Hey guys, I was accepted into both schools, UMD Honors College for CS and UMich-LSA with the intention of majoring in CS. Now for the past couple of months I’ve been waiting to hear back about UMD’s full ride scholarship so I’ve been really excited for that, but I didn’t get it. I did get their next highest scholarship but I feel like now I do need to take a closer look at all of my options since before I was laser focused on UMD.
UMich - Pros
• OOS but my net price is $15.6k/yr due to generous aid
•One of the best schools for CS out there, “public ivy”
•Great college town
•Very social atmosphere and great sports
Cons -
•Weather, the cold isn’t my favorite thing but I’ll survive
•Lack of diversity, there’s a 5 percent black student population though and coming from a school that’s 25% Asian, White, Black, etc I’m worried about running into problems because of my race. Although that could be said for any PWI
UMD - Pros
•Close go home, in-state. Cost may be around $13-16k/yr
•Near DC and the campus is beautiful
•I feel like home there (but I’ve also visited a bunch of times)
•Great CS program and new CS building
•Good social atmosphere
•Pretty diverse
Cons-
•Dorms for honors are really crappy
•CS program is a bit overcrowded (same may be true for UMich)
Now I feel like the reason why I’m in love with UMD so much is because I’ve been there a lot. I plan to visit UMich on April 2nd but I’m getting cold feet on spending $600 on a trip when I have UMD right here. I never allowed myself to get overly hyped with UMich because I thought I wouldn’t get in or it would be too expensive as an OOS student. Thoughts? Which is the better school?
My daughter was admitted to UMD (we are in-state) as well with full ride Banneker Key Scholarship, was also admitted to UMich with Shipman Scholarship. We are heading to UMich tomorrow for Shipman weekend. UMich would cost us $32,000-$37,000. Also admitted to Tulane with $30,000 merit scholarship, my daughter loved that school. It will be a hard decision.
Also, even though the dorms can be pretty bad, it’s going to be like that at any university you go to I think (unless they’re super bougie). You only have to stay there for the first year (you make friends pretty quickly, since you’re all sorta in the same state: living bad dorms and looking for friends), but, after that, you can get an apartment or house or something with them!
As someone who’s gone looking at a lot of college programs, most schools with good CS programs have overcrowded CS programs. Hopefully, with the new Iribe Center being built at UMD, we’ll be able to attract more CS faculty and have more spaces for classes, meaning the program should feel less packed in the coming years. Also, it really is pretty diverse here. I’m a POC and come from a REALLY diverse city in another state and UMD feels pretty at home for me! I didn’t think diversity would mean so much to me in a school, but it DEFINITELY does. It makes me walk around campus with ease and helps me make friends!
Feel free to DM me if you wanna discuss the pros and cons of both schools some more.
Going by your own list, Michigan pros 4 cons 2 UMD pros 6 cons 2…
As for scholarship $, a friend’s son turned down a HUGE OOS scholarship to attend an IS school. Why? As mom explained, the scholarship money is conditional and there was no way to guarantee the $ (even though her son is brilliant) as you never can predict unexpected circumstances that might factor into things. If that happened, they couldn’t afford the tuition, so they didn’t want that kind of pressure.
Another con for Michigan - travel expense/ability to come home easily
@whenyoubelieve I chose University Honors because none of the other programs really appeal to me
@maryversity
Luckily all the aid I received is completely in grants. My famailes financial situation has been the same for the past 10 years and the only difference income wise is that my mom expects to lose about 20k when one of her jobs let’s her go. So according to the financial aid office I can expect the same price for the next 4 years.
Now I am going to visit UMich in a couple of weeks just to get a true feel. I’ve been wanting to go to UMD for awhile now but I just don’t know if I would be passing up prestige and a better experience for the same cost by not choosing UMich
I’m hardly an expert on the topic, but I have several cousins (all engineering) at/or graduated from both UMich and UMD (disclaimer:I’m from MD). Given that they’re the same price, in my opinion UMich is a no-brainer. The prestige difference is real for CS/CompeEng and I believe that was key in one of my cousins going on to an Ivy grad school.
@Daisy50, if the grants are merit awards, they require maintenance of a minimum gpa. My reference was not to change in personal finances, but rather amount of tuition due if you should no longer qualify for merit award.
It might seem trivial now, but college is very different than high school, so where a 4.0 is your norm now, it may be a very different ballgame in college. You absolutely cannot predict circumstances that may affect your academic performance.
@Laerai, many Maryland graduates are admitted to and attend ivy league grad schools as well. Admission to ivy league grad schools is dependent upon performance at the school you attend, not the name. And fwiw, Maryland has no lake effect, lol.
@Daisy50, At the end of the day, they are both great schools, so truly it is a matter of fit, and where you feel you would be happiest. There really is no wrong decision. Best of luck in the decision process!
