostly older threads of discussions you will find of interest) so it’s all in one place.
To start, as you all know, engineering is a LEP (limited enrollment program) which means admission is more competitive and that the “stats” of the students admitted to the school of engineering are typically higher than the stats for students admitted to the university itself. So, what are the average admitted stats for engineering students?
SAT/ACT/GPA information on this list of freshmen is as follows:
Average GPA: 4.33
Combined Math/Critical Reading SAT Scores:
o Average: 1407
o 25th Percentile: 1348
o 75th Percentile: 1470
SAT Math Scores:
o Average: 730
o 25th Percentile: 700
o 75th Percentile: 770
109 Underrepresented Minorities-15%
191 Women-26%
374 of these confirmed students (51%) have been selected for the Honors College.
Here are two older threads that are worth reading through. They have several links that are worth opening and will answer a broad range of questions about engineering at Maryland.
One more thing I need to post before decisions come out, to explain the whole “what happens if” scenario…
SOOO many times I have seen VERY strong students admitted to the university, who are invited to either honors college or scholars (AND get merit scholarships even - but that info doesn’t come out until later), but they are not directly admitted to engineering. Instead, their initial advising college is assigned to Letters and Sciences. It happens all the time and is not something that can be predicted. While disappointing, it really is not as big a deal as you may think (at least for engineering!)
Let me post some previous threads to give you a sense of this. Honestly, it really is more of a hiccup than anything.
Oh, and while I am at it, even though I just posted it in another thread, let me post this info here since it will be of interest to engineering students as well…
There is a really, really cool 3-year honors program that you can apply to after your first semester freshman year, called QUEST. It is only open to engineering, business and CMNS students (computer, math and natural science). Basically what it does is it teaches you how problem-solve in teams by taking advantage of each other’s skill sets. Businesses go nuts when they see you are trained in this kind of “systems management” skill. You learn these skills for the first two years and in the third year of the program, you are paired with company that gives you an actual problem they are having, and they challenge you to find a solution for them. So, while it’s not an internship per se, it’s a very similar opportunity to network and show off skills to a real employer (actually, this is kind of better because sometimes interns just do scut work whereas this is an actual challenge and opportunity to shine/show your stuff). Many students do get offers or leads for jobs from this. http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/programs/undergraduate-programs/academics/fellows-special-programs/quest/what-quest
There is also a program called Hinman CEO’s, which is open to all majors, which teaches about entrepreneurship. It’s a 2 year living-learning program for upper classmen and they often have “private” meetings with representatives from big companies like Google, Amazon, etc. This is the same program that Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armor, participated in when he went to Maryland…http://www.hinmanceos.umd.edu/
There are LOTS of opportunities to learn about technology entrepreneurship. Maryland is all about entrepreneurship so you can learn how to capitalize on what you design. Check out this website to see some of the stuff that is available http://www.mtech.umd.edu/index.html
I’m telling you, the possibilities and opportunities at Maryland are amazing…
On a side note, if any of you incoming freshmen or transfers think you’ll be a top engineering student by Junior or Senior year, as a personal favor to future Tau Beta Pi initiation chairs, please make sure your Testudo contact information is set to Public and not Confidential. In addition to allowing your name to appear on the public Dean’s List
@maryversity Was your son accepted directly into the engineering school? What was his GPA, test scores, etc. like? On a person note, I’m bummed out that UMD College Park doesn’t use ACT scores in their statistics because I took that instead of the SAT and would like to compare my scores to the admitted freshman.
Yes, he was a direct admit to engineering and I gave his stats on the FWIW thread…basically, a 32(and above) composite is in range for engineering. (of course, you could argue that 31 composite is also in range, but that is the low end and is too close for comfort to call “in range” )
Actually, @tew3bud, the university itself has started posting the average ACT scores! Here is the link… http://www.admissions.umd.edu/counselor/FreshmanProfile.php
“For students admitted to the University of Maryland for the Fall 2014 semester, the middle 50% of SAT scores ranged from 1260 to 1410, and 28-32 on the ACT.”
Of course, that’s the general admissions, not engineering…BUT if I recall correctly, at the admitted students program for engineering students, they actually did state the ACT info. I think they did intend to include the ACT scores on their page because it is listed as “SAT/ACT/GPA information” (I copied and pasted directly) even though the figures for the ACT are not listed, I think that was an honest oversight. They really do get that more and more kids are taking the ACT…
Hang in there, hopefully less than 2 weeks now…best of luck!
Ok thank you both @terpmom7 and @maryversity I got a 35 superscored ACT with a 36 in both the Math and Science sections and I also submitted a 780 Math 2 SAT score because I thought that would help; I also have a 4.3 weighted GPA. I’m banking on that as well as the internship I have right now as a computer aide for the Department of Defense. All the waiting is pretty stressful.
“All the waiting is pretty stressful”
Yeah, I totally get that…but honestly, it wouldn’t be so stressful if everyone wasn’t posting these rumors about decisions possibly being released on the 20th or this date or that date kinda thing…
Since decisions will be coming out any day now (but not today since it’s Sunday!), I thought that a constructive way to pass the time for prospective engineering students is to read (yeah, I get the irony, you tend not to read unless it’s necessary and related to technical stuff) some interesting discussions from the engineering forum about what to expect as an engineering student…
Congrats on the admission! Are you IS? If so, that’s a natural gut reaction of all IS students to their home state university. Have you visited? What are his concerns? I’m happy to help however I can to “show” him how awesome Maryland really is - especially for engineering! Does he know what discipline he is interested in?
OOS, New York. He has his sites set on Duke. Accepted to Honors College and Engineering School. I think he may have the grades for some Scholarship $$. They got my hopes up when they refunded the application fee. I called because I was worried that the application hadn’t gone through and was told that it was refunded because he was an exceptional candidate. I am not a big fan of rankings but it seems that UMd engineering is actually ranked above Duke, UNC and UVa which are among his other choices. We have not visited yet. We are going to try to go this month. He wants warm weather so I probably should have made the trip last fall but what can you do?
Are any of the Honors communities better suited than the others for engineers? We have to choose soon.
Depends on his interests…if he wants computer engineering, then ACES is a natural fit (cybersecurity) but if he is MechE or EE, then I would say to consider EIP…so he can learn to capitalize on anything he might design…
And Duke? Hmmm, umm, you do know about the rivalry history, right? Damn it, I can’t comment seriously because I’m a Maryland alum!!! Haha.
