INFO for H. S. Class of 2016 UMD Applicants and Parents - Decisions and Scholarships

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Maryland - College Park
1

DECISIONS

The UMD website now states that EA decisions will be released by February 1. For the past couple of years they have been released during the last week of January.

Every year, there is someone who has a friend, who has a friend, whose third cousin knows someone in UMD admissions and they were told that decisions will be released on Jan 12, or Jan 19, or whatever. And everyone gets all worked up and stressed out, and then nothing happens.

Decisions will be out the last week in January. Everyone will get an email at the same time (usually 4:30PM or so) telling them that their decision is available on the Application portal. Just log on and look.

The very first sentence will give the decision and state if you were admitted to Honors or Scholars. At the bottom it will list the advising college. If it says “Letters and Sciences” and you applied to a LEP, then you didn’t get into the LEP. If you did get in it will say “Smith” or “Clark” or whatever school is appropriate. If you didn’t get into your LEP, you can do an internal transfer. Except for Smith, it isn’t a big deal

Last year, UMD did something different.

On the last Sunday of January 2015, a bunch of Admissions people and Testudo piled into an Official UMD Tour Bus and hand-delivered acceptances to 6 randomly selected local students. There were YouTube videos and it was written up in the Washington Post. They decided that they wanted to share in the excitement. This caused quite a stir here on CC with everyone wanting decisions right then. The rest of the decisions were released the next day at the usual time.

I don’t know if UMD will repeat that for 2016 or not, but I suspect they will.

MERT SCHOLARSHIPS and FINANCIAL AID

Merit scholarships and financial aid are 2 different things.

http://www.admissions.umd.edu/finaid/MeritScholarshipsForFreshmen.php

http://www.admissions.umd.edu/finaid/NeedBasedAid.php

Students who apply EA are automatically considered for Merit Scholarships. There is no additional application needed. The big Scholarship is the Banneker-Key Scholarship. Remember those 12,000 accepted students. Out of those 400 are invited to compete for the BK. The invite selection process is also holistic. Stats alone will not get you a BK invite. I’ve seen students with SATs below 1300 get a Full BK. The competition consists of an Interview. No Essay. No Test. Just an Interview. Out of the 400, 150 get a Full Ride BK. All the others get something. There are other Merit Scholarships beside the BK, but I don’t know much about them. I would be surprised if the total number of scholarships is over 800.
Being a State University, I can assure you that there are no money trees growing on the UMD campus. And if there were, the politicians would have them stripped clean in seconds.

From what I see, financial aid at most Public Universities consists of the standard subsidized and unsubsidized loans. There may be a Grant throw in here and there. So, if you do get a merit scholarship, great, but don’t count on one. And don’t expect financial aid to be a lot of money.

SPRING 2017 ADMISSION

If you get this decision, do NOT freak out. UMD has 2 programs just for spring admits. One option is to spend the fall semester in a Study Abroad program (Paris, London, etc.). I don’t know much about it. Search the UMD website for info. The other option is Freshman Connection. UMD has had this program for many years. Students who enroll in Freshman Connection (I think there is a limit on the number of enrollees) can

  • Start taking classes on campus in the fall of 2016
  • Live in a Dorm on campus
  • Sign up for a campus meal plan
  • Attend all athletic games and campus social events and parties.

What is the downside? You cannot participate in Division I sports and your class selection is somewhat limited and all your classes will be in late afternoon (3 PM or later) or early evening.

http://oes.umd.edu/freshmen-connection

And NO ONE cares that you are in Freshman Connection. My D has some good friends who took this option and they basically had a normal freshman fall semester experience. Just something to consider.

I hope all this helps. Good Luck.

2

bump just thought this would be a good first page post about this time.

3

Thank you for the info!

4

My dd’s portal status changed yesterday to reflect they have gone over her application and are ready to make a decision. Not sure on the exact words. She has been accepted to the colleges she applied to so far with scholarships but Maryland is her number 1 choice.

5

When do they announce the scholarships and BK invitations? Thanks

6

@NusaDua where does it say this? I am not seeing it on mine. Maryland is a top for me as well

7

Waiting for word…

8

So, there are two oddities or glitches about the Maryland system. One of which is that every time you log into your account, it changes the date of when your application is completed to the current date that you are logging in on. If you haven’t logged in before or it has been some time since you logged in, you may get the impression from the wording (i don’t recall exactly what it is but something to the effect of application completed on…) that a decision is imminent because of the current date…@NusaDua, is that what you are referring to by any chance?

