University of Maryland with full ride scholarship?

<p>My son received an invitation to come to U Maryland campus for Banneker scholarship consideration (full ride or 8K year depending on the level)</p>

<p>We are wondering if it’s worth for him to skip a day at school, drive 5 hours each way to participate in this. We checked the schedule of the day, and it’s mostly them selling the school to the candidates, as opposed to thorough evaluation of the candidate’s qualification - there is only 20 minute interview for each candidate. So, I assume that the real selection is still based on paper application. We already checked that a phone interview can also be arranged.</p>

<p>I guess I am asking this question because we are not so enthused about UMD. If UMD was high on our list, he would make this trip even for 5 minute interview if that increases his odds. He applied to UMD because UMD with scholarship would be the worst case fall back option. As it turns out, he already got EA from U Chicago, and is waiting for RD decision from HYP, Wharton, etc. So, without a full ride, UMD will never be considered. Even with the full scholarship, the probability is very low that he would go there since he would go to U Chicago if the rest of the RD schools reject him. Money is not a non-issue for us, but it’s the sacrifice we are willing to make</p>

<p>My son wants to be an international financier so he does care about reputation and prestige. As for me, I would like to see him in a school with very tough and rigorous intellectual training. He is a naturally gifted kid who never had to sweat or put any effort to get those perfect scores. Everything comes way too easy for him. I would like to see him challenged by other kids who are even more gifted than he. I would like to see him sweat, and perhaps even fail in comparison with others - that will be a good experience for him. </p>

<p>I would welcome your feedback on the quality of education at UMD, AND, also how it is regarded by the Wall Street.</p>

<p>(Please, I don’t mean any disrespect for UMD, so don’t flame me. But, it’s also a fact that UMD is not in the same league with HYP, Wharton, etc, or at the same level as Berkeley among public schools. )</p>

<p>I’ve looked at your other posts about your son. A student who gets perfect standardized test scores, but does poorly on school tests that require preparation would do well to be surrounded by peers for whom work ethic and attention to detail are second nature. In that setting, being influenced by peer pressure and following through on academic commitments become the same things. That would certainly be the case at Chicago, but not at UMD. The Banneker scholarship is there for your son to serve as other students’ inspiration, not to provide him the peer environment best suited to his needs.</p>

<p>When and how did you hear about the scholarship at MD?</p>

<p>I ask because we are waiting to hear if any merit money is coming our way. If decisions have been made and we struck out, this would be good to know.</p>

<p>cindysphinx: the letter of invitation came in last friday. Some on this thread report that they also got email. My son did not get email, just a snail mail. You might want to call the school and ask about your child’s status. </p>

<p>gadad: thanks for sharing your opinion. My son just loves all things financial. He considers it an irresistible combination of mathematics and social policies with profit motive as an lynch pin. He reads advanced financial/macro economic theories for fun, and is already at a pretty advanced level when it comes to sophisticated financial/economic theories and practices. So, we need to find a school/program that will further challenge him on that. That’s why I am really gong ho about U Chicago - not only their economics department is top notch, it’s a school that puts very heavy emphasis on intellectually rigorous core curriculum.</p>

<p>If you already know you would accept Chicago over UMD, it seems pointless to pursue this.</p>

<p>well,</p>

<p>I just want to make sure that we are not dismissing UMD with insufficient information. So, it would be really helpful to hear from those who are already in the program regarding the academic excellence available to scholarship students and the wall street crowd who are in a position to know what weight UMD carries as a college to be recruited from into Wall Street.</p>

<p>hyeonjlee - I agree with the other posters (and you) that U Chicago is the better option. UMD is a great school but it isn’t going to offer you the academic environment you are looking for. If UMD were your only option and you have that full ride - I’d say absolutely go for it. But with a much better option (and possibly more to follow) I wouldn’t even consider it. My S also applied to UMD this year (we are in-state and very familiar with the school as graduates ourselves) and we are fairly certain he would have received quite a bit of scholarship money and been in one of their Honors programs, but it was really only a “safety” for him. He never felt it would offer him the academic environment he was looking for even in their honors programs. He always said he would go there if it were his “only option” and although he is an excellent student, he doesn’t have the test scores of your S. In the end, our S was accepted to his dream school and he never, ever looked back. I’m sure your S won’t either.</p>

<p>hmm, University of Chicago ,paying almost 40K per year ( plus cost of living increases) vs. free ride from University of Maryland, and you folks are advocating Chicago? Are you nuts? Take Maryland and never look back. Having an extra $170,000+ at the end of four years pays for a LOT of things, not to mention Maryland is a fine school. Now if you were to get a free ride or almost free ride from Chicago. that would be a different “kettle of fish.”</p>

<p>taxguy, I would agree with you save for this:

