I believe that the people on charge of the Scholars Program make the decisions, but I don’t know that for sure
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Oh, I meant them I guess 
Whoever’s in charge of the scholar’s program – how do they decide who gets what 
When my daughter applied to Scholars 4 years ago, they said it was rolling so you had a better shot if you applied early but things may have changed.
My current son who is going to be in Scholars filled out his form and submitted right away.
Ok, thank you!
UMD does not disclose how they make any of their decisions.
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Two years ago with my older student they were very clear with scholars that there was no benefit to getting the form submitted early- they do not assign programs in the order received (unlike housing). Just need to submit by the deadline to confirm a spot. I’m sure this will be asked and verified at the zoom info meeting tomorrow night.
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Ok thanks, the process has changed then. Good to know.
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Any thoughts of success on appealing/applying to scholars when the window opens, if your student wasn’t offered initially? UMD says it is an available option, but they haven’t released it yet.
It doesn’t hurt. The worst thing they can say is no.
Good luck. If your child puts a lot of effort in, hopefully they will have a good shot! They want kids who want it. My guess is if appealed successfully they will end up on a waitlist and eventually end up in a program that has a few spaces.
They have an information session tomorrow. You can ask UMD if your child can attend or get the transcript afterwards. It may be in an open forum. My kid has already filled out his preference, my older one was in Scholars too, so we will listen to the recording later.
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Regarding the honors/scholars/special programs and merit aid, of my 4 who applied: the 1st (CS major, enrolled fall 2018) got a presidential scholarship and ACES with a 35 ACT and impressive CS experience; the 2nd (CS, enrolled fall 2021) was admitted to Carillion with no merit aid and a nearly identical transcript as my oldest, but was NMF and had a 36 ACT, but less CS experience due to covid shutdowns; 3rd (PoliSci, enrolled at GWU fall of '22) was Carillion and no merit aid, NMF, ACT 35, with a better gpa than the 1st two kids; and 4th was admitted last week to CS, no special programs offered. We’ll see about merit aid, but we don’t expect it. This seems to reflect the increasing difficulty in getting a direct admit to CS since 2018. And reflects a bit of the randomness (at least it seems random to me). Also, as someone mentioned, you can get into some of these programs after enrolling. My 2 oldest were both in CS honors after the 1st (I think?) year, and my 2nd son applied for FIRE before the 1st semester started and was admitted to it. He didn’t choose to take the Carillion option and didn’t regret it. My oldest enjoyed parts of ACES but didn’t care for the extra work needed (and covid interfered with his experience with honors and with research, so that may be why he didn’t get as much out of it as he had hoped). I think these kids tend to find their people one way or another. The special programs can help for sure, but there are other paths too. So hopefully if you or your child didn’t get into honors or scholars etc. you aren’t worried about it. It’s a great school that will challenge you either way. There are so many exceptionally smart students and exceptionally NICE students, which is what I’ve been most pleased with over the years.
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Thanks, good to know. We are OOS. Both parents are alums (graduate school). Son got in last week into UMD with an invite for Scholars. If no merit scholarship, UMD will not be possible for us. Our in-state public university (not really public) is offering some merit making it the most cost-effective option.
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I was looking for this as well. According to the UMD FAQ, the answer is no. If anyone has other anecdotal results, please share.
Decisions are final and students admitted for the spring semester cannot appeal their admission decision or defer their enrollment to the fall semester. Requests to be admitted for the fall semester instead of the spring semester will not be considered.
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Thank you! I don’t think we would have enough interest to appeal currently, but I was just generally curious if all similarily situated publics offered that reconsideration option like PSU does for students to be reviewed under a less competitve major or for a less preferred start session (summer). I was surprised to learn a school handling the volume of apps that Penn State does offers that reconsideration option. Good luck and thank you for sharing!
If your child wants UMD, I wouldn’t worry about FC. It’s only one semester and no one knows unless you tell them.
You can live on campus. At the end of hopefully 4 years, your kid will have the same UMD degree.
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Regarding freshmen connection. My son, a regular admit if I could phrase it that way, made friends with freshmen connection students in their first semester.
Perhaps having evening classes prevents some students from getting involved in a few clubs but my son also had a few late afternoon classes and an evening lecture.
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Thanks, but for us, the main issue is that S25 was removed from a LEP major to L&S and it would disqualify him for merit. These combined are a no-go. We could have considered it if he was at least in the LEP major he applied for, but it’s too risky otherwise.
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Are spring admits ineligble for merit as a rule?
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Yes, as mentioned by STEMX in post #681 up-thread:
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Can someone please confirm… if you get an email tonight about the BK scholarship, does that mean you get a minimum scholarship for full tuition (but not room and board)? We aren’t expecting the email but I guess you never know so I’m trying to understand what it means
There are two levels
- full - this is all in, tuition, room, board, books (in or out of state)
- partial - this is different for in or out of state but for in-state it’s 8000 towards tuition and a book stipend so around 9kish. I want to say out of state it’s 16/17? I didn’t pay close attention because we are in state.
Everyone invited to interview will get one of those two levels
Good luck everyone!
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