I think you are missing the point that my son has 31 credits and 3.85 GPA from a Maryland CC with a UMD transfer agreement and was not admitted simply because the credits were accomplished before hs graduation.
Did he apply as a transfer student where the 3.0 guaranteed admission may apply? (also, does the transfer guarantee apply to all majors?)
Or did he apply into the apparently much more competitive frosh pool?
Now, if the issue is that he was not allowed to apply as a transfer student, then a reasonable policy change would be to allow high school students with sufficient college course work (credits and subject requirements) to have the option (not requirement) of applying as transfer students.
S20 had 28 DE credits all in college level classes (GPA 4.0) and was admitted to UMD with merit. On top of that he had 11 AP classes (10 5s and one 4), national/international level EC, SAT in the upper 1500s, …
You keep talking about your son’s DE credits, but you never mentioned the rest of your son’s application.
For those who wonder, DE students can and do get admitted to UMD.
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My understanding is that the point of doing guaranteed transfer agreements with CCs is to help increase pathways for lower income students and to promote diversity.
Freshman admission is a different animal with a different pool of applicants, and different priorities.
I also think you are right that a 3.85 GPA skews the stats for the university for freshman admits, especially for CoE. The students I know that were admitted to CoE all had 4.0+ GPAs (although from OOS).
It seems there are a few issues. As someone stated above, there are far more DE students in MD HSs (13,000 cited unsourced in a post above) than UMD could accept. I have no idea how many of those DE students have at least 30 credits with a 3.0 GPA (or whatever requirements one wants to implement), but maybe not insignificant relative to UMDs freshman class size of 4,500 or so. Class size expands as transfers come in.
UMD does have to balance the entering classes by major as well. The trustees also have to provide a guaranteed transfer pathway from the CCs, or those programs would die. While I don’t disagree your S had strong credentials, incoming freshman class selection is holistic and of course non-transparent. Just take a look at UMD’s 26 review factors and you will see everything they are trying to consider, and in some cases balance.
You say your son has 31 DE credits but are they 31 credits that UMD recognizes towards a degree? Not all of my son’s AP credits got him credit at UMD. I’ve also read that colleges don’t consider DE credits as rigorous as AP credits. Perhaps UMD feels that there is not an equivalent rigor between the DE credits as compared to courses actually taken at those colleges?
I’m also curious as to the rest of his application. Is the 3.85 gps weighted or unweighted? Again, UMD must draw the line somewhere.
Mine had a 3.9 UGPA, 33 ACT, 7 AP’s, small merit (the smallest out of 19 applications besides our flagship which gave $0, not unexpected). I honestly do not know if our CC’s have auto admits to in state schools with a minimum gpa.
There are a million different subjective angles to the admissions debate but I am only interested in this one objective issue.
However hyper competitive UMD is and however limited their space, they are somehow able to guarantee admission to every single Maryland CC student with 30 credits and 3.0 GPA. But they go out of their way to exclude identical students whose credits were obtained before high school graduation. And they don’t allow them to apply as transfers. It’s a pointless distinction because they could simply graduate early. That was not an option in our house due to friends, varsity sports etc.
The purpose of this thread is to reach parents of dual enrollment students and to motivate them to lobby for consideration as transfer if they reach the 30 credit milestone. This would be far more beneficial to them than entering the deliberately opaque and unpredictable process that is freshman admissions at UMD. I’m sure the vast majority of freshman applicants don’t have 30 credits, so it’s not likely to increase the transfer application numbers very much. And students with 30 credits are not competing for freshman classes.
The equal protection clause of the 14th amendment says that similar people must be treated the same by government entities. UMD’s transfer policy pretty spectacularly fails this test. So someone could short circuit the debate by filing suit. I would think that prospect would greatly concern their lawyers.
Highly, highly unlikely that counsel is concerned that this aspect of admissions violates the 14th Amendment.
Regardless, OP has expressed the PoV, and has held firm on it for 2 months. I see no reason to continue this circuitous discussion. Closing.