UMD typically doesn’t publish score thresholds (at least they haven’t in the past), although I think that it’s generally accepted that an unweighted GPA of 3.5 is required. They say that they take a holistic approach to Honors College consideration, as well as College Park Scholars consideration. My son applied to UMD (undecided major) and was accepted to the Honors College. He also received a $5k/year merit scholarship. He chose UH and lived in Hagerstown Hall (which really wasn’t all that bad!). UH was a good fit for him, as he ended up in the Clark School as an aerospace engineering major. Four years later, my daughter was accepted to the Smith School as a business managment and marketing major. She had nearly identical stats to my son’s, but she was offered a place in College Park Scholars. She ended up in the Arts Scholars LLP. That turned out to be a good fit for her. While many will tell you that Honors and Scholars are equal, this isn’t quite true, as I believe that merit scholarship opportunities are dependent upon admission to the Honors College. The Honors College is a 4 year program, whereas Scholars is a 2 year program. S14 graduated with an Honors College citation and D18 will graduate from the Smith School at UMD in the spring with her College Park Scholars citation. Both kids were happy with where they ended up, but if you had looked solely at GPA, class rank, SAT scores, etc, it would be hard to figure out why one was accepted into the Honors College and the other wasn’t. So that’s a really long answer to say that Honors College admittance is kind of unpredictable!
Thank you for the details @spidermom03 !!
My son had a 1580 SAT and 4.6 weighted GPA, unweighted 3.95, He was a National Merit Finalist. He was had a nice set of activities. He is in the Smith School of Business and UH. He received the Presidential Scholarship and an extra $1k a year as a NMF.
I apologize as I realize this must’ve been asked a million times but I’ve been researching for hours but still confused about the Business LEP. My son’s stats are not great - OOS, 4.1 weighted/3.1 unweighted, 1370 SAT, 3 leadership positions in clubs, 4 years football, 4 years golf (2 years as captain). I have read UMD’s info over and over, and it seems to me that they are saying they don’t consider the major when deciding whether a student is admitted. But only after admitted, then they decide whether the student is qualified for the Business LEP (or whatever major was indicated on the application). And if they decide the student does not qualify, then they will still be accepted but will start by working on the gateway requirements in Letters & Science to earn admission to Business later. So, to get accepted to UMDCP, is applying to a Business major really no harder than applying to a major that is in Letters & Science and not very popular and not one of the LEPs?
Or am I misunderstanding altogether?
I understand that some will want to reply that a student should apply for whatever major they are interested in, regardless of what might be easier to earn an acceptance. While I appreciate and understand that, that’s not my question. I am just trying to understand UMD’s admissions process specifically.
Thank you so much.
It is true that UMD first admits students to the University.
If a student applied to a LEP, a second Admissions Committee reviews the application for LEP admission. Each LEP has its own Admission Committee.
If denied LEP admission, the student is placed in Letters and Sciences and can pursue an Internal Transfer, via the Gateway courses. These courses are the exact same courses that direct LEP admitted students take.
The only issue is that, for Business specifically, the internal transfer process is as competitive as direct admission. So, students taking that path have to exceed the stated GPA requirements to successfully get into the Business Major.
This is how it was explained to us, when my D was a freshman (2014) and I assume that it is still true. My D was not a Business Major, so I have no direct knowledge of the Business LEP transfer process
My daughter is a currently a senior in the Smith School (business management and marketing majors). She applied directly to the business school and was admitted to Smith as a freshman. Soofdad is correct that transferring into Smith from Letters and Sciences is very competitive. She had several friends who tried, and only one was admitted after freshman year. My son on the other hand, started out as “undecided” in Letters and Sciences and then decided that he wanted to major in aerospace engineering during the first semester of his freshman year. He had already taken the prerequisites and met the gpa minimum, so he just needed to register for the Clark School of Engineering. I found it odd that engineering is based only on prerequisites and gpa while business is competitive, but I’m sure that it’s all about the number of students who apply to each program.
has anyone ever sent cc transcripts through national student clearinghouse? UMD says they don’t accept by email but that is the only way nsc will send it - and I’m applying early action!
