<p>What is the difference between University Honors, Gemstone and College Park Scholars?</p>
<p>Can you get accepted into more than one of these programs?</p>
<p>What is the easies one to get into?</p>
<p>Also, when do you start to hear from College Park about decisions? The site says by March 1st, but do they normally send them out sooner?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Last years students were notified on 2/15</p>
<p>William-- some helpful info can be found on the 'Honors Compared to Scholars' page on the University Honors Program website:
University</a> Honors Program - University of Maryland
Of course this is a bunch of semi-watered down information and students have their opinions about which program is "better", but the programs are fundamentally different anyway, regardless of related SAT/GPA statistics. Scholars is probably the easier one to get into (although I'm sure some people will say the opposite-- like I said, it's not that clear-cut).</p>
<p>Gemstone is a division of the Honors program where students spend 4 years doing team-based research on a subject of the team's choice, with a faculty mentor. You have to be selected for Honors to be invited to Gemstone. While Gemstone has a great reputation, and many students invited to it have excellent stats, plenty of highly-qualified students turn down the offer because it's just not something they're sure they want to do for 4 years. The program can take up a lot of time and there are a wide variety of other great academic programs people might want to get involved in.</p>
<p>Gemstone - most prestigious/ most extra work/ most extra classes/ hardest to get into...most ppl have 1450+ SATs and high GPAs...if no interest is shown in research though, you may have these stats and get slated 2 honors..</p>
<p>Honors - 2nd most prestigious/ least work/ min 3 honor seminars and/0r 2 more honors classes or Honor level classes....honors program is what make out of it...you can do the bare minimum take the classes and get the citation..or u can take full advantages of all the extra programs and **** they have....</p>
<p>scholars - least pretigius/ not hard 2 get into from what ive seen/ lot of work...2 yr living learning program is alot of work and comm service from what ive seen...most ppl have like 1200+ sats and high gpa but u can see ppl with 1300+ and stuff in scholars...still tho, it all depends on how ur app is</p>