<p>I wonder if that number at College Park includes students in off-campus apartments near the school. I think the numbers would be a little starker if you compared the percentage of kids who live at home with their parents and commute to school–my impression is that this would be much higher at UMBC.</p>
<p>The 11,000 at UMD include students living in college-owned, operated, or affiliated housing. This includes the Commons, Leonardtowns, and Courtyards. It does not include anyone living off campus in a privately owned apartment or house. Students who reside in the View, Parkside, Knox Towers, and frat houses all live within walking distance to campus, but are not included in those numbers. Technically, you might not want to consider them as “commuters.”</p>
<p>The 3700 at UMBC includes Hillside, Terrace, Walker Avenue, and Westhill apartments. There are 12 privately-owned apartment complexes that are on the shuttle bus route at UMBC that are not included.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if there is published information regarding the number of students who live at home and commute to either UMBC or College Park?</p>
<p>I also think we are in a very changing environment, and that UMBC is changing very rapidly. 4 years ago we did NOT consider UMBC for S1, because it seemed like more of a local area school that was a back up to UMCP (where he will be graduating from in May), and who wanted to major in government.</p>
<p>On the other hand, it may wind up being a prime candidate for S2 and we are visiting next week. S2 is interested in majoring in math or physics, and has other interests that are offered in strong departments in UMBC. And as the economy has tanked, and private schools have gotten more competitive, the quality of students at each level of school has gotten better.</p>
<p>Finally, the DC/Baltimore area benefits from the Boston/Cambridge phenomenon – the professors at the non-top schools are often top rate because it is a great place to live and an intellectual, academic, research, good quality of life kind of place… a NYC friend of mine recently did not get a job at UMBC that she super wanted, in the arts… it was a nationally competitive faculty position.</p>
<p>In sum - UMCP: Full, top level state flagship university that has been terrific in most ways for S1; UMBC: Smaller (but still large), state university with excellent departments and much going for it, could be perfect for some students.</p>
<p>Nice post silversas. How did your visit to UMBC go?</p>
<p>We know folks who have gone to UMBC and are very happy. They got merit $$ coming from programs where they had high SATs, 3.2-3.5 UW GPAs with 6-8 APs. The folks we know are majoring in CS, physics, math and pre-med. The Meyerhoff scholarship offers some terrific opportunities.</p>
<p>UMBC is working REALLY hard to make a name for themselves and it seems to be working.</p>
<p>We also know students who turned down JHU for UMCP. Happens all the time here. If you are good enough to get into Hopkins, you are likely to get merit $$ at UMD. It’s a no-brainer for a lot of families in this area who have good incomes, but with the high COL, would really struggle to pay full freight for JHU.</p>
<p>I am just back from my UMBC visit. It was not the most informative info session I was ever at! I also don’t go on the tours, as I have some mobility issues, but my son liked it a lot. He said he would apply to UMBC but NOT UMCP – UMCP is just too big for him … physically, and because he would be going in without any credits (his school has no AP’s) he is concerned that he will always be last in his year for registration.</p>
<p>When you drive onto the UMBC campus it seems like you are in the middle of nowhere… roads and parking lots and random big buildings. But once you get out of your car and “inside” the campus, it was actually very nice! My son actually preferred the architecture to CP (he just hates that brick federal georgian style, whatever it is, the classic Maryland architecture).</p>
<p>There was an enormous emphasis on undergraduate education, as well as on quality facilities and research. They emphasized that they are a liberal arts school with lots of Stem – and you could see it… giant chemistry, bio, engineering, math/psych buildings, at the same time as there are giant buildings for arts, humanities, library, performance.</p>
<p>I would not put it in a top 10 national list, or top 20, or 50… but since we need to seriously consider Maryland schools as our only college savings is the prepaid tuition plan, UMBC is likely the best match for this particular child. We’ll probably ask him to apply to one more Md school, and if it is a non-state school he winds up at, we get back the average state tuition, a drop in the bucket for a private LAC!</p>
<p>We visited the campus during the summer, when school was out. It was kind of dead, of course. The library and Commons seemed really nice. We liked how the science buildings were close together. The campus seemed okay. It was definitely a lot smaller than UMCP. I think we’ll visit in April, when the have a special junior visitation day.</p>
<p>UMBC seems to be highly rated these days. It has placed #1 with U.S. News and World Report Up and Coming Colleges two years consecutively. Also it recently made the Top 50 best value public colleges.
[Excellence</a> & Affordability](<a href=“http://www.umbc.edu/window/princetonreview_2011.html]Excellence”>http://www.umbc.edu/window/princetonreview_2011.html)</p>
<p>I like UMBC better than College Park, but I’m biased towards smaller schools. UMBC has some great programs and gives great merit aid. I live in MD, and I’ve seen kids turn down College Park for UMBC. Most of them didn’t like the size of CP. Three of my daughter’s friends go there, two of them are Linehan Scholars and are getting most of their tuition paid for. I think too many people from OOS think College Park or nothing. Towson and Salisbury aren’t bad schools either. UMBC is kind of in the middle of nowhere, you’d be better off with a car there. College Park is easy to get into as a MD resident transfer, I know of a few kids who have gotten in that way. Some of them went to CC, OOS or private and then transferred after their freshman year.</p>