Da Bears Fan

Fellow CC posters,

Hi, I'm a senior and, as many of you, I'm right in the middle of the college application process. I'm already applying to the following schools:

University of Chicago
Columbia
Cornell
University of Florida
Harvard
MIT
Northwestern
Princeton
Yale

I am so afraid I'll get nine rejection letters in Feb/Mar/Apr, especially when many of my classmate have already received acceptance letters (albeit from the local community college's honors institute, U of So. Fla., and U of Central Fla.) I'm thinking about applying to U of Maryland (its free for me as a National Achievement Semifinalist). What's good about UMD? I like its proximity to D.C. (potential political science major).

Prussia!

Well, I would definitely recommend getting some other kind of safety schools on there! I imagine UF is your current one (Hi fellow Floridian? Maybe?) but it's always a good idea to have a few more safeties.
I think all of us have fears about list-wide rejection letters. I'm happy with my current list, but I think I'll be adding some more backups if come Dec 15, my Stanford SCEA is a reject.
I'm afraid to say I don't know anything about UMD But good luck with everything!

bobdylan4444

Well first off I just had to comment on this because of your username... loveee snl. (I hope that's what you're referencing)

My best friend's sister goes to Maryland and loves it. I'm pretty sure she's in the honors program though.
My mentality as of late has been to apply to all of the schools (within reason) that are giving me fee waivers; their essay prompts are easily answered by essays I've already written so it's basically a free chance at acceptance. I recommend that you do the same. Are you looking at any safeties besides university of florida? There are a lot of tiers between that and the others on your list...

Yurtle

You haven't given us any of your stats, or whether or not you need aid. That would be helpful so we can find you safeties/matches.

tk21769

If you were in-state, then Maryland would make sense as a safety. Since it sounds like you're not, I'd be inclined to recommend American University over Maryland for a potential political science major looking for "match" schools in the DC area. Another one to consider is Johns Hopkins, not as a match but to swap for one of the super-reach schools on your list. For other urban match schools, consider NYU, BU, Northeastern.

juillet

Why don't you apply to the New College of Florida, if you're a Floridian? It's in-state for you if you are from FL, so your room + board will be ~$12,000, and it's a great public honors college in your state. It's not such a great deal if you're not Floridian, though.

limabeans

Seems to me that you're asking: is UMD a good safety or at least a balance between all those very top notch schools I've listed. "I'm thinking about applying to U of Maryland (its free for me as a National Achievement Semifinalist). What's good about UMD? I like its proximity to D.C. (potential political science major)."

my nephew is in the UMD Honors program and loves it. His brother is in DC and they often get together. He's really enjoying the sports scene, even though he wasn't much into watching sports before. He's also become very serious about his studies: he'll be double major and has already mapped out his four years. He can't say enough good things about his school.

A separate thought: if you're a political science guy, why didn't you also include a DC school or two? G'town? GW?