D2 also received the packet today with the March 4th date. It looks as though they’re doing two days of interviews again, as in the past. I just checked, and the packet was postmarked Thursday, so it only took two days to get from College Park to the wilds of Northern Virginia.
@2562ivy Thanks for your post. I had heard that some students had received the packet without getting the email first, but I think yours is the first report of that happening this year. Congrats to your son – it’s quite a remarkable opportunity!
@Arimom2 Thank you and congratulations for your daughter as well.
I am a little confused about the invitation to the special program and interview for the BK on Feb 16. It has an interview time slot from 1:20-500. So, why can’t they do an interview on that day instead of March 4th.
BTW, his packet was postmarked on the 5th.
@2562ivy Your son’s packet should have a letter with his interview date. Usually, I think there are two interview days each year (about a week apart), though if you’ve been told Feb 16th, it may mean that there are three this year – I’ve think I’ve already seen posts mentioning Feb.24th and I know D2’s packet said March 4th.
The interview date in the packet is the only one your son needs to attend. I think they just divide them up because of the number of students involved. Did they somehow send you materials with two different dates on them??
@terp2B I want to agree with you that BK is more than stats but I do think the selection is sort of random.
My son have completed 6 AP classes with GPA 4.4 by now, and is currently taking another 4 AP classes in his senior year. He is in two varsity teams and serves the team captain for one of them. He also has leadership positions in a couple of student organizations on campus. During his high school, he has taken classes in local community colleges and earned 17 college credits to be transferred to college park. He also has tons of community service hours.
His SAT score is 2300 and we are from western Maryland where the educational resources for high school kids are more scarce than DC/Baltimore area, such as G/T classes.
But he didn’t get invited to BK, at least not yet.
We put College Park as the first choice school for our son because we thought we live in Maryland and with his AP classes and credits from community college, he could graduate from college sooner. Now we have to re-think our options.
Though my son has strong B/K credentials, we have not been notified. Does anyone know when other scholarships will be announced, such as the President’s Scholarship? How many receive that award?
Thanks for encouragement. I talked with my son and he seems not surprised although he is certainly very disappointed. He said this happened a lot before and two years ago, one of his friends in class 2013 of his high school, a highly talented girl who was one of the two national merit scholar semifinalists in the county in that particular year, and the captain of school academic team, didn’t make it into BK scholars either.
I just felt western Maryland is a forgotten area in the sense of admission and scholarships by UMD. This is an area that is very scenery but economically depressing. If we drive 10 minutes to the south of north, we will end up in WV or PA. So we don’t have ample resources such as NIH or NASA labs for high school students to do research interns and participate in Intel Science competitions and so on.
Before we decided on UMD, we also looked at WVU and U Pitt and Penn State. These nearby out of state schools put more recruiting efforts here than UMD. However, many of their full scholarships are for their IS students only. For us, the scholarships they offer only offset the difference between IS and Out of State tuition.
When my son was younger, he played many sports with local WV and PA kids. My son mentioned several kids he knows got full scholarships from their in state universities such as WVU or U Pitts. Well, maybe we should have moved to Maryland before he stated his high school.
@indianboy2400 You received the email – relax! The mail will get to you soon enough. You already know it’s B/K from the others who have received their packets. Trust me, it’s worth the wait!
@twinsmom15 According to the B/K site, they invite about 400 semifinalists to campus each year. From that group, they choose about 250 finalists to receive the full scholarship. The other 150 get the partial scholarship. Here’s the link: http://www.financialaid.umd.edu/scholarships/banneker_info.php
@2562ivy and @Arlmom2 (don’t know how to do it in blue) Thank you for the link - exactly what we needed to know to determine if we should book a flight for the interview. Definitely looks worth it.
Am OOS