<p>I'm a high school senior interested in University of Maryland and have a few questions!</p>
<p>What are the students at University of Maryland like? Are there a majority of students there that I could hold an intellectual converstation with?</p>
<p>Are there a lot of OOS students? I would be attending OOS.</p>
<p>How dangerous is the town of College Park? I heard it's pretty ghetto.</p>
<p>Thanks a ton!</p>
<p>OK well i live down the street (literally) from UMD. I have a TON of friends who go there and we’re all very smart (if I do say so myself) and it’s actually a great school with great programs and many of my most brilliant teachers actually studied there. I actually have no idea what the OOS/in-state ratio is but i think there are definitely a lot of OOS students, but obviously with any state school it is mostly in-state. Maryland is a really diverse state, though, with some of it being farm kids, DC suburb/extremely liberal kids, ethnically diverse kids and overall a very interesting state which leads to a very interesting school.</p>
<p>About College Park. It’s kind of sketchy. In the past few years there has been a lot of crime in the area, but I heard that the school police are really cracking down. It’s mostly off-campus, though. I mean basically anywhere in the DC area can be somewhat sketchy until you get into some of the ritzier suburbs. But honestly I wouldn’t let it scare you out of going there, since it’s still a great school.</p>
<p>Check out the Gemstone and Honors programs at UMD. And while you’re looking at UMD, take a look at beautiful St. Mary’s College of Maryland, the public LAC located on the Chesapeake. It costs a bit more than UMD, but not as much as most LACs, and offers the more intellectual atmosphere you seem to be interested in.</p>