<p>I see some people are getting accepted into Honors while some are getting accepted into Scholars. What is the difference?</p>
<p>Check out this thread, <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-maryland-college-park/646304-cp-scholars-gemstone-honors-u.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-maryland-college-park/646304-cp-scholars-gemstone-honors-u.html</a></p>
<p>It should answer your questions.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. It seems as is Honors is the most prestigious.</p>
<p>If it says that I got into “Honors,” does that mean I got rejected from Gemstone?</p>
<p>No, you’ll hear about gemstone later in the week.</p>
<p>That thread is really confusing and there’s some incorrect info in it.</p>
<p>Scholars is NOT part of the honors college.</p>
<p>They are two separate programs - honors and scholars.</p>
<p>[Honors</a> College & College Park Scholars | University of Maryland](<a href=“http://www.excellence.umd.edu/]Honors”>http://www.excellence.umd.edu/) <- THAT should answer the difference.</p>
<p>Honors generally DOES have those students with the higher stats so in that sense it is more “prestigious.” </p>
<p>At the same time, as an honors student at MD with scholars friends, I always felt that scholars had more of a “living learning” experience. Honors was kind of a waste of time, to be honest - the honors seminars are cool, but they are really only good for “fun” classes or for CORE requiremtsn…and considering the fact that I had basically already completed my CORE requirements through AP credits…useless.</p>
<p>Did you have to mention on your application if you were interested in Gemstone?</p>
<p>umcp11, they may be addressing your point this year with new living learning environments for honors. I know my son has truly enjoyed the Ho Hum living learning program at Wicomico. As far as honors seminars are concerned our son has taken quite a few and has absolutely loved them and felt they were more intellectual and challenging than regular classes. Each person is going to value such opportunities in their own unique way. Useless is a strong word and probably not all that accurate in general.</p>
<p>^Honors humanities and Gemstone are subsets of honors and definitely DO have a living-learning atmosphere. I did mean general “honors” and not its more specific programs and apologize for any confusion there. </p>
<p>Each person can evaluate whether the general honors program is useful to them or not - while I described the program as useless, I did qualify that for someone still completing CORE requirements or desiring to take extra “fun” classes, then that would not be the case. While useless is indeed a strong word, it DID accurately describe how I felt my experience with it to be, with the qualifications I provided.</p>
<p>That said, I may have also taken for granted the dorm I lived in and the people I met there - I have no idea what it would have been like living in a dorm entirely full of non-honors students (such as Easton or Elkton). But honors isn’t something - unless its a subset such as honors humanities or gemstone - that you would “decline” since fulfilling the requirements or not is totally up to you. </p>
<p>But I do find scholars versus general honors to be more of a real living learning program. And as a UMD student I would recommend seriously considering scholars if you are choosing between the two (general honors and scholars, that is, not honors humanities or gemstone versus scholars). Each one is going to appeal to different subsets of people, so it’s good to use the website and think about what you want.</p>
<p>jgirl,</p>
<p>In your application, you would have needed to mention wanting to work in groups to be considered for Gemstone. (DS is Honors and an Ambassador for Honors and loves it and the classes by the way). He did not indicate wanting to work in groups on his app, so is not in Gemstone.</p>
<p>I checked out the links to Honors and Scholars, but it still seems pretty ambiguous; both are surrounded by colorful descriptions about academic excellence and faculty-student interaction; not clear about one being superior to the other…which is probably the way UMD wants it.</p>
<p>But someone must have the scoop. What’s the real truth here??</p>
<p>Jewels, I don’t think UMD had that question this year.</p>
<p>@jomass, the spiel I got from UMD was that Scholars was for people who leaned more towards Extra Curriculars and Honors for those that seemed more intellectual (their words not mine). But after a while they accepted that Stats have a lot to do with it - those with higher stats get into Honors, pretty high stats get into Scholars. They also told me the new essay questions and the short answer questions have a decent deal to do with the placement as well.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: I got into Scholars.</p>
<p>Honors and Scholars are just different, for different people… neither one is necessarily “better”. Honors is typically geared towards people who are more individual learners, whereas Scholars is typically geared towards people who are more active with ECs and service, etc… Typically. That being said, since Honors has been around longer, the policy is that if Honors and Scholars both want students, Honors gets first dibs.</p>
<p>This is also true for gemstone and honors. They actually have a committee that meets to decide which Gemstone candidates will be selected for Honors.</p>
<p>Scholars is a 2 yr program, the most important aspect to realize out of their program is you are mandated to do an internship, if you opt not to or fail to get an internship you are required to submit a 25 page term paper for the citation of SCHOLARS. Our DS is in Scholars and it really would not be a make or break for him if he did not get the citation since on graduation day he will be commissioned into the USAF. That being stated had he not had the AF option it would have made a huge difference in his major. He is Govt and Politics, the internship that he is doing on Capitol Hill for a Senator is opening doors and would be a great asset for applying to grad school.</p>
<p>Look at the end game…graduation, the reality is Honors, Gemstone and Scholars will open doors that your classmates will not have.</p>
<p>My son was not accepted into any of the honors programs but looking at stats of those that were I am surprised. Can you appeal and if so, do you contact Admissions or the honors program directly?</p>
<p>My S was accepted to Honors/Engineering! All these different programs/distinctions are confusing. I’m assuming that they will be explained at length when we visit for accepted students’ day. . .</p>
<p>^ Which will not occur for a very long time… by the time they have an accepted students’ day (March-April?), the deadline to submit the scholars inventory will have passed (March 1). I hope that they have an accepted students’ day next month.</p>
<p>So what happens after the two years in the scholars program?</p>
<p>you live in an apartment</p>
<p>^other than that, can you apply to get into the honors program or do you just become one of the “pack”.</p>