<p>Which one in your opinion is better?</p>
<p>Which has higher academics, better social activities, nicer campus, etc?</p>
<p>**Important: Which school is more generous with scholarships?</p>
<p>Please share your experiences.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>It depends on your chosen major. UMBC is very heavy on the sciences and is one of the top feeders for Harvard Med school. Higher academics is highly debatable. UMCP technically has an edge since their admission criteria is a little higher. However, UMBC is a great school. They are ranked number 1 in the country in undergraduate teaching among public universities, and ranked 4th overall among private and public, tied with Stanford. They are also the number 1 up-and-coming school in the country, the 2nd year in a row. </p>
<p>College Park certainly has the nicer campus, it has the traditional college look. But I do have friends who have transfered from UMCP back to UMBC because they felt UMCP was simply too big and they didn’t get enough personalized instruction, they felt like a number. </p>
<p>College Park also has more social activities, seeing as how it has several times more students. That doesn’t mean that UMBC isn’t fun, it’s just more close-knit and has more of a home feeling to it. </p>
<p>Now scholarships can be confusing. Before I can give you an accurate answer to this, I need to know your stats. SAT scores, GPA, ECs, AP classes, etc. But UMBC is most definitely known for giving out more financial aid money than College Park. A lot of students at UMBC are brilliant kids that chose to go there because UMBC was a lot cheaper than UMCP. </p>
<p>I have a cousin that works for Intel and he tells me that whenever he interviews UMBC vs UMCP students, the UMBC student seems more knowledgeable. He recruits out of many schools and he’s told me that UMBC students have a more rigorous Comp Sci program than College Park. In fact, he said that it could even stalk up to CMU, Stanford, and MIT. UMCP is a party school, no doubt about it. UMBC is very stereotypically a “nerd” school. But I don’t think that’s true at all. Yes, there aren’t nearly as many parties as UMCP, but people still have fun.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, it depends on what type of student you are, and what’s important to you. Is the social activities and larger campus more important? Or the scholarships and more personalized, and more rigorous teaching? If you give me your stats and what major you are going for, I can give you a better answer.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply! Here’s my stats:</p>
<p>In state, public & competitive hs</p>
<p>Rank: UW-58/370 or W 54/370…2nd decile</p>
<p>GPA: UW 3.74 or W 4.38 </p>
<p>AP Classes: Govt, Bio, Calc AB, English Lang, Spanish Lang, Spanish Lit, and Psychology. mostly got As in these, one or two B’s. all other classes are almost all GT or honors.</p>
<p>SAT: 1710 (CR 530, M 560, W 620)</p>
<p>ACT: 24 (E-26, M-26, R-24, S-21, Eng Combined-24)</p>
<p>Recommendations, Essays, and ECs are all great</p>
<p>Applied Early Action for Fall 2011 Undecided both to UMBC and UMCP,
For UMBC- I got deferred to Regular decision</p>
<p>I am undecided- but leaning towards math and life sciences</p>
<p>Sorry, I didn’t you know you replied. I’m not very active on here, but did you get in? I got in! You should have gotten an email about it, if not you can check their website.</p>
<p>i got in too!</p>
<p>question- what is engineering like at umbc? how hard is their program?</p>
<p>I have a colleague who has twins, one is at UMBC (computer science) and the other is at UMCP (bio-engineering or whatever it is called there). Both are juniors, graduated at the top of their high school classes, and received nice scholarships at their respective schools. Both are happy and challenged and have had opportunities to do research. Isn’t that helpful?</p>
<p>not sure your Stats will warrant merit aid; however, UMBC was very generous with my son and we were more impressed with their STEM program vs. College Park. Visit UMBC and see if it fits.</p>
<p>Now I myself attended UMBC for a year and am now transferring to College Park. College Park’s credentials weigh much higher because it is the state school, and it is in the process of becoming Ivy League. UMBC gives a great experience for those who want to be a STEM major but don’t want the large college feel of College Park. For me, being a liberal arts major proved to be not a good fit at UMBC, and so I made the decision to transfer. From what I’ve heard, and with my own personal experience…unless you absolutely love UMBC, your student will not like it there. It IS a commuter school, and half of the campus shops and restaurants shut down on the weekends. It was never my first choice, and unless you have a scholarship that is significant at UMBC, I would choose UMD. I do feel though that UMBC does have a great pool of helping its students gain internships, as one of the professors there really pulled to help me get an internship after only one year of attending UMBC. Overall, college and internships are what you make of it, and of course you always have to present your best self in a resume. That being said, if you really want your student to be at a university that is nationally ranked for its academics, UMD is the best choice. I see the value in both schools, but I felt that UMD proved to have more credibility over UMBC. </p>
<p>What percentage of students live on campus at UMD CP? Since a lot of students that go to UMD CP come from surrounding areas, is it much of a commuter school, at least in comparison to UMBC?</p>
<p>There are about 26,000 undergraduate students at UMDCP and approximately 13.000 live on campus</p>