9

@marylandhome scholarships are a separate notification later on - sometime around March if I recall - I’ll look it up and get back to you on that.

As SoofDad said, when admissions are released, the information the notification contains includes only admission to university status, notification of advising college (so those applying for LEP’s need to look carefully for that since it is less obvious) and notification if you are invited to honors/scholars.

10

You are right maryversity I had my dd check and it is today’s date now

11

Here is some info that I posted earlier on a different thread. I hope it helps some.

ADMISSIONS

This is a subject of confusion and consternation every year, so here is my take on it.

EA applications are first reviewed by the UMD Admissions Committee (whoever that is). They will have one of 3 decisions - Denied Admission (I don’t know if there is a waitlist), Accepted for Spring 2017 (more on that later), or Accepted for Fall of 2016.

As far as I can tell, the next step is that the Accepted for Fall of 2016 applications are sent to both the LEP Admissions Committee (if you applied to a LEP) and the Honors College/Scholars Program Admissions Committee(s). I don’t really know if there is just one Honors College/Scholars Program Admissions Committee for both or if there are 2 separate ones. In the end it doesn’t really matter. (EDIT - THERE ARE 2 DIFFERENT ADMISSION COMMITTEES FOR HONORS AND SCHOLARS)

http://www.lep.umd.edu/

http://www.honors.umd.edu/

http://www.scholars.umd.edu/

The LEP Committee and the Honors/Scholars Committee evaluate the applications completely independently and without any consideration of what the other decides.

I don’t know what the LEP Ad Coms look for.

I do know that the Honors College admission and the Scholars Program admission are Holistic evaluations. Stats alone will NOT get you into the either (but Honors College students do tend to have high Stats - 1450+ SAT and 4.0 UW GPA)

I don’t know what will get you into a LEP. LEP’s, by definition, are limited enrollment. They literally do not have enough seats for all the students who apply. Remember those 28,000 applicants and the 12,000 acceptances. Well, assume that there are 700 spots available in the Clark School of Engineering and 1200 of the 12,000 acceptances applied to Clark, then there are 500 applicants who do not get into Clark. They are assigned to Letters and Sciences (L&S).
It just comes down to numbers. No matter how good you think you are, you will never know how many of the other 12,000 were better.

The Honors/Scholars Ad Coms do not consider what the LEP Ad Coms decided and the LEP Ad Coms do not consider what the Honors/Scholars Ad Coms decided.

So at this point the possible results are

  • Admitted to UMD Spring 2017
  • Admitted to UMD Fall 2016
  • Admitted to UMD Fall 2016 + admitted to Scholars
  • Admitted to UMD Fall 2016 + admitted to Honors
  • Admitted to UMD Fall 2016 + admitted to LEP
  • Admitted to UMD Fall 2016 + admitted to Scholars + admitted to LEP
  • Admitted to UMD Fall 2016 + admitted to Honors + admitted to LEP.

Every year, parents and students will say - I got into my LEP but nor Honors, I got into Honors but not my LEP, I got into Scholars, but my friend with lower Stats got into Honors. And so forth.

The decisions are what they are. I’ve read on here that some can be appealed. I really don’t know. That’s pretty much all I can say, except that Honors and Scholars REALLY are Holistic evaluations, and essays and LORS and ECs count.

Reply   Share on Facebook
12

Please forgive my ignorance but what is the difference between the Honors Program and the Scholars Program?

13

@PhilaSkiMom

Honors is a 4 year program that gives you access to “H” level courses and honors seminars. You need to take 5 of these total to receive the honors citation (with at least 3 seminars). I haven’t taken any seminars yet but everyone I’ve talked to says they’re generally an annoying amount of writing and busywork but very easy As. I believe that being in the honors college also gives you automatic admission for at least some if not all departmental honors programs if you meet the minimum requirements. Most of the honors students are housed together in Hagerstown, which has the worst accommodations but the lowest incident rates. I’m not in scholars so I can’t say as much about it, but it’s a 2 year program that has its own series of required courses. Admission to scholars is more based on community involvement while the honors college is based more on academics. Though neither program is “better,” the honors college does get the first pick from the incoming class. Getting into either also means you have a decent chance at receiving merit scholarships.

14

Thank you @Matt846!

15

The BK email, telling the student to watch for something “exciting” in the mail, came out last year a few days after admission decisions. My son then received the actual BK notice in early February (dated February 4th) letting him know he was selected. He then received the letter notifying him of which BK scholarship he received in mid March (dated March 20th). His interview was February 16th, so it’s a long wait to find out which scholarship they received! My son received the full scholarship (so grateful), but either one gives them fantastic opportunities throughout the year along with the scholarship money!

16

@mdneglag do you mind sharing your son’s stats? very impressive to get the full scholarship. Congrats!

17

@PhilaSkiMom - I want to add more info about the Honors College. My D is in the Honors College and the University Honors Program

The Honors College has 7 different programs, Each one is in a particular dorm. Some are in Ellicot, or LaPlata. The ACES program is in Prince Frederick, the newest dorm on campus. My D says it’s like a hotel. She doesn’t live there but has visited. Only University Honors is in Hagerstown Hall.

Students admitted to Honors fill out a form, identifying their first and second preference.

There is a rather extensive list of Honors Seminars every semester. They all fulfill one or more GenEd requirements and they are all limited to 20 students. Various Departments also offer Honors versions of regular courses,

Last year, my D took an Honors English class. The regular class had about 100 students. The Honors version was restricted to 15. This coming semester, the Math department is offering a regular and Honors version of Calc II. The regular class will have 120+ students. The Honors version is limited to 27. There is a course being offered by the Computer Engineering Dept, 50 in the regular class. Only 12 in the Honors class.

My D has taken both Honors Seminars and Honors Classes. She will readily agree that the Honors classes and seminars are more work, but she also considers them her best classes to date. Honors provides a completely different classroom experience. Clearly not all courses have Honors versions, but there are some every semester.

Like most of life, Honors is what you make of it.

Here is a link to the Honors College.

http://www.honors.umd.edu/

18

FYI, there is no obvious rhyme or reason to B/K invites - it is very holistic, and there are no published qualifications of what is considered for eligibility. The only common denominator is that only students invited to honors college are eligible for consideration. A large number of B/K invites are students that have extremely impressive stats (as in they are the ones who would be among the few ivy league admits) BUT there are lots of exceptions to that.

Just want to expand on Matt846’s comment that for honors/scholars, “Getting into either also means you have a decent chance at receiving merit scholarships.” The point I want to emphasize is “decent chance” - it is not guarantee. Maryland is a state school, so they don’t have the large endowments that private institutions have. What that means is they don’t have a whole lot to give, and people are often disappointed with the amounts --if they do get them to begin with.

I have seen some scholars students get more money than some honors students, and students in neither of those 2 programs can also be eligible for scholarships, so that is not a determining factor for award amounts.

Invitations to honors only determines eligibility for B/K consideration. There are very few students in the scheme of things that get invited to B/K, but it just seems like a large number probably because a lot of them happen to be on cc.

It’s important to bear in mind that the bottom line cost of Maryland is significantly less than the majority of schools to begin with, so as disappointing as scholarships may be, Maryland is still a really great choice.

FYI, there are also A LOT MORE scholarships that students become eligible to apply for AFTER they matriculate…here is a link to check them out

https://advancement.umd.edu/celebration/listScholarships.php

Note that the scholarships are specific to a department/school, so click on the appropriate one to get a list that is applicable for you. However, these scholarships, unlike the ones offered to incoming freshman, are not automatic consideration. You need to apply to these on a yearly basis. While I can’t speak definitively for other departments/schools, I can say that Clark (engineering) has a single application that is considered for all the available departmental scholarships. You are required to fill out a FAFSA yearly (yes, even for merit only scholarships).

19

@Nr2mom as Maryversity said the BK is very holistic. While my son had very good stats (4.0 uw/4.62 w) and an ACT of 34, he didn’t have a lot of extra curricular activities such as clubs, internships etc. I think they liked the fact that he played a sport (very competitive travel baseball) 9 months out of the year and was still able to keep his grades up. I also think a really good essay showing who the student really is helps a lot, along with great recommendations. He had some friends who also had great stats, but were not offered the BK, so it’s hard to know for sure what they are looking for any given year. Good luck to your son or daughter!

20

So, @PhilaSkiMom, to answer what scholars is…it is a 2 year program that bills itself as “active learning” - basically, augments learning by outside experiences. It has 1 credit seminars for each semester of first year that includes site visits to some cool places that tie in to the theme of the program you select. For example, one of the places the Science, Technology and Society program went to the Army Research Lab which is pretty cool since it’s not a place tourists can access. There is lots of programming, including charity events, that bring all the programs together. The second/practicum year incorporates student choice of research, internship or service learning and culminates in a showcase of projects. Here is the link for info on scholars https://www.scholars.umd.edu/about/what-is-scholars. In addition to the 1 credit class per semester, there are 2 electives (from a list of several options that tie in to the program theme) that typically also fulfill gen ed requirements.