That clarifies, Thanks! I had looked in to it and it looks like student has to be in top 25th percentile. Let’s see. I did not know getting departmental honors comes with university honors college admission so it might give good housing too.
If my D decides to get all her AP credits she might be able to graduate early, so how does this honors work in that scenario? She will look in to these possibilities.
My daughter just found out that she will be the salutatorian for her school’s graduation! 
18 days to go!
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At least in some cases, the opposite may be true. When a thesis is optional, a student who chooses to do one is likely to be more self-motivated. If s/he can find the right professor with the right project/topic, s/he may be able to do a higher-quality thesis than a typical senior thesis at a school that requires it for graduation (or graduation with honors).
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Yes that’s what I said. Compulsory theses may be much lower quality than optional ones. That’s especially true when the optional ones are capacity limited, so you can only do one if you make a convincing proposal that persuades a professor to want to supervise your thesis. And the application process itself can then be a helpful dry run for applying to grad school.
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Housing at UMD is not a permanent assignment. The following statement appears on a UMD ResLife website
"Undergraduate students usually begin their residential experience by living in residence halls for their freshman and sophomore years.
We recommend that students in their junior and senior years live in the affiliated housing apartments on-campus at South Campus Commons and The Courtyards or at one of the many off-campus, private housing options located close to campus in the Greater College Park area."
Students need to move out of dorms to make room for New incoming students, and since a student cannot start Departmental Honors until their Junior year, it is unlikely that they will be in a Dorm. Students do have the opportunity to move at the end of every year.
My D started out in Hagerstown Hall, moved to Denton Hall for her Sophomore year and then moved to South Campus Commons for her final 2 years.
As for graduating early, that may be difficult for a student writing a thesis that requires ongoing research. My D could have graduated early, without Departmental Honors, but we thought it was more worthwhile for her to completed her Thesis.
An incredibly exciting end to the story! Congratulations 
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Curious to understand how the yields at selective schools went up so much this year that they didn’t need to touch the waitlists. Any thoughts?
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There are plenty of selective schools that have utilized their waitlists this year.
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I agree. To me it feels (anecdotally) like waitlists are moving more this year — certainly more than in 2021.
Edited to add: I think sometimes we don’t openly hear about waitlist movement at certain very selective schools because they do it on the down low to keep their selectivity stats favorable. So they don’t admit in waves but rather go out one by one to feel out who is interested and only if they indicate strong interest/desire to accept do they make the offer. U Chicago has been doing this for sure, for instance.
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can you please share some of the schools that utilized the waitlists?
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Barnard
Cal Berkeley
CWRU
Reed
Cornell
I don’t pay too much attention to wait list movement (not personally interested) but I know there are more that I just don’t remember.
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duke, northwestern that i know of.
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As noted UC Berkeley above, but also UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz. The UC’s seem to have under admitted and are utilizing the waitlists to fill in the gaps. Several campuses have had higher yields the last few years so they were being cautious this year.
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Other schools already going to waitlist:
Kenyon College (discussed on here)
William & Mary (know someone personally)
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I have seen some that have gotten off the NYU waitlist.
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Me too
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Stanford Duke Cornell Northwestern WashU berkeley ucla Uchicago vanderbilt Emory…and loads more! Many waitlists are moving; some are tentatively full. It seems to be somewhat more movement than last yr, looking at top-20-ish, yet some have not moved and will not.
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Based on postings here on CC I’m seeing more WL movement at selective schools this year compared to last year.
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I saw UVA moving their waitlist on another forum
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Wake Forest, Villanova
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