UMD decision 2026

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$400+ gas bills in winter, $600+ electric bills in summer, $15k a year in property taxes, crazy car registration fees, 3-4 soles trap mail in tickets per year, and my kid with a 4.4w/3.9 uw taking 4 aps senior year gets rejected. This state sucks.

3-4 tickets a year is crazy please drive better

[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.

Or maybe it is made up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with Maryland is there is no real second uni to fall back on. Towson and um c seem like a big step down. Looks like oos for us.

Yup. Wish we had a Maryland State or Maryland Tech!

You realize UM (BC) is a Univ of Maryland, right? It's a UMD located in a different county. So it's a step UP from what would be a MD State if MD had a MD State. And, UMBC is marketed as a good school for STEM maybe not at the caliber of VA Tech tho that's debatable, perhaps. What if it was an easy name change? Towson's name changed to Maryland State. Would more students apply and attend if accepted?

UMBC is really just as good as UMD. Plus it’s got a better campus!

No. Just like. No. Not at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$400+ gas bills in winter, $600+ electric bills in summer, $15k a year in property taxes, crazy car registration fees, 3-4 soles trap mail in tickets per year, and my kid with a 4.4w/3.9 uw taking 4 aps senior year gets rejected. This state sucks.

15k in property taxes means a 1.5 million dollar or more house. That means they have tons of competition as everyone is equally smart and similar. UMD only takes so many from each school. Luckily you are rich and can afford other good schools.

[Anonymous]

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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.

I expect that the top is predictable admits (barring something like they applied RD instead of EA), