Parents, can you please let me know information on some or all of below questions:
If parents or family is not qualified for financial aid, then is FAFSA needed? can you please let me know if you filled out a FAFSA form for Banneker Key scholarship?
Does UMD have supplemental essays? D says she could not find it on coalition app or on their website.
Does UMD have any supplemental essays or honors essays?
It’s a;ways good to fill out the FAFSA, even if you are not qualified for financial aid, because you never know your family’s situation may change over the next several years.
UMD does require an essay. Here is a list of essay questions that I found on the following link
Please answer one of the following essay questions in your application. Make sure to include the question itself at the start of your essay. Your essay should be no more than 550 words; the question will not be included in the essay total word count.
1.Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.
2.Describe a time when you made a meaningful contribution to others in which the greater good was your focus. Discuss the challenges and rewards of making your contribution.
3.Has there been a time when you’ve had a long-cherished or accepted belief challenged? How did you respond? How did the challenge affect your beliefs?
4.What is the hardest part of being a teenager now? What’s the best part? What advice would you give a younger sibling or friend (assuming they would listen to you)?
5.Submit an essay on a topic of your choice.
These may be last year’s questions. The questions should appear at some point when you are filling out the Coalition App. I cannot give more detail, since the Coalition App was not in use when my D applied back in 2014. UMD also had several short answer questions back then.
As far as I know, none of the Merit Scholarships require an additional essay and none of the Special Programs (Honors, Scholars, etc.) require an additional essay.
It is Very Important to submit you application by the Priority Deadline (Nov !) to be considered for Merit Scholarships and Special Programs.
for #2, Those 5 essay options exactly match the coalition app essay options.
Our high school guidance counselor asked us not to work on coalition app for the time being.
So do not know if there are any short answer questions or supplementary questions in the coalition app this year.
It would be very helpful if anyone who has already started or completed coalition app can confirm if there are any short answer questions.
As an aside, my daughter hated using the coalition app and it was not as user friendly as the common app. Unfortunately UMD was the only school she applied to not on the common app. She especially had trouble getting the LORs uploaded (or the teachers did) so leave yourself enough time if there are glitches.
I thought there was a supplemental essay last year but don’t remember (and my daughter is already away at school so I can’t ask her).
FWIW, we opted not to fill out the FAFSA. I ran a ton of NPC and knew we’d qualify for zero aid anywhere and many of the schools dd applied to were need aware.
There are short answer questions (160 words) for the UMD application.
They are on the Coalition App.
If I could travel anywhere, I would go…
The most interesting fact I learned from research was…
In addition to my major, my academic interests include…
My favorite thing about last Wednesday was…
Something you might not know about me is…
Thank you so much for posting the essay questions.
Are these 5 essay questions mandatory or optional?
how many are students required to write (is it 2 out of 5 or something like that)
are these questions for a specific major or common questions for all majors?
are there any additional questions for honors?
I apologize for asking for this information. This is mainly because the school as asked us to stop using coalition app.
My kid already created an account and added colleges, but received an email from school to stop working on coalition app.
@learning19 The questions, I believe, were optional (2 years ago, they were labeled as “supplementary questions” on UMD’s own application portal). But, if you’re given the option to answer them, why wouldn’t you?
You should answer all of them. I’ve heard that the short answer questions help UMD admissions get a better sense of what kind of person you are and that can influence what programs you get into, scholarships, etc. There’s no separate or individual application/questions/etc for Honors/Scholars/FIRE/majors/any other program.
I am not sure the reason why your school counselor asked you to stop working on coalition. My D is the freshman at UMD this year. I recall the coalition or the common apps became live starting August 1. What we did was to create an account and fill out the profile (personal info) areas, as well as look at the prompt questions before the end of summer last year. She would work on the essay offline until she was ready to copy and paste onto the coalition app. To her, it was helpful to know what the essay questions and the requirements were before working on them. If your child wants to be considered for any merit based scholarship, make sure you apply by Nov. 1. No additional essays required for merit scholarship consideration. Good luck.
I do not think they are optional. Your child should answer all of them since they are not long. I don’t think s/he needs to spend a lot of time on them. I agree with @whenyoubelieve that the answers are meant to give the AOs insight into the applicant’s personality and interests.
You don’t have to have long, elaborate answers to all of the questions either. In my son’s year, one prompt was something like “something you didn’t expect from volunteering was” and his answer was “money” (that’s it, one word). Another was something about a day of the week, and his answer was “I got my driver’s license.”
A friend told me to a prompt like “I feel empowered (or invincible?) when” her daughter’s answer was “I eat chocolate.”
Thank you all parents for answering questions.
to all who asked why applying with coalition app was stalled earlier: our teachers were not able to upload recommendations using coalition app due to technical difficulties in app…they are now using naviance to send the recommendations.
Can someone let me know the following doubts:
once the coalition app shows complete status of application, should student create an UMD account or contact undergraduate admissions to see if anything is pending?
so far there is no email from UMD about portal where application decision can be checked.
Where and how does UMD announce about application decision?
DD received an email saying to check the coalition app website at a certain time to see the admission decision. It was horrible because it took over an hour to connect with the website. (I’m sure the system was overwhelmed with all the applicants checking). Then it took another hour to connect to the scholars program site where she was also accepted. She was very underwhelmed and frustrated with the coalition app in general and the communication with UMD.
I honestly don’t remember if she had portal for UMD.
PS Her recommenders also had issues uploading the LORs.