<p>Are students accepted into the University Honors program considered "better" than those in the Scholars program? Is Honors higher than Scholars?</p>
<p>in a word, yes</p>
<p>Here's the freshman profile with stats for the programs.
University</a> of Maryland - Freshman Profile Information</p>
<p>Q. - What is the difference between Honors and Scholars?</p>
<p>A. - University</a> of Maryland</p>
<p>nice linkage</p>
<p>Linkage says WGPA of 4.25 and SAT 1340-1470 for Honors. My daughter has WGPA of 4.35 and SAT 1460 and did not get invited to Scholars or Honors. Had 4 APs completed (Calc AB, Bio, NSL and Lang with 4s and 5) and 3 enrolled in Junior year. Got into Bioengineering. Had applied by 12/1</p>
<p>People have stated it was the personal niche essay that was the make or break point for scholars/gemstone/honors. Our son did not get Gemstone, but he stated he had no desire to work on a research project.</p>
<p>I am not sure if that is true, and not an urban myth, but it would make sense, that is weighted for acceptance into the program. Our s is applying for international studies, and his essay was if I could speak to anyone, he would speak to Truman about dropping the Atomic Bomb. We did not know before he did this that the essay was a key in the decision process, but we feel now that it actually ties in with his intended major and most likely helped him out.</p>
<p>We are also OOS, so it might have helped him.</p>
<p>well yeah, if you said you didn't want to do research, they wouldn't put you in gemstone, even if you were qualified. i would think.</p>
<p>Maybe my post came across wrong, there are no sour grapes, he would not accept gemstone if he got accepted because of that. I was just saying, maybe 2008newadmit didn't get gemstone for that reason. They may not have also got honors if the niche essay wasn't something that matched with the programs that honors/scholars offer.</p>
<p>Our S was accepted to honors and honors humanities but not gemstone because he just wasn't interested in group research and was very interested in the sciences and the arts.</p>
<p>My D was accepted/invited into honors, gemstone, and honors humanities. My understanding is that gemstone is certainly based on the essay as bulletandpima said. If you don't show interest in group research, you wouldn't be considered for gemstone. If you do, they may still use other crietria to consider for invitation to gemstone. That is to say that not all who show interest would be invited to gemstone, but I believe if you show no interest, you wouldn't be invited. Invitation to honors and honors humanities are certainly based on academics as a major criterion.</p>
<p>^^^ I concur.</p>
<p>DS has the SAT scores for honors, but his gpa was in line with scholars. In honesty, I think it doesn't matter. We must all remember that the university acceptance is the most important, honors, gemstone and scholars is just icing. Our DS started his sr. yr. with his list of 1,2,3, etc. Even before acceptances the list changed, he is still waiting for Notre Dame, but UMD will be accepted before ND. His number 1 choice is what we are waiting for. ND is now no. 3. </p>
<p>Bullet and DS are so excited, this way they can argue about football and basketball games, and rejoice together.</p>
<p>As I have said before we should be proud that out of 27K applicants, our children received a spot. To get honor/scholars/gemstone is just icing</p>
<p>My D's essay was related to extracurricular activity, but niche questions had expressed interest in multidisciplinary research. Granted Gemstone is more competitive and research oriented , Honors or Scholars should be more academic. Another thing: shouldnt Honors give an edge for the resume later on when the student tries for professional schools such as medicine? For that reason, she is seriously considering small liberal arts colleges with strong biochemistry programs now. They are more willing to give merit scholarship and will be 5K or so more per year than UMD. Does anybody have good/bad experience with such small colleges? Talking about Juniata, Ursinus type who say they have good pre-med programs.</p>