I remember someone (perhaps @maryversity or @soofdad sorry for tagging you if not 
) - suggested signing up for UMD’s housing even if unsure about attendance. I have two questions about this:
- If a kid wants to eat most (all? not all?) meals in the Hillel, i.e. kosher, it looks like you have to sign up for a "Hillel Platinum" meal plan. However, that is not one of the options given in the signup form. What is the right procedure?
- If a kid wants to live in Honors housing instead of in the kosher/Jewish suites (if such exist?) - how is this indicated - for that matter, how would any kid indicate Honors housing or kosher housing?
Thank you very much!
@fretfulmother - I copied this from the following umd website
http://dining.umd.edu/plans/faqs/
I want a kosher meal plan; how do I get one? Do I still have to buy a university dining plan?
Students planning on living in traditional on-campus housing must select one of our dining plan options when they request housing. If you prefer a kosher meal plan, contact the Hillel Center and sign up for a full kosher meal plan. Before the start of every semester, the Hillel Center sends us a list of students who have contracted for a full kosher meal plan. As soon as we receive this information, we cancel those contracts and credit the accounts of students who are using the Hillel as their full-time dining room.
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Will my kosher meal plan work outside of Hillel?
The Kosher Meal plan is only good at the Hillel Center.
So, it appears that you just select one of the regular meal plans and they sort it out when they get the list from the Hillel Center.
As for housing, dorm assignments for Honors students is determined by the Honors Program they select. University Honors is in Hagerstown, ACES is in Prince Frederick, etc.
Unfortunately, I don’t know about kosher housing.
@soofdad - thank you! (and thank you for being patient with me not finding it on the website which I thought I’d scoured LOL)
You’re welcome. It appears that UMD is redoing a lot of their web pages and that makes it a little hard to always find info
@fretfulmother -Yes, there are housing accommodations available for Jewish students wishing to keep kosher.
Although it sounds like you are more interested in putting honors housing as the priority, you might still like to know that if you request it, you can be assigned to a dorm that is closer to Hillel for dining convenience. There is also matching done for upperclassmen wanting to live in apartment style housing that want to keep their kitchen kosher. So, one of my friends has a daughter (junior) living in South Campus Commons with suite mates that all keep kosher.
As for indicating a preference for honors housing over being close to Hillel, I think there is a spot for indicating requests on the housing form, but I don’t recall. Regardless, there is sufficient time at this point to find out how to do this if there isn’t a spot on the form. The main thing they want to know is will you need housing or not because that’s how they know how many spaces they can offer to upperclassmen (incoming freshman are higher priority), and how many to reserve for freshman. So, at this point, you are not committing to anything other than making sure if you do commit, you will have housing guaranteed on campus.
FYI, depending on your level of kashrut, say if your child decides to go with regular dining and just eat vegetarian for the convenience of dining closer to his/her dorm, the Hillel offers Shabbat and holiday meals that are not restricted to those that are on the Hillel dining plan. You can even pay for a Hillel plan just the week of Passover if you wish. You’ll also be happy to know they also provide soup delivery to your dorm upon request when you are sick http://www.marylandhillel.org/soupsquad/
@maryversity - thank you!! UMD is on DS’s list in part because of the fantastic Jewish community and resources there. My younger sister also attended, and she had a suite as you describe with a kosher kitchen (but this was over a decade ago, so her information might not be current).
So regarding housing location - when DS visited, he left with the thought that he would prefer to live in a more diverse setting ethnically, and that the Honors housing, should he merit admission, would be really neat. With the wonderful news of his admission the other day, he started reading more about it and is really leaning that way, still, if he ends up at UMD.
That is also really helpful about not being a commitment at this point, because DS is blessed to have a few options at this point, and is not sure where he will end up going.
My son is pretty strictly kosher, but is also hoping to get a lot of walking exercise and so is “not worried” about living far from the Hillel, though he knows realistically that means breakfast in a regular dining hall. I was thinking on the one hand, those are not insignificant distances to walk every single day, but on the other hand, with such a tremendous kosher selection, he’ll need to be walking to keep off the chub
Thank you again!!!
Yes, Maryland has a lot to offer in that respect. As for getting a lot of walking exercise, umm, no worries about that…even if you live next door to the dining, you will do plenty of walking to classes and up that dang hill to Stamp (student union)…