UMD decision 2026

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will be curious to learn if they are favoring out of state applicants rather than in state applicants.

How many are they "required" to take in in-state? If it's a high %, doesn't leave much for OSS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMCP has old, gross housing.

ICYMI: they just shut down the campus due to lack of heat and water in the prehistoric dorms.

And be sure to google recent criminal activity on Route 1. I personally know of two students who were assaulted, and I don’t even have student on campus.

Signed,

Terp alum who still attends sporting events but thinks the campus needs an upgrade

They've built 3 dorms since 2010 and staggered installation of AC in the older dorms near the stadium.

It’s shocking that any dorm wouldn’t have a/c.

In fact, it was shocking when we didn’t have a/c in the 90s. This is America, not some third world country.

Guess that's why they are in the process of upgrading. My kid lived in one his freshman year. He survived.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rejected, but dc isn’t upset. It was not a top choice and they have much better options elsewhere for their intended major. Only applied because we’re in state.

So UMD figured that out and protected their yield

There’s no way UMCP can figure that out.

The reality is plenty of Marylanders can’t afford to send their high stats kids out of state and desperately want their kids to get into our flagship.

But the reality is certain kids from mcps are simply shut out.

A college counselor I know very well says UMCP is irrationally unpredictable. Pretty much sums it up.

I'm a HS teacher and our counselors say that UMCP is the hardest school to predict. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but they say they are surprised every year, both by the kids who they thought were strong candidates who don't even get Freshmen Connect, and the kids who get honors who they weren't sure would get in.

But the statement that there are kids who "can't afford to send their high stats kids out of state" is confusing. My kid, who is a solid student but not good enough that applying to UMD made sense, has multiple merit offers that bring the cost of attendance below the in state COA of UMD, and that's before need based aid has been awarded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMCP has old, gross housing.

ICYMI: they just shut down the campus due to lack of heat and water in the prehistoric dorms.

And be sure to google recent criminal activity on Route 1. I personally know of two students who were assaulted, and I don’t even have student on campus.

Signed,

Terp alum who still attends sporting events but thinks the campus needs an upgrade

What about all the new construction they are doing

They destroyed the campus by allowing the purple line monstrosity run through the heart of the campus.

Beyond the visual impact, crime is up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The acceptances seem so random. Some lower stats accepted while higher are rejected.

Same feeling. Especially some high-stat rejections are not in engineering/CS, like Biology. Hard to say. Does UMD also value EC more nowadays?

My child knows a kid at her high school with an UNWEIGHTED GPA OF ONLY 3.0, WHO DID "SOME" EC, AND GOT IN! My child and her good friend with WAY better stats, but NO EC, were rejected. I do believe the kid who was accepted with the lower GPA will struggle there.

I don't know why some ones apply for schools far beyond their abilities. Not sour grape. If my average kid was admitted to MIT, I will suggest him not to go because I am afraid that he can't graduate.

It's called super reach or reach. UMD is not a target or a likely school range for all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The acceptances seem so random. Some lower stats accepted while higher are rejected.

Same feeling. Especially some high-stat rejections are not in engineering/CS, like Biology. Hard to say. Does UMD also value EC more nowadays?

Biology is a popular subject due to premed.

Would you mind sharing the high stats that are rejected?

My son’s MoCo high school college counselor said a SAT score of 1500+ (w/ top grades and high rigor for GPA obviously) should be safe for UMD. His school had 20-25% of kids getting in UMD couple of years ago, but that % was cut half last year!

I just saw the examples here. For example:

Subject: UMD decision 2026
Anonymous
Rejected for Biology major. Good MCPS high school. 4.8 weighted GPA, several 5s and 4s on AP exams. Multiple character awards for varsity sports. Accepted into Virginia Tech. Rejection is redirection!

Not sure about his SAT. But GPA is definitely good enough. I know a kid in MCPS who got into ED Cornell, 3.8ish UW, 4.6W, SAT 1510. No national award.

Good MCPS sounds like it is probably a school where the cutoff is higher since they don’t want to overload on kids from one school. It may be that test optional is less test optional from those schools since they will have so many high stats kids applying. Also “several APs” is kind of vague. This GPA can be achieved by just honors classes and no AP classes. That is to say, this amount of detail in and of itself doesn’t by definition mean this person is in the top 1/4 of kids from their HS who are applying.

A high stats kids from Whitman getting declined would be very different from a high stats kids from Paint Branch being declined.

Now, we can debate all we want on whether the bar at Whitman should be higher than the bar at Watkins Mill, but at this point it seems relatively established that it is.

Yup, likely test optional (aka low SAT score). It looks bad unless you’re underprivileged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rejected, but dc isn’t upset. It was not a top choice and they have much better options elsewhere for their intended major. Only applied because we’re in state.

So UMD figured that out and protected their yield

There’s no way UMCP can figure that out.

The reality is plenty of Marylanders can’t afford to send their high stats kids out of state and desperately want their kids to get into our flagship.

