<p>S2 (rising senior) went to S1 excepted students open house last April at UMCP and loved the campus. He was introduced to the new Honors cyber security program called ACES. and is seriously considering pursuing admission. His stats are as follows: GPA 4.0 unweighted, 1520 SAT 800M 720CR, 34 ACT. SATII mathII 800, Physics 760, numerous awards, clubs, honor societies, athletics ect.He would not admit it but he has defeated his High schools fire wall to receive grades early. My question is what benefit would he get attending an unproven UMCP honors program vs. possible acceptance to CMU, Princeton, Duke or Michigan.</p>
<p>Glad to hear your son enjoyed UMD. I am not knowledgeable enough to answer your question directly at this time so hopefully someone else can. Every honors program needs to start somewhere! Based on the grad schools some of the students from UMD get admitted to every year, I would say it is certainly possible to reach whatever your son’s goals may be. </p>
<p>Your son would be a great candidate for the BK Scholarship, which certainly could make UMD the best value among the schools listed.</p>
<p>I agree - BK (Banneker/Key) is the opportunity best worth pursuing. The honors program at UMD is good but I personally wouldn’t have gone there just for that. I picked UMD over more prestigious schools because I got a full ride through BK and I loved the idea of graduating college with savings instead of debt.</p>
<p>smwhtslghtlydzed Thank You for your input. I am not that familiar with BK. Would my son be a viable contender for this scholarship? Also, does it matter that we are out of state residents?</p>
<p>It’s all going to come down to money (unless you are extremely wealthy, of course). I was accepted to several top 20 schools but decided to attend Maryland becuase of financial reasons. For me, the total cost of Maryland for 4 years is half the price of 1 year at a private college. So yes, Maryland is worth considering.</p>
<p>Location, location, location! There is a huge market here for cybersecurity, and I would expect local internship opportunities to be fantastic. </p>
<p>Yes, it sounds like your S is a great BK candidate. If he likes the large university environment, and is further interested in the Honors College, this could be a great alternative to a very pricey private. </p>
<p>Not sure how out-of-state status will affect you. I’ve heard that BK is reserved for in-state students, but also have heard rumors contrary to that. I would expect that any scholarship offered to your S would at least reduce cost of attendance to that of an in-state student.</p>
<p>I agree he’s a good BK candidate. There should be some threads on the UMD forum specifically about it if you want to track those down. I was also out of state and my numbers were about the same as his: 4.4 weighted GPA (maybe 3.85 unweighted?), 1550 SAT, 800 US History, 800 Math I, 750 Literature, I think 7 APs (all 5s, but they only knew about 2 scores at the time) with decent leadership in extracurriculars (president of one club, on board of a different one, member of various community organizations, some theater experience). BK winners tend to get into prestigious colleges, so they want to give these students money to get them to come. I turned down Swarthmore and Georgetown for UMD because the scholarship helped so much. Feel free to PM me with any specific questions! :)</p>
<p>The UMD application is in! S2 has UMD as his second choice, he applied scea to Princeton but Princeton could be a reach. Thank everyone for the advice and congrats on the Red Sox smwhtslghtlydzed.</p>