The answer to your question is Very student specific. The distinction between Honors, Scholars, and a few other programs is not as cut and dried as you may think.And to a certain extent, students do not care.
UMD is a very large University.
It has approximately 31,000 undergraduate students, plus about 10,000 Graduate students. About 4000 students total are in the Honors College.
Each year about 1000 new Honors College students enroll. There are 8 Living-Learning Communities (LLCs) (Dorms) within the Honors College.
New HC students can select their top 3 LLC preferences. A lot of them do not get what they want because some of the LLCs have deliberate capacity limits. The largest living-learning program, University Honors, welcomes about 500 first-year students annually.
All of that is for perspective, and does not answer your questions.
So, I’ll go over my D’s experience with UMD. My D is a Very self-motivated person. My D applied Undecided. When decisions came out, she was admitted to UMD and the Honors College. She picked University Honors and completed her Citation requirements by her second year.
Her first semester was a bit turbulent for a variety of reasons. She thought she wanted a certain major but after a few classes decided no. By the end of her first semester she decided on a different Major. It was a Limited Enrollment program (LEP). She was accepted and started her 1st year second semester in that Major. Being in the Honors College was not a factor in getting a LEP Admission
My D would go to Professor Office hours, talk with TAs. talk with other students about classes. She did not care if someone was in the Honors College or not. She looked for jobs and research opportunities (UMD posts these things)
Sophomore year she moved out of the University Honors dorm to a different non-Honors dorm. She was selected to be an Honors College Ambassador. She decided that she wanted to do a Minor. Applied and was accepted. Started doing some research work . The Minor and Research were not contingent on being in the Honors College.
End of Sophomore year, she decided to apply for Departmental Honors and was accepted. Being in the Honors College was not a requirement for being admitted to Departmental Honors.
" The most intensive and rewarding research experiences can be found in the departmental honors programs, where students pursue an extensive mentored independent research project, and ultimately write and defend an honors thesis. Through departmental honors research, students have the opportunity to earn the distinction of graduation with a departmental honors designation on their transcript."
My D’s Thesis was submitted and accepted for publication in a relevant Journal and it has been cited by researchers across the country. That thesis helped my D to get accepted to a number of Master’s Programs.
Throughout my D’s time at UMD most of her classes were populated with non-Honors College students. There are some specific Honors College classes (Limited to 20 students or less) but not nearly enough for the 4000 Honors College students on campus each year. So, if you attend UMD there will be a lot of regular students in your classes (and many of them are Very smart and capable).
Your question seems to be “What will the Honors College do for me?” I think the real question should be “What will you do to take advantage of the opportunities available at UMD (or any college for that matter)?”
Just something to consider. Good Luck!