The OP is willing to sacrifice to give her son the best academic challenges. And in this case, I believe Chicago is worth the sacrifice–her S sounds like exactly the type of person who would thrive in Chicago’s atmosphere, whereas he might just muddle along at UMD and “go with the flow.” If he were highly self-motivated, it’d be a different matter.</p>

<p>I guess, Keilexandra, if money was absolutely a non- issue than I certainly can agree with your recommending Chicago.</p>

<p>Last year, my daughter, an aspiring science major, was given a generous scholarship to Case right around the same time that she was admitted to Md. Since we knew at that point that there was no chance she would go to Md, I had her turn down that admissions decision <em>immediately,</em> before we even heard about scholarship $. I felt that, especially at a public school like Md, there are a lot of instate kids who are really depending on hearing about their $ to see whether they can afford to go to a 4-year school at all. I didn’t want to tie up the financial aid officer’s time or any funds if there was no chance she would attend just for the bragging rights of saying she had turned down X scholarship.</p>

<p>Message deleted because it was coming out as gibberish. Either CC’s computers or mine are having a bad morning.</p>

<p>I tried to post last night. No go. </p>

<p>(To echo k) Know your kid. IF he can run from the front while still setting his best time, UMD becomes a viable option. The money that MIGHT be freed up (those chicks are a long way from hatched ;)) can be used for oh so many “enhancing” things and experiences. If he would tend to float down to a level of “successful mediocrity” then …not so much. </p>

<p>But don’t fool yourself. There will be plenty of top kids at UMD. Not as great a % of the student body as at Chicago or HYP , but plenty nonetheless.</p>

<p>As to the “phone interview” option? What do you think that would do to his chances? Help or hurt? IMO, unless he could voice an exceptionally good reason for not being there, I’d say it wouldn’t be a positive. ;)</p>

<p>If theres no chance your S would attend, PLEASE release the money/opportunity for someone who will. Thats how my S got invited to the interview weekend at his OOS Public U for their top scholarship.They invite 40, he was #41 on the list. He went to the weekend, and won.U Md could be someones first choice school for any number of reasons and the scholarship opportunity might be their way of being able to attend.
My S’s OOS Public U was his top choice school b/c of the major he wanted,and hes never looked back.
Hes thankful for the opportunities it has provided, and the money aspect is wonderful.</p>

<p>thanks for your replies.</p>

<p>My son will go to the interview. he got further invitations to meet with department directors of the programs he is interested in. I believe that 400-500 kids were invited to the campus weekend, and half of them are likely to get a full ride offer. (I am sure not everybody accepts the offer, so the actual number of full ride bannerke scholars is much smaller). If so, he has a good shot at the full ride.</p>

<p>It’s not the decision we have to make within a few days, but this is the lingering question. Is a school like UMD with a full ride scholarship and honor program trumps a highly selective school with rigorous academic/intellectual training? </p>

<p>I know all the usual answers to this question: that you can always make it what you want it to be, that there are plenty of really smart kids there also (which I have no doubt about).</p>

<p>But, isn’t there such a thing as “general atmosphere and tone” based on what the majority of the constituents aspire to? </p>

<p>My son goes to a highly selective, very small public magnet school that is rated within top 5 public schools in USA. He is thriving there. I believe he is one of the small group of kids who set the tone and agenda of the intellectual discussions in that school. He discusses advanced physics problem solving with his friends when they are bored. He loves endless discourse on international finance, obscure philosophical issues, etc. He is passionate about international finance, and he devours books on this subject on his own, for fun, and luckily he even has a couple of friends he does this with. I don’t think his high school experience would be this enriching for him if he was at a normal high school, where general agenda is set with a different tone. </p>

<p>He is extremely self motivated for his chosen field (economics/finance), so I don’t worry about him muddling through in case there is no external pressure to work hard. What I do prize very highly though is the plenty of other minds that can provide friendly and stimulating competition, the minds that can challenge him. If you have a gifted athlete, you want him to be in a school where the athletic prowess is valued. If you have a gifted musician, you want him in a place where there are lot of stimulating and friendly competition to excel and go further in that field, a place where there are many truly gifted musicians that will further inspire him. Well, my son’s gift is his intellectual mind, and I want him in a school where there is vigorous intellectual thrashing going around.</p>

<p>My thinking is this: Here, we have four years for a very gifted young mind at its prime in terms of its ability to absorb, synthethize, and grow without the diluting concerns of the adult issues (mortgages, terrible boss, children, etc). This period will not come be to him later. Where and under what circumstances should he nurture this precious gift? </p>

<p>Will he be able to create “his own universe” in a school like UMD that does what I described above? U Chicago will cost us $200K over four years. HYP type schools, if they admit my son, may give us a better deal. We are inclined to spend the money. But, I want to avoid making decision without full information. That’s why I posted the original question. We don’t have any experience with public universities as students. If anything, my experience as a graduate student TA in a very large public university (very well established one - on the same level as UMD) sort left a sour taste in terms of the general atmosphere and student body’s seeming lack of intellectual curiosity - but then again, my experience may not reflect the honor student groups, etc… </p>

