From what I understand, the Honors College is really looking for students with a minimum 3.9 UW GPA (one or two B’s max) with very strong course rigor. Also, the average/mid 50% ACT score for those admitted last year was 34-35 (1500+ SAT). These stats are definitely higher than prior years. I believe many students who were previously admitted to the HC would probably not be admitted this year. Just as importantly, the HC is also looking for a diverse pool of students to join this program (also true for Scholars). They could easily fill the entire HC with engineers and CS majors with high stats, but of course they don’t. In past years most of the HC students were engineers or CS majors. I’m pretty sure they have been making a concerted effort during the last several years to diversify the LLP’s. There will probably be well over 800 high stats CS and CS/L&S students alone as part of the incoming freshman class but a limited number of LLP slots. Having a DD who just recently received her HC Citation, I can confidently say that the HC prestige factor is way over hyped. The most important quality of any of these LLP’s is the living/community aspect. The good news for most engineering and CS majors is that they will make a lot of money when they get out of college. The bad news is they might not get their preferred LLP freshman year. Life is not always fair.
Thanks @spidermom03. Appreciate the additional insight. Very helpful.
My son (Mech Engineering) completed his request this weekend. He also did not find any of them interesting. He put University Honors first because it is least structured and he would like to in the new dorm and near the engineering side of campus.
UMD has been increasingly competitive to get in, I found that their 2021 freshman’s average GPA is 4.39. There will be many high stats students on campus this year also.
Yup, we totally get it. Perhaps we made a mistake putting aero over mechanical - he’s really in between both - but you said all CS and engineers. For my quiet kid who will not be Greek, etc., the social scene in the honors college dorm is what drew him in. He has a friend who is a junior in the program and it made all the difference for him. Oh well. I could say “what if he communicated that fact better,” and revisit all of our decisions over and over. I’ll try not to. I do know that for my current HS sophomore, I will have more info. to give him/help him with - here’s hoping he listens!
@gingerlenny I am sayingthe same thing about when my son applies. I’ll know so much more next time, of course, if he listens.
For the quiet kid who won’t be Greek, would you consider the Virtus Living-Learning Community? It is specifically for engineers. I think that some students are recommended to apply, but ALL engineering students may apply. The Virtus community is for men and the Flexus community is for women. They live in the same dorm and take the same 1 credit classes together for the program. Deadline to apply is in April. The programs seem to be focused on promoting diversity in engineering, but I think this is because Flexus for women was founded first. There has always been a shortage of women in engineering. Both groups run study groups and foster camaraderie. Virtus | A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland
Thanks. I’ll discuss this with him. I think he likes general honors as he’d prefer to be with more than engineers - he wouldn’t apply to schools like WPI or RPI for that reason. But it’s still a good idea.
My daily “Informed Delivery” email from the USPS shows an envelope coming today from UMD.
It must be a smaller envelope as the bigger ones don’t usually show up? Nothing here yet, but I think our mail is slow. 
We have an envelope in the mail today from UMD, and I had the same thought about it being a smaller envelope. The larger ones are always a surprise because they don’t scan those!
My son did Virtus. It is a floor in one of the high rise dorms in the Cambridge Community, if I am remembering correctly. I don’t think he really bonded with the kids in the program, but the program itself was helpful for preparing him for career fairs. He said there were drunk kids every weekend throwing up in the elevators. It was pretty disgusting. He would have much preferred living with the Honors College kids, but he didn’t get in. That said, there is a lot of partying that goes on with the Honors College kids as well. As an FYI, my husband and I saw lots of drunk kids walking around campus on the weekends when we visited.
He also did FIRE, not a LLC, which I believe gave him very good experience with research and working on a project with a team. He did get a recommendation out of it because he got to know the professor.
It’s pre-sorted bulk mail… so more likely to be something generic, rather than specific to anyone. (ie prob not merit notification or anything along those lines.)
Could be wrong, but I’ve never received anything of interest that was sent bulk mail.
Is that really bulk mail? I could be wrong too, but I think that imprint only means they have a USPS permit to mail with pre-paid postage.
It would be too much of a coincidence to receive a generic/marketing mail at this point.
As I understand it — from a parent who works in direct marketing — pre-printed permitted mail is bulk mail by definition; it must be weighed and pre-sorted by zip code, etc when delivered to the post office. Typically in large canvas bags or those plastic bins you see at the post office. From a practical standpoint, this only makes sense to do if you’re mailing the exact same thing out to thousands of people on a mailing list, simply inserting their name and address into a form letter.
My bet is that it’s a “rah rah… you’re special… please enroll at Maryland” communication of some sort.
I do both bulk mailings and first class mailings for my business. The envelope above says “first class mail.” First class isn’t used for bulk mailings. The fact that it’s pre-printed just means that they have an account/permit with the post office. I had a credit card account hacked recently, and my new card came in an envelope with the same pre-printed postage (first class) as the image of the envelope posted above.
Now, just because it isn’t bulk doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s anything important either! I highly doubt that it’s any kind of merit notification, as I think they send emails and then post those to the portals. My guess is that it’s not anything terribly exciting, but I won’t know for sure until my mail is delivered and my son comes home from school.
Nice! 
Anything with a pre-printed indicia has to be bulk-mail, no? First Class and bulk mail are not mutually exclusive. Non-bulk requires stamps or a meter imprint.
Either way, we’ll find out what it actually is before we sort out the postal regulations.
We got an envelope very much like that in the mail just now. Will wait for D to come home and open it. But it feels like a single sheet of paper inside so my best guess is that it’s a printed version of the acceptance letter.