As noted in a previous post, the death of the freshman girl, while absolutely tragic, cannot be conclusively attributed to the mold in the dorm. She had underlying health issues and contracted a severe strain of the adenovirus. My daughter was in a non-air conditioned dorm which did not have mold but she has several friends in the dorm most significantly affected by mold.
This mold situation was not unique to UMD. The weather conditions were extreme and many facilities struggled with the issue. Yes, many of the dorms are old. But most colleges have at least some dorms that are old and from a parent’s point of view undesirable. I’ve realized that the kids seem to handle it better than the parents. My daughter lives in an old dorm without air conditioning. She was miserable at first due to the high temps in late August. But she survived and loves it at UMD. And honestly UMD was far from her first choice so to say she loves it there is saying quite a lot.
I would not make this the sole reason for ruling out UMD. If there are other OOS schools that check all his boxes and you don’t really need to diversify his college list further than sure, go ahead and keep it off his list. However, if you feel like UMD checks a lot of his boxes and would help balance out his college list then it’s worth it to give it another look.