My son would be OOS and there are many OOS Aerospace schools, with the news about the mold in the dorms, this has turned us off at looking at this school. Can someone tell me if this is a big issue, a minor issue?
I mean someone died because of the mold. Really your choice to make it big or small.
I know serious, and why we were taking it off the lists to look at. However UMD had a great reputation in AE engineering.
So what I mean- is it rampant in all the dorms? Is this something indicative of the quality of dorms there? Are they run down, under maintained?
They are old dorms not updated from decades obvious they were gonna get mold. It is a great engineering school but not the best compared to others like Michigan etc. If you really like Maryland maybe get an apartment for your son which is offered by the uni for a higher price. Two kids died in the span of 2 years at Maryland because of poor treatment. 40 people hospitalized because of the adenovirus virus. Recently someone threatened to shoot up the school now in custody a few days ago. Your and your sons choice if you can handle situations like this.
Is there any overhaul or large scale remediation projects in place so by Fall 2020 dorms will be healthy?
Thank you, great info- appreciate hearing about the recent activities there… and wasn’t aware of the other death or the hospitalization of 40 students, as well as the recent threat. Appreciate it.
Yeah stuff like this happens a lot apparently and all they do is cover it up. https://www.google.com/amp/amp.wdio.com/news/umd-school-threat-/5196875/
This was what I was referring to and Maryland only covers up so they don’t get a bad rep. They don’t fix the problems.
The threat incident linked is not referring to University of Maryland but rather University of Minnesota Duluth, also known as UMD. My son is a senior at University of Maryland, an electrical engineering major, and has had a great experience there.
My son is a junior at UMD. I think there were only 3 dorms affected by the mold problem. My son’s dorm was not. UMD did NOT cover up the problem. I felt the school was very transparent with students about the problem, as my son received several emails regarding the mold situation. There are older and newer dorms at UMD. Some have central AC; some do not. S’s first 2 years were in older dorms and there was no problem. This year he lives in a newer dorm and there was no problem. The young lady that passed away lived in a dorm with mold problems; however, she didn’t die because of the mold, she died as a result of a serious strain of the adenovirus (which the mold might have made worse). Now…UMD was NOT upfront or act accordingly in reporting the number of students testing positive for the adenovirus. JMO
As far as remediation of the mold is concerned - I know that students were relocated and cleaning was performed. And as far as the adenovirus is concerned - UMD is performing a large scale cleaning project in all of the dorms over the winter break.
My girl is a freshman, a computer engineering major and loving it so far. She lives on campus. Her dorm had some reports of molds but her room was fine.
@JesseJune , with all due respect to ex2x01, who is not a current or past student at Maryland, I would consider the comments of the other responders (who are current parents) to be a more accurate assessment of the situation with the mold and how the school is handling it. The reality is that if you look into most any school, you can find incidents of illnesses, threats, suicides, and other horrible situations.
Maryland is a fabulous school for engineering and provides a great balance of academics with amazing opportunities as well as a really good social life - which is honestly of critical importance to engineering students since they need some balance for the extremely challenging academic demands. My son got his undergrad in MechE at Maryland and also got a Masters. He absolutely loved it there.
For Aerospace in particular, Maryland offers the unique opportunity to do research in a neutral buoyancy environment - no other university has this. https://research.umd.edu/core-facilities/nbrf In fact, NASA uses Maryland’s facility to do research there and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is about a 10-15 minute drive from campus.
Fwiw, here’s the postings about the mold http://reslife.umd.edu/moldconcerns/ but the multi-year strategy won’t be announced until the end of January.
As for engineering at Maryland, I hope you find this thread I made a few years ago helpful (while the stats listed in the beginning of the thread are outdated, they still provide some useful insights) http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-maryland-college-park/1732708-everything-you-want-to-know-about-engineering-at-maryland-p1.html
@JesseJune, I am not sure how far OOS you are. This may be of interest to you and your son: the annual Discover Maryland event designed for high school students: https://admissions.umd.edu/visit/on-campus-programs, go to Discover Maryland. The registration will be available sometime this month.
BTW, 40 students were diagnosed with adenovirus, not hospitalized. My daughter is a junior and had a cold last semester, but did not go to the health center. So she may also have had the adenovirus too, but it was not serious.
As noted in a previous post, the death of the freshman girl, while absolutely tragic, cannot be conclusively attributed to the mold in the dorm. She had underlying health issues and contracted a severe strain of the adenovirus. My daughter was in a non-air conditioned dorm which did not have mold but she has several friends in the dorm most significantly affected by mold.
This mold situation was not unique to UMD. The weather conditions were extreme and many facilities struggled with the issue. Yes, many of the dorms are old. But most colleges have at least some dorms that are old and from a parent’s point of view undesirable. I’ve realized that the kids seem to handle it better than the parents. My daughter lives in an old dorm without air conditioning. She was miserable at first due to the high temps in late August. But she survived and loves it at UMD. And honestly UMD was far from her first choice so to say she loves it there is saying quite a lot.
I would not make this the sole reason for ruling out UMD. If there are other OOS schools that check all his boxes and you don’t really need to diversify his college list further than sure, go ahead and keep it off his list. However, if you feel like UMD checks a lot of his boxes and would help balance out his college list then it’s worth it to give it another look.
@adlgel - Well said. Maryland, in fact the whole DC area, had the rainiest ever.
No one died because of mold in the dorms. A student died from the adenovirus (causes the common cold) because her immune system was impaired by another condition and its treatment. Her father speculated to the Washington Post that it was the mold but that wasn’t true.
Students were treated for breathing difficulties and the dorms have been treated to remove the mold. The DC just had its wettest year on record.
With all due respect, like stated above, ex2x01 does have a bit of false information. I am a current student at Maryland, and there was never a threat to shoot up the school (at least in this past semester). The were several dorms with mold issues but only one dorm had a severe issue where they had to evacuate to the hotel right off campus (which is super nice I must say). Also, the mold had less to due with the age of the dorm, it came from the AC units. Which is why none of non-AC dorms had the mold issue.