Question about getting materials in because I am now worrying. My son’s counselor finally sent his transcripts and counselor letter in on Wednesday, Oct 27. I can see on the common app that UMD has downloaded everything as of Oct 28, but it is still not showing up on his portal as received. Does this count as being done by November 1? I imagine if he tries to email his admission counselor, they will be very busy and might not respond. I’ve read that sometimes it takes several days to show up in the portal so I am trying to remember that! I think it is all OK since I can see in the common app that they’ve downloaded everything, but if anyone has any info on this it would ease my mind. Thanks!
Honestly, when my son applied two years ago, I called a few days before the deadline and spoke to someone there and confirmed that all of his requirements had been met. I thought they would be very busy and I’d have a hard time reaching someone but they picked right up and confirmed all was good. It took a load off my.mind. I would call over sending an email.
It can take a few days for things to show up on the UMD portal. Just to be safe, take a screenshot of the Common App download date
To add to the advice above - here’s our experience
My son’s UMD application took a couple of days to update with the SAT score. It was a little scary seeing “Application not complete” when he had sent everything in! However, once the application was complete, they put a date stamp on the “Completion Date” which is the latest date of all the required items received. So if everything was submitted before Nov. 1, the completion date will be before Nov. 1, not when they actually update it.
Hi,
We met or EA deadline for UMD as the portal says that our application is complete. We decided not to send our Son’s SAT scores as UMD is test optional. Do you think we are at a disadvantage because of not submitting the SAT scores?
Thanks.
That’s the million dollar question! My daughter sent hers, and I’m worried that sending them is a disadvantage. I guess time will tell!
That is a really tough question, and I don’t think that there is enough data to give a clear picture of what the answer might be. My oldest graduated from UMD in 2018 and my middle child will graduate in May 2022. My youngest sent in his application a couple of weeks ago. In the past, UMD seemed to give a lot of weight to test scores for admission, honors college selection, and merit awards. They required the SAT or ACT prior to covid, so there has only been one class admitted since they became test optional (my daughter tells me that the word on the street at UMD is that the class of 2026 will likely be the last allowed to apply test optional, but I doubt that is official information). One of the guidance counselors at my son’s school told another parent that nearly all of the students admitted from this particular school last year did submit test scores (we are in state). That could just mean that most of them were able to find a place to take the test or that the better students sought out opportunities to take the test. It may be that the students who applied test optional had lower gpa’s or fewer extracurriculars. I don’t necessarily believe that it indicates that all students who applied test optional are at a disadvantage.
UMD admissions (like all colleges) makes it clear that test optional candidates will not be at a disadvantage, however I’m not totally convinced. I went back thru last year’s Early Action thread and there seems to be a high percentage of t.o. applicants admitted into Freshman Connection. If you aren’t submitting test scores, then the rest of your application obviously gets much more scrutiny which means the other parts of the application better be really strong. The AO’s aren’t stupid, they know that plenty of kids (but not all) aren’t submitting test scores because they are not within or above the mid 50 range for the school. Of course there could be legitimate reasons related to the pandemic which caused the lower scores. We also are aware that a school friend of our DS22 did get admitted Early Action at UMD last year with no test scores so you never really know.
We are OOS. My son attended a virtue admission session a couple months ago, and the AO kept saying that they are test optional, but submitting the test score is a BIG PLUS for them. He kept saying that over and over again the importance of the test score, and saying that they would really be thinking of why a person won’t have a test score in. So in conclusion, he told all kids if possible, send in the score.
That’s the impression that my son got at the end of the meeting. So we did send it in.
Thank you for your thoughtful replies.
After days of worrying, finally yesterday his portal updated that the transcripts and counselor letter were in as of 10/27. Phew. It still says “your application is incomplete” at the top, but I did read somewhere that it takes more time for that status to change, but at least it is now recorded that everything was in on time.
My D has similar stats, and i was wondering how much was the Presidential Scholarship that your S received? Thanks.
I was not considering Maryland previously so I did not meet the EA deadline. Does it make any sense to apply now RD or should I just look for other schools? Previous year threads leave me to believe they admit very few ED.
Small private CT catholic school
1450 SAT
3.87/4.55 GPA
4 APs and solid extras with some leadership
Appreciate any feedback you can give.