<p>I welcome your feedback. Especially, if there are faculty members on this board, I would love to hear from you.</p>

<p>OP, your son should visit UChicago and sit in on some Core classes, because he will be living with those courses for the first two years of college. If he doesn’t like the Core, he may find four years at Chicago difficult, no matter how much he loves economics.</p>

<p>S1 turned down a full B/K last year for UChicago with some merit $$. With S’s skin in the game plus merit, he is paying a little over half of this year’s freight and will pay about 35-40% of COA over the next three years (no loans above subsidized Stafford amounts). It was absolutely the right decision for him, but a) he is not an Econ major, b) Chicago’s Core was a deciding factor over UMD and other stellar schools and c) he needed the depth Chicago offered.</p>

<p>We know folks who turned down HPYSM to attend UMD and have been happy with the decision, and the scholarship money generally was not the driving factor.</p>

<p>There always have been some very bright kids at UMD - and they do tend to manage to find each other. I have a friend who graduated there in accounting, top of his class at age 18 and went on to considerable success (including advanced work at Chicago). I would also make sure your son is really ready for very challenging work - it’s not just a question of being very bright (as shown by SAT scores for example), but also of being able to read deeply yet quickly, and producing good work.
I wouldn’t neglect the financial angle. Sit down and work out how you are paying for Chicago. Then think about what not having to do that could mean.</p>

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<p>Five years ago (was it really that long ago?) my D and I made a similar decision. She turned down an ADS award (full ride) from Michigan State (my own undergrad alma mater) for no financial aid at U. Chicago.</p>

<p>It was the best decision we ever made. We too are not a “money is no object family”. Inb fact, she was just at the edge of need based aid - qualified for a subsidized loan her first year. We are much poorer financially, but much richer in other ways. For example, we are off to Oxford (with a side trip to London :slight_smile: )in a few weeks to visit her in grad school, where she has a very nice full ride scholarship that she never would have won fromn MSU or Maryland. </p>

<p>Living in DC now, we read daily about the budget crunch in Maryland, and the cutbacks being made at U. Maryland (such as the forced unpaid days off for all staff and faculty…)</p>

<p>IMHO, this is a terrible time to consider public universities or poorly funded private universities given the budget issues. Wealthier places have a much greater depth of resources, such that even with budget cuts, they will still offer far more. All to many state U have lived close to the edge since the late 1990s financially. A lot of faculty at state U are pretty demoralized. </p>

<p>To echo what others have suggested, the differences between a state U and an elite private U go beyond budgets. Student body composition is radically different. Size of student body is an issue. (hint: it is easy to get lost in a crowd of 10,000. another: not all classes are honors, and even honors classes can be huge). I don’t think things have changed much since the OP’s experience as a TA, except that the stratification these days is even worse, especially for the middle class that sometimes find a top private school is cheaper than state U these days. Even though that may not be the case for the OP, it does have a real impact on student body composition.</p>

<p>Finally, there are reasons that colleges have these kinds of true merit scholarships. They provide a small pool of academic stars within the sea of the rest. If your kid would prefer being one of the few stars, this could be great - a chance for more attention, a chance to stand out more and such. But if your kid would rather be surrounded by like minded peers, a public U is a pretty risky strategy.</p>

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<p>As a student on a Banneker/Key Scholarship at the University of Maryland, I wholeheartedly disagree with this description of the B/K and Honors Program at Maryland. If people want stats, the average GPA of a UMD Honors student hovers around 4.1-4.2, and the average SAT is 1440/1600 or so. That’s about 1/4 of the freshman class. Another 1/4 is scholars, who have GPAs in the 3.7-4.0 range and SATs around 1350-1440. Honors and Scholars students make up almost 2,000 students in every freshman class.</p>

<p>If anyone has specific questions about the program(s), PM me. I’ve found the “peer environment” of the Honors Program to be incredible, and the opportunities that open up when you don’t pay to go to school are endless. The type of students who are in the Honors Program at Maryland are the type that do undergraduate research at NIH and in on campus labs, take internships in DC and elsewhere, study abroad (to Israel, Spain, Argentina, France, Australia, Hong Kong, and Egypt), play music for fun, like to read, go to concerts and sporting events and museums, start up their own clubs, volunteer, and still manage to get close to a 4.0 every semester. They study alternative medicine treatments for cancer, the effects of water pollution on fish population, and antibiotic resistant bacteria. This is just taken from my personal group of friends. What else are you looking for in a peer group? Like someone said earlier, we do tend to find each other at Maryland. </p>

<p>Also, what date is your son coming to interview? I might be working one of the student panels that day.</p>

<p>The goal seems to be a job on Wall Street. Saving the money would then be penny wise and pound foolish for a family that can afford a WS target school.</p>