UMD admissions (like all colleges) makes it clear that test optional candidates will not be at a disadvantage, however I’m not totally convinced. I went back thru last year’s Early Action thread and there seems to be a high percentage of t.o. applicants admitted into Freshman Connection. If you aren’t submitting test scores, then the rest of your application obviously gets much more scrutiny which means the other parts of the application better be really strong. The AO’s aren’t stupid, they know that plenty of kids (but not all) aren’t submitting test scores because they are not within or above the mid 50 range for the school. Of course there could be legitimate reasons related to the pandemic which caused the lower scores. We also are aware that a school friend of our DS22 did get admitted Early Action at UMD last year with no test scores so you never really know.