But the reality is certain kids from mcps are simply shut out.

A college counselor I know very well says UMCP is irrationally unpredictable. Pretty much sums it up.

I'm a HS teacher and our counselors say that UMCP is the hardest school to predict. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but they say they are surprised every year, both by the kids who they thought were strong candidates who don't even get Freshmen Connect, and the kids who get honors who they weren't sure would get in.

But the statement that there are kids who "can't afford to send their high stats kids out of state" is confusing. My kid, who is a solid student but not good enough that applying to UMD made sense, has multiple merit offers that bring the cost of attendance below the in state COA of UMD, and that's before need based aid has been awarded.

Okay.

Step out of your bubble and imagine a family who can’t afford off campus housing (or any housing) and travel. Or maybe they need their 18 year old to live at home to help take care of younger siblings or grandma.

I know a handful of students who received generous merit at schools ranked above UMCP yet were rejected at UMCP. They opted for MC then transferred because even with merit and full rides, housing is quite costly.

PS - All the students I know who were rejected despite impressive stats were white kids from mcps (not W schools).

High school counselors can confirm; or you can google it (some of this came out in the media in recent years…but you need to connect the dots because nobody will say it as clearly as it should be).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will be curious to learn if they are favoring out of state applicants rather than in state applicants.

IDK, but OOS comprises around 22% of undergraduates. While UVA, VT and WM are all greater than 30% OOS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The acceptances seem so random. Some lower stats accepted while higher are rejected.

Same feeling. Especially some high-stat rejections are not in engineering/CS, like Biology. Hard to say. Does UMD also value EC more nowadays?

My child knows a kid at her high school with an UNWEIGHTED GPA OF ONLY 3.0, WHO DID "SOME" EC, AND GOT IN! My child and her good friend with WAY better stats, but NO EC, were rejected. I do believe the kid who was accepted with the lower GPA will struggle there.

There may be some other factor at play here. I feel like when I see posts like this I always cringe because it is like parents saying “my kid is FOR SURE better and more valuable than THAT kid.” Why on earth would you think that your personal limited information would be better at evaluating than the admissions office with a full set of information?

Are they a sports recruit? Do they go to a less competitive high school? Were they homeless and had a disastrous freshman year but turned it around sophomore and junior year?

I understand we all think our own kid is great, but don’t make your kid great by tearing other kids down.

Yep it's pointless to share stats. Even Naviance and other tools used by schools doesn't have qualitative data that could play role in admission to schools. -DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The acceptances seem so random. Some lower stats accepted while higher are rejected.

Yield protection

I really, really don’t think so. I think people compare apples to oranges and call it yield protection. Our scattergram for our MCPS school has only a few outlier rejections for kids about certain stats, that is out of easily over 1,000 datapoints. It’s hard to imagine that being the case if they were yield protecting.

Agreed!
The tippy top kids from my son’s school got into UMD each year even though they received offers from the top Ivy’s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMCP has old, gross housing.

ICYMI: they just shut down the campus due to lack of heat and water in the prehistoric dorms.

And be sure to google recent criminal activity on Route 1. I personally know of two students who were assaulted, and I don’t even have student on campus.

Signed,

Terp alum who still attends sporting events but thinks the campus needs an upgrade

What about all the new construction they are doing

They destroyed the campus by allowing the purple line monstrosity run through the heart of the campus.

Beyond the visual impact, crime is up.

Campus much better now that most the construction related to the purple line is done.
Where do you get these crime statistics?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMCP has old, gross housing.

ICYMI: they just shut down the campus due to lack of heat and water in the prehistoric dorms.

And be sure to google recent criminal activity on Route 1. I personally know of two students who were assaulted, and I don’t even have student on campus.

Signed,

Terp alum who still attends sporting events but thinks the campus needs an upgrade

What about all the new construction they are doing

They destroyed the campus by allowing the purple line monstrosity run through the heart of the campus.

Beyond the visual impact, crime is up.

Campus much better now that most the construction related to the purple line is done.
Where do you get these crime statistics?

If you follow local social media, you can see it in real time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will be curious to learn if they are favoring out of state applicants rather than in state applicants.

How many are they "required" to take in in-state? If it's a high %, doesn't leave much for OSS

Required to take 70% in state

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rejected, but dc isn’t upset. It was not a top choice and they have much better options elsewhere for their intended major. Only applied because we’re in state.

So UMD figured that out and protected their yield

UMD does not yield protect. You can tell a school that maybe does when they list “demonstrated interest” as an admissions factor. As a parent you cant know why some kids get in and some don't. Maybe the 3.0 kid had a 1600 SAT or a compelling family hardship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will be curious to learn if they are favoring out of state applicants rather than in state applicants.

How many are they "required" to take in in-state? If it's a high %, doesn't leave much for OSS

Required to take 70% in state

22% OOS enrolled last year? And 8% OOS who were accepted but didn't attend?