<p>Hi. Im a HS Junior this year and i was wondering if someone could give me the odds of me being accepted to College Park and possibly getting into the honors program or receiving some kind of financial aid.</p>
<p>In State
Highly Ranked HS
3.75 unweighted/4.2 weighted gpa by the end of this year
lots of honors classes
8 AP's by the end of Sr. year
2080 SAT 780 CR, 650 Math, 650 writing :/ (but im getting new scores tomorrow so hopefully i will have improved)
taking World History and Math II Sat II's in June
a few clubs in school
piano
irish dance
arts academy and lots of art classes (AP Studio art portfolio)
very involved in my church
medium amount of community service (more this summer)
National Merit Commended</p>
<p>i honestly dont know my odds so any advice at all would be wonderful. My parents really want me to stay close to home and we'd love any kind of financial aid package.</p>
<p>You are an obvious admit to the honors program with a 3.75 uw (clearly above MD’s average GPA for admitted students) and 8 APs. Continue to get As and take the most challenging courseload, as you’ve been doing. Your SAT is also quite strong and well above the avg. scores for MD admits. It is strong enough for honors but perhaps a bit too “averagely good” (if that makes sense!) for Gemstone or merit aid, which I suspect is why you’re disappointed. If you are able to boost all of your scores into the 700-range THEN I would say you have a decent shot at at least a small amount of merit and more prestigious honors programs. It’s cool that you have an art portfolio and dance, however, making me think you’d be a good addition to the Honors Humanities program (which is one of the more prestigious segments of the honors college) even without an increase in SAT scores.</p>
<p>And though we can make some educated guesses about merit (you’re in the running if you improve your SAT scores, but otherwise I don’t think you’ll get any, is my opinion), no-one can tell you what your chances of getting a good finaid package are since we 1. don’t know your parents’ income and assets and 2. even if we did, we don’t have the expertise or just plain knowledge (the level of funding for finaid fluctuates every yr depending on the state budget) to determine that. MD does NOT meet 100% of need even for in-state students. There are much more generous schools in terms of financial aid so I would not expect a fabulous package when it comes to that, though…that’s the best info I can give you on that topic.</p>
<p>thanks for the advice so far! you’ve both mentioned that i need to raise my SAT scores and i received my may scores this morning. now superscored i have a 2170
M: 650 (STILL!! ), CR: 790, W: 730</p>
<p>do you think that’ll make any difference? I know it’s not much of a change but i guess it cant hurt :p</p>
<p>I would say that’s pretty significant…I think it pushes you from the “most likely not getting merit aid” category into the “possibly getting a small amount of merit aid” category. Maybe you will receive one of the 2 yr merit awards.</p>
<p>Do you have a chance to take the test for the 3rd time? It’s definitely worth it to give it a go the beginning of senior yr since MD superscores and it’s only really looked down on if you take the test 4 or more times. 3 is totally acceptable. I suggest using a Princeton Review book over the summer…there’s a lot of good strategies in there for how to plug & chug the answers to the math problems out without actually knowing how to solve them lol. I know that’s horrible but the PR books helped me improve my score by over 100 points in the math department by using “tricks” - I also had a huge disparity in my CR/writing and math scores. You may not even have to spend money on them…you could just camp out in your local bookstore and do the problems and exercises on a sheet of paper :).</p>
<p>At a big school like MD good SAT scores count for a LOT because they have less time to review other aspects of the app.</p>
<p>Lol I actually think you have a real good shot of getting a good amount of merit aid … I got $12000 and my GPA was a 3.5 although i did have 2250 SAT’s with a LOT of extracurriculars [varsity sports 4 years , community service, etc] which it also seems you have , so with a 2170 and 3.75 and all those EC’s … umcp11 i think your talking worst-case scenario haha</p>
<p>I received $5,000/yr with a 3.9 GPA and 2280 SATs. (+extra through Distinguished Scholar, but not from UMCP). I also had a fair number of ECs - I would not say less than you or OP. Was admitted to various top universities so MD was a definite “safety”.</p>
<p>People I know in OP’s ORIGINAL range tended to get no money at all, in my observations. My roommate had almost identical stats to OP’s first post and got no money. The new range with the improved SAT scores definitely puts OP in the pool, however, and I have seen a lot of people with 2 yr scholarships (including my brother) in that range.</p>
<p>That said, scholarships at MD are a crapshoot - while I got $5,000/yr, my friend (from the same HS) who was admitted to Harvard and Columbia only got $2500 for two years. So, some people who I felt like were way more qualified than me got less than me. Conversely, I knew people who got more - full B/K and then some - who I felt were not that qualified at worst or equally qualified at best. So, you can be admitted to Harvard and get pittance. You can be a “good student-athlete” but “nothing special” and get the full B/K. Cautiously optimistic is the best way to act when it’s that much of a toss up. </p>
<p>Perhaps a lot depends on the competition within your desired major/department. Engineering, for example, tends to give more scholarship money than other departments, esp. to females. </p>
<p>In any case it’s clear OP’s stats put OP in the merit aid range, but I think it’s overly optimistic to say anything is a sure bet, esp. in this day and age when MD is really cutting back.</p>
<p>Is Maryland one of your top choice schools? The only reason I ask is because not only does Maryland not require SAT IIs, but they don’t even look at them. That was a waste of a summer for self-studying, I even got two 800s! </p>
<p>But yeah, you’ll definitely get in. Based on GPA and test scores alone, I’ll say you’ll at least get into Scholars. I’m a little hesitant to say you’ll definitely get into honors, just because your GPA is just a tad below average (maybe about 0.1 off in both), but I can’t really rate ECs. </p>
<p>Overall your stats are very similar to mine (I had a higher GPA, but you most likely have better ECs than I do and our test scores are about the same) and I got into Honors with the Deans Scholarship ($4500/year for two years).</p>
), CR: 790, W: 730</p>