<p>What are my chances of applying as a bio/psych major? Here's what I have:</p>
<p>Out of State
SAT score: 2170; 740 writing, 730 reading, 700 math
GPA (unweighted): 95.395%, roughly a 3.7</p>
<p>AP Courses taken in hs: (scores haven't been released, will update)</p>
<p>Sophomore
AP US History</p>
<p>Junior
AP Language Arts and Composition
AP US History II
AP Calculus AB
AP Biology</p>
<p>Senior (future schedule)
AP Language Arts III
AP Psychology
AP Calculus BC
AP Chemistry</p>
<p>Extracurriculars:
Academic Team (3 years)
Key Club (3 years, Treasurer position)
MTHS Red Cross Club (2 years, founding officer, Secretary position)
Young Science Achievers (3 years, Treasurer position)
National Honor Society (1 year, inducted as junior)
Art Club (4 years)
Spanish Honor Society (2 years)</p>
<p>Other activities:
Falcon PALS*
Shadowed physicians assistant for 10+ hours</p>
<p>*PALS is an in-school program which students can take as an alternative to gym if they'd like to help out the disabled students in their school with physical education. It involves reading/writing with the students and playing games. Students are selected through an interview process and staff review.</p>
<p>@keyboardwarrior - fwiw, Maryland admissions are heavily based on stats, so you primarily need a good gpa and standardized test scores. The rest (EC’s) is icing on the cake, so to speak and is relevant more towards invitations for special living-learning programs like honors/scholars, CIVICUS, etc. So, if you don’t have as many EC’s as the OP (or anyone else who lists on this forum), don’t let that discourage you. The most important thing anyone can do to improve their chance for admission is to apply by Nov 1st deadline.</p>
<p>Great job on AP exams! While they will not be considered for admission purposes per se<em>, they will help you meet the requirements for many gen ed reqs and therefore free up your schedule for more electives.
<a href=“http://www.tce.umd.edu/APGenEd.pdf”>http://www.tce.umd.edu/APGenEd.pdf</a>
(</em> the quantity and successful completion of AP classes/a rigorous courseload is taken into account for invitation to special programs such as honors college - admissions only looks at ACT/CR+M of SAT and gpa)</p>
<p>Sudden scheduling conflicts!! I can’t take AP Psychology or Lit for senior year because they interfere with the Chem slot. Will that severely hurt my chances of making it?</p>
<p>The admissions process has stages of reviews. First, your application is reviewed for acceptance for the university itself and the primary things they look at are gpa, CR+M of SAT or ACT score (and of course, essays/short answers, letters of rec, etc but Maryland admissions are very heavily based on numbers/stats of gpa and standardized tests for initial review). </p>
<p>If you pass the first threshold and are admitted to the university (which I believe you will be based on what you have listed), your application is then reviewed for both admission to LEP (limited enrollment program) if you apply to one (bio and psych both are LEPs), AND if your application is received by Nov 1, then your application is also reviewed for special programs (honors, scholars, and other living-learning programs like CIVICUS, Global Communities) and merit scholarships.</p>
<p>It is in the secondary review process where number of AP’s take more of a spotlight since honors invitations are based more on course rigor (number of AP’s/honors) and scholars invitations are based more on EC’s. There is no set threshold that they publish anymore for these invites since they also look carefully at your essays and short answers to determine what they think is the best match (if any) for special programs, but both of those programs (which everyone wants) are for “academically talented” students. Merit scholarships (I believe) are based primarily on standardized test scores.</p>
<p>The main difference of dropping those two APs will come into play more for once you matriculate with respect to the number of credits you will have and courses you are “exempt” from. The more important English AP is the one you already took since that is the one that gets you a “get out of jail free” pass for ENGL101 if you get a 4 or 5. The psych AP would have (with score of 4 or 5) exempt you from PYSC100 which is a prerequisite for higher level/more interesting psych classes. </p>
<p>So, no worries about schedule conflict with respect to admissions. Just focus on keeping your grades up. You made the right call about keeping the AP for Chem as your priority. If you get a 4 or 5, you will be exempt from CHEM class which is a tougher class than either psych or any English class!</p>
<p>FYI, for the record, when I said everyone wants either honors or scholars, that does not mean that other living-learning programs (CIVICUS, Global Communities, etc) are “lesser” programs - it’s just that they are not as well-known to high school applicants in general and they tend to focus more on “wanting” honors/scholars in all the discussion threads…</p>
<p>@RecentSAT If you have poor AP scores, they won’t hold that against you. If you have good AP scores, that’s good, but they don’t hold weight in determining your acceptance. </p>