<p>Congrats to your son - I hope he will be happy at UMCP. For future reference, if this thread should get searched next year, the biggest difference between UMD/Smith and Ohio/Farmer is that UMCP is primarily a research school. In most objective rankings of research (e.g. <a href=“http://jindal.utdallas.edu/the-utd-top-100-business-school-research-rankings/northRankings#20092013”>http://jindal.utdallas.edu/the-utd-top-100-business-school-research-rankings/northRankings#20092013</a>) UMCP is top 10. Miami of Ohio is not ranked because it is not even playing the same game. </p>
<p>However, for an undergraduate, the experience at either school would be not wildly different. If anything, I suspect the interaction between core faculty and a typical undergraduate at Miami/Farmer would be greater than at Smith; the tenured Smith faculty do less teaching than those at Miami, because their job is primarily research. On the other hand, the opportunities for the top undergraduates at Smith, as at the rest of UMCP, are as good as anywhere. </p>