<p>Please remember, I am just a mom (and alum). I do not speak on behalf of the school…I only express my own opinions/impressions.</p>
<p>OOS is not “so severe” per se…it’s just that as a public state university, they are required to admit a high percentage of IS students… so naturally, while they will have to have good enough stats to get into engineering, they might not be as high as the OOS student admits have…make sense? </p>
<p>I hear stories all the time of acceptance to Princeton but not Harvard, or Yale but not Princeton, MIT but not CalTech, Stanford but not MIT, ad nauseum. </p>
<p>Why does this happen? There is no answer. No one is “entitled” to nor should expect admission anywhere. Good schools are forced to turn away outstanding students all the time. Not because they are not impressive students, but simply because schools have to make choices based on limited space. </p>
<p>We are not privy to their inner workings. I wish I had a better answer for you. </p>
<p>BTW, Pitt is a great school, so I am not surprised your daughter is happy there and I wish her much success.:)</p>
<p>Thanks…Pitt is on my daughter’s list as well (already accepted), and as of today, she’s been accepted to UNC too…. they happen to have the one engineering she is interested in (Biomedical) in partnership with NC State. She sees things black and white sometimes so I’m just having a hard time convincing her that starting UMD in “Letters and Sciences” will still get her in Clark her sophomore year…but she’d miss being in the Engineering living learning community too, right? Or can she still do that since she got the College Park Scholar? That’s a big deal being able to live around the other engineering students (or not). </p>
<p>coleman4 My brother is an engineering major and he did not live in LLP with engineers his freshman year. He still met many engineering majors and like living with different people</p>
<p>Congrats on all the admissions!
Well, my son, also in scholars, chose to not do ViRTUS (engineering living/learning program for guys) and did not feel he missed out on anything because scholars actually does a lot of the same stuff. There are a LOT of scholars that were letters and sciences to start last year and are now officially in engineering this year. If she chooses a science oriented scholars program, she will def be in a dorm with a lot of other engineering students…so many that my son didn’t buy any books second semester…was able to swap with everyone…and always had people to study with. Hope this helps…? </p>
<p>Wow, yes that helps a lot- both bigbooklover and maryversity. I noticed a lot of interesting options for scholars. She decided to wait and see how the financial side turns out because without a scholarship it will be tough being OoS and 2 kids in college at the same time. She applied to some external scholarships too so we’ll see. UMD is definitely a top contender for her though. </p>
<p>Now, Georgia Tech has released a profile of its early action admits. On average, the students admitted to Tech have a 4.0 GPA, an SAT score of 1485 out of a possible 1,600 and will have taken 9.4 AP/IB/Dual enrollment courses by high school graduation.</p>
<p>“We think the trend of increased selectivity will only continue with our use of the Common App,” said Rick Clark, director of Undergraduate Admission. In spite of Common App glitches and woes earlier in the admission cycle, Georgia Tech saw a 37 percent increase in Early Action applications in its first year using the system, with applications continuing to come in for the Jan. 10 regular admission deadline.</p>
<p>**
So my guess is that GTech will have much higher student selectivity going forward.</p>
<p>What are the other schools that your engineering major kids consider? My d is beginning her search and we’ll be visiting Maryland and maybe a few more schools on the east coast.</p>
<p>my S did chemE at UMD, and he was accepted at Drexel and Rensselaer. He was turned down at CMU and some place else. He loved the scholars program and living with a lot of different people, non-majors. He thought that chemE was plenty of challenge for him, and by the time he got to Calc III he was feeling the rigor of the math at UMD. So a good choice for him. He left chemE before his senior year because he decided he didn’t like engineers and didn’t want to work with them He’s in chem now and soon to graduate .</p>
<p>jkeil911: I appreciate your reply. Glad to hear that your son was able to make a decision to change majors. Was he (and you) satisfied with the academic advising at UMD which, hopefully, helped him with his choices. My d has not yet formed a strong opinion on the size preference for a college. She is pretty sure she wants engineering but we are realistic in knowing that many students change majors. I will ask her to read up on Drexel. Thanks.</p>
<p>I’ll give you the short answer: no and yes. A good deal of the negative experience was related to bridges S burned in Engineering. The advising in CMHS was stellar and above and beyond what I could have hoped for. One of the CMNS advisors recognized things would go more smoothly if she turned S over to an assistant dean to deal with the burned bridges in Engineering. He is great.</p>
<p>One thing all parents can hope for at UMD is that their children get their advising from the advising office and not from their classmates. Parents can get a copy of the course catalogue and familiarize themselves with it so that when your child says something that seems odd about their course selection, you can check the catalogue. Here’s this year’s catalogue, but it changes every year. It is the “book of laws” for college policy.</p>
<p>I would encourage all parents of UMD students to sit their child down and read together Appendices A, B, C, and F. Appendix F addresses academic integrity; almost every single student (and his or her parents) has no idea what academic integrity entails and how easy it is to violate the policy not just at UMD but at every college. </p>
He’s in chem now and soon to graduate .</p>