Thank you @maryversity yes, I read all your posts and appreciate all the information you put together, very helpful. Congratulations on your son’s graduation! Will he start working right after or will he pursue a masters program? All the best!
Thanks and I know at some point my son will pursue a masters. Best of luck to your son on his B/K interview!
@maryversity could you shed some similar information on computer science? Sorry I just gate-crashed this thread 
@RossandRachel I wish I could, but the only reason I know so much about engineering is because that is my son’s major. Computer Science is actually in a different school/department - the Computer, Math & Natural Science, aka CMNS. What information, specifically, were you looking for?
@maryversity I specifically wanted to know if you knew the ranking of the undergraduate cs program and also how much companies value a degree in CS from Maryland. I am just really confused at the moment and do not want to make any hasty decisions as this will impact my life. Also is there a major difference between graduate and undergraduate rankings?
Oops…sorry I missed answering you earlier @RossandRachel - just noticed this when I posted this link for someone. As for the value of CompSci graduates from Maryland, I can only tell you that all of my son’s friends that did CompSci, they all were hired before graduation. I don’t know where all of them are, but I know one of his closest friends is at Microsoft. I don’t know that there is a huge difference in undergraduate and graduate rankings as every ranking has different measures. In general, CompSci at Maryland is a top program and there is new construction going on for expansion with the new Iribe Center http://iribe.cs.umd.edu/home
Some of this advice isn’t specific to Maryland, but anyway:
- Research your professors before choosing between sections, especially for enes100.
- Go to the engineering career center to get your resume critiqued - if you do this they will open up your careers for engineers account, which gives you access to lots of job postings and other opportunities.
- Depending on your free time, work ethic and ability level, be very, very careful with taking on lots of technical classes in a single semester.
Bumping up this thread for those interested in applying to Maryland for engineering.
At some schools, applying to less popular major is seen as a “back door” strategy for admission. At Maryland, that is NOT the case.
Engineering is a LEP (limited enrollment program), so the admission to the LEP of engineering itself is the tough part. There is no quota, per se, of X number of MechE or Y number of Materials that are admitted. It doesn’t increase your chances of admission to the LEP by applying to a less popular discipline within engineering, and it is absolutely no issue to apply as an undecided engineering student.
The first year courses are pretty standard across all engineering disciplines, which is why admission to engineering in general is tough, and majors within engineering (disciplines) do not need to be officially declared until sophomore year.
Bumping this up to help answer questions for all the new Terps interested in engineering! Start from page one and open all the links for the most thorough understanding. Congrats to everyone!
@maryversity thank you!! Got direct admit to Clark so this will come in handy
D17 was also a direct admit to Clark (aerospace engineering) and honors. I think she’s going to have to do some research on the honors options; there are a lot of them. At this point, UMD is her first choice, so we’re thrilled!
First off, congrats to everyone admitted! Does anyone have experience with transferring into the Clark school, specifically if I would be able to take the freshman engineering classes? I was admitted for Fall 2017 and the Honors College in-state, but didn’t get into the Clark school. I am just concerned that I won’t be able to complete my degree in four years.
@engball I am a freshman at UMD who was not admitted to the Clark School initially, but was able to apply after my first semester and I am now a mechanical engineering major.
You aren’t able to take engineering classes such as ENES100 or ENES102, however you are able to take gateway classes such as PHYS161, MATH141, and/or CHEM135 (which are also engineering major requirements) depending on AP/IB credits that you may have gotten in high school. In my case, I had AP credit for Calc 2 and for Chemistry, but not for physics, so I took PHYS161 my first semester and took other classes that I thought would be useful for my major or for graduating such as MATH241 (calc 3) and MATH240 (Intro Linear Algebra) (this class isn’t necessary for most engineering majors, but I am also interested in math so I took this class). You can also take general education classes such as ENGL101 or COMM107.
If you don’t apply for engineering after your fall semester (say you need to start in Calc 1 or something), then you can request to get permission to take ENES100A your spring semester (it’s the equivalent of ENES100 but for people who are not yet engineering majors).
I wouldn’t be too worried about not being able to graduate in 4 years as long as you are diligent and don’t slack off too much.
For more information regarding the internal transfer, check out http://lep.umd.edu/
I hope I could help, and good luck! Go terps!
Actually, they now offer ENES100A for students not admitted to engineering to help keep you on track to graduate on time…
@maryversity Well, yes, however I believe you can only take that class Spring Semester
No, it is also offered in the fall…https://ntst.umd.edu/soc/201608/ENES
Here are some links about the transfer process. Once you are admitted to the University of Maryland, you are considered an “internal transfer”…
http://www.eng.umd.edu/advising/transfer#current
and some FAQ’s in general, transfer included
http://www.eng.umd.edu/advising/faq
D17’s teacher who wrote her LOR wants to know how selective direct admit to her major (aero engineering) is at UMD. It’s a rare school for someone here (in central Illinois) to apply for, and he’s curious. I’ve tried to research it today and can’t find figures (or do the math) to come up with a good answer. I did see that in 2015 there were 100 admits, so I’m assuming around 400 in undergrad, but that tells me nothing about who applied. Is it even possible, or would I need to broaden it to all engineering disciplines? (I’d also like to know the same thing for Honors, but haven’t even started trying to find out.)
@maryversity @RybkaShredder thank you for the help!
@NerdMom88 When u attend the admitted student open house for engineering, they will share this year’s facts and figures. In the meantime, to answer your question of selectivity, the only info available is from previous years. In the faq page http://www.eng.umd.edu/admissionsfaqs
under the second question about Letters and Sciences, it states that they get approximately 3,000 applicants and will admit anywhere between 1,700 and 1,800 students (they do not break it down into each discipline because they do not admit/restrict based on preferred discipline). The university itself stated it received 3,000 more applicants this year than in previous years, and there is no way to know how many of those were engineering hopefuls. However, it is likely that it did have some impact on engineering admissions also.
The total number of enrolled students from previous years is found on the http://www.eng.umd.edu/aboutus/facts-figures page…the “100” aerospace you read there is number of students graduating that year with that discipline, not number admitted. If u scroll further down, you will see the most recent number of enrolled students is 634 for freshman. Note that the total number of undergrads is around 4,000 because many people transfer into major later and some do take longer than 8 semesters to graduate for a variety of reasons (some have double majors, some are behind in classes, etc. - understand that if u follow the four year plan as laid out, there is no issue graduating in 4 years)
Anecdotally, if u read admission decisions posted, you will see many students admitted to honors college/scholars but assigned to letters and sciences instead of engineering…it is “harder” to be admitted to engineering than it is to be admitted to honors/scholars. While a large percentage of engineering students are also admitted to honors/scholars, one does not predict the other. Many engineering admits are not invited to honors/scholars.
Fwiw, I checked my son’s graduation program (spring 16) and there were about 100 aero students (I only counted on column and there were 3 but some names did take 2 lines so that’s why I said “about”) graduating this past year also.