My child took the engineering design class and received a hard earned B. Will this be viewed negatively by the college admission committee at Maryland? I realize they will take GPA, test scores, essay and extracurriculars into account as well but am wondering if this is seen as a negative.
Fwiw, all grades in engineering are hard earned. Earning a B is nothing to sneeze at, in my opinion. I wouldn’t consider this a negative.
Personally, I think taking the class itself demonstrates interest in engineering that might not be otherwise evident on a transcript, depending on what courses your high school offers.
What year is your student? Remember, this is a college course, so it is more challenging for high school students that are not used to the rigor of college…
Thanks for your response @maryversity. My student is going to be a senior this year. I think I need perspective on the B. It would help to know where my student stood in the class compared to others but, I suppose, ultimately, it really shouldn’t matter. It was a challenging course and helped with some decision making. My student’s first choice university, right now, is Maryland for engineering. We do have engineering courses at our high school. I agree that taking the class does demonstrate interest in engineering. Really, the main reason for taking the class was to see if engineering was a genuine interest and to see what Maryland might be like. Of course it will be different during the regular school year, but it was good for my student to get a feel for what it would be like to live in a dorm and be independent. Great things did come out of taking this course-- my student can handle the challenge of a college course, wants to pursue engineering, and adapted well to dormitory living.
I think you actually have a good perspective already, as the program accomplished the most important goals of clarifying interest in engineering and learning what the college “experience” is all about!
But, I do understand the stress of the application process and wanting to have “good enough” stats, so, to answer the question about how your student compared to others, it’s actually a little more complex to answer since there are 2 things to consider. (Please bear in mind I am just a parent (my son just graduated this year) so I don’t speak officially for the school, so I am just relating my perception/understanding of things) First, there are two different teachers that do the summer sections, with each having their own style/level of challenge and secondly, the summer sections have a modified curriculum from the same class taught during the year.
In the summer, the class is taught with a fixed challenge utilizing roombas (or at least that’s what they did when my son went) since there is a limited time of 3 weeks. So, the challenge is to teach the same concepts in 3 weeks that is normally taught over the course of the semester. What that translates to is that the building challenge is likely easier in the summer since the reconfiguration of the roombas for the race is limited by identical materials, whereas the semester course is limited by a budget, the students buy their own materials (keeping within that budget) which allows more freedom of design, and they have to build something original and from scratch. However, where the summer class is more challenging is that they have less time to teach technical concepts, students have less time to learn them, and therefore the exams are relatively more challenging because of that shortened time frame. I hope that makes sense?
As for another perspective to consider, don’t forget this was likely your student’s first experience of balancing course work with full time social distractions…some of the summer classes are not as demanding as others, so it makes focus even more challenging if peers didn’t have as much to study for their courses. With this experience, your child will hopefully be less susceptible to the freshman pitfall of underestimating how important sticking to a schedule and prioritizing is…that’s why so many straight A high school students end up “surprised” by the grades they get in their first semester of college.
And, finally, to give you overall academic perspective on the “B”, even students directly admitted to engineering are not guaranteed to stay in engineering. They need to maintain a minimum of 2.0 in engineering courses or they will be dropped. So, your son did what he needed to do, AND with some breathing room. 
Hope that helps to know.
Best of luck with the application process…Go Terps!