Both of mine turned down UMD. S2 would have been lost there. Went to a smaller school, too. They cared about whether he graduated!
S1 was at a STEM magnet and S2 was at the selective admit full IB. Many parents were of the opinion that they’d pay for Ivy/MIT/Stanford, but not the next tier. (We got flak from a couple parents about UChicago as “not worth it.”) Their classmates tended to apply very high and also to UMD. Acceptance letter days were always a bloodbath.
Many of them got big $$ from UMD, which tempered any disappointment, and we knew many who did UMD UG and then went to MIT, Ivies, etc. for grad school and were thrilled not to have UG debt.
UMD is not a gimme admit for sure, esp if you’re engineering, business or comp sci. We knew a lot of kids from the neighborhood in their age cohort who didn’t get into UMD, but got into VT, Penn State main campus, Ohio State, W&M – all great state schools.