Some interesting admission facts from today

Colleges & Universities University of Maryland - College Park
1

I went to UMD sophomore/junior visit day, 2/15/15. (I have a daughter at UMD now and a junior daughter in HS.)

  1. One of 6 national research universities in the world to be top 25 in all of these disciplines:

computer science
economics and business
engineering
national sciences and mathematics
physics
social sciences

  • Worldwide rankings.

  1. Honors College: The “typical” SAT (math & CR) 1450 and GPA 4.5. Grades and challenging classes are very important factors. They want students who challenged themselves.

  2. There are 26 factors in admission. SAT and GPA are not the only big factors. Many people think that UMD does not look at other factors, but they really do.

  3. Maryland reweights applicants GPA based on Montgomery County (Maryland) standards. The Montgomery County standard was specifically mentioned. Regular classes are weighted at 4.0, honors and AP classes are 4.5.

2

@MDdad2012 - Any chance that the Honors and Weighted classes are 5.0 or at least above 4.5? I’m not sure how the typical honors college student would have a 4.5 GPA otherwise…it would mean all honors classes and perfect grades wouldn’t it?

3

@Woodsmom, you are right. I messed up the GPA reweighting. It’s based on 5.0 scale. I should have known that! My DD currently has a 4.65.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/ikcra.pdf

4

Like those rankings! Fear the Turtle!!!

5

The county in MD we live in has regular, honors, GT and AP classes. The regular classes are out of 4.0, the honors out of 4.5 and the GT and AP courses are out of 5.0. The GT classes are significantly harder than the honors classes so with UMD counting GT and Honors as both 5.0 it gives students in honors an advantage and leads to some interesting admits/denies that are not consistent with the county’s weighted GPAs.

6

Thanks for posting @MDdad2012 as well as similar stats posted by @maryversity on other threads.

@Jezza2015‌ writes in [UMD Pre-med?](UMD Pre-med? - #9 by Jezza2015 - University of Maryland - College Park - College Confidential Forums) on 1/31/2015 (Post #8) about 2015 admission stats:

[quote]
Also, i called the admissions office at maryland and was told that it was super competitive this year. The average gpa was a 4.22 W and 29-32 ACT (2014 was an average 50 percentile of 28) so it is a HUGE jump from last year. Be happy you got in at all, its one of the top public universities in the country./quote

I couldn’t concur more! Anecdotally, I’ve heard admit rate dropped from 46% (Fall 2014) to 40% (Fall 2015).

Fear the Turtle!

7

And here are the 26 factors, ripped from the UMD site:

Each category is assessed by a combination of quantitative and qualitative factors. These factors are flexibly applied, so the listing does not reflect order of importance.

High School Achievement
Extracurricular Activities
Grades in Academic Subjects
Special Talents or Skills
Progression of Performance
Community Involvement
Breadth of Life Experiences
Community Service
Geographic Origin
Demonstrated Leadership
Gender
Learning Differences
SAT I or ACT Scores
Quality of Coursework
Work Experience
Residency Status
Recognition of Special Achievements
Race
Extenuating Circumstances
Ethnicity
Socio-Economic Background
Family Educational Background
Written Expression of Ideas
(as demonstrated in the essay)
Academic Endeavors Outside
of the Classroom
Rank in Class
(actual or percentile)
English as a Second Language /
Language Spoken at Home