I’ve deleted that portion of my comment.
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DC is a freshman in the engineering school at UMd and is in the honors college. His cohort, with whom he lives and takes one class, is extremely talented and motivated. He and many of his classmates turned down very highly ranked schools to attend UMd due to the excellent merit aid (free tuition room and board!) UMd offers. You will be plenty challenged at UMd. And may have $$ for grad school, down payment, car, whatever.
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Just a note that Brown offers a BA in their engineering disciplines as well as a BS. But I’m pretty sure that only the BS is ABET acceedited, if that is important to you. (Note that Brown uses the terms AB and ScB instead of BA and BS, and also doesn’t have minors).
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I came here to say the same thing. My DS perseverated over turning down Cornell and taking a scholarship (plus Honors, plus engineering) at UMD. But he adores UMD and knew it was the right fit for him - and we’re from out of state! And the whole family likes thinking about the chunk of money we are reserving for grad school or beyond.
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Thank you all for the replies. For those with DS/DD at honor college at UMD - do they see a difference between the honors students and the regular UMD students? How has the honor college affected their experience beyond the classroom (research, projects, etc.)?
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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!
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From a quick search, the cost of attendance at WashU, Rice, and Brown is around $90K per year, compared to about $30K per year for UMD (in-state). That’s nearly $250K difference for four years, not counting travel costs for you and your family.
I completely understand the pressure to choose an “elite” school, but if your goal is medical school, UMD is great choice. And If you can get into one of the Honors programs, especially ILS, you will get a challenging but very supportive system to help you achieve your goal.
My daughter graduated from UMD and is currently applying to med schools. She had to balance tough classes, extracurriculars, and MCAT prep, but UMD provided her excellent opportunities and supports. And through ILS, she built close friendships with other students on the same premed journey. They helped each other stay motivated, had fun together at games or hangouts, volunteered in D.C, etc. She graduated a semester early and was able to find a MA job locally though her ILS connection, while preparing to apply this cycle. In the end, UMD gave her everything she needed to be successful , and saved her (and us) a lot of unnecessary debt.
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If you decide to apply to UMD, make sure to apply Early Action by November 1st for the best chance of admission. My younger daughter is a freshman at UMD and part of the ILS program, so feel free to reach out if you have any questions about the application process.
Good luck!
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One thing @bear112 to remember - just because someone is at an Ivy doesn’t mean they are motivated, etc. There are plenty of lesser effort kids at top schools - or kids that do their academics and not much else.
And UMD is hard - both my kids got Scholars (neither chose it) but had they gotten Honors, FIRE, or nothing, they’d still be the same kids, pursuing their interests. Maybe they wouldn’t be as readily available - but all things (research, strong relations with Profs) are avail to all at most schools - but one needs to advocate for themselves.
You will find both kinds of kids at top schools and at your flagships including UMD. Sure, more percentage wise might be “research” focused at top schools but on the other hand, at the state flagships, that may open up more opportunity for you.
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Sounds like the best choice for you is to apply to UMD EA (fingers crossed you get into ILS too) and apply to WashU, Brown, and Rice RD Jan2.
(unless they have special Honors programs that may have special deadlines - ? Can’t check right now but I think there’s one at WashU?? - in any case it wouldn’t require applying ED, just by the ED deadline. )
Perhaps add something that’s in-between these options (UMD/Top privates) in terms of cost, such as VTech or Pitt? It’s important to have choice so that you can decide in the Spring what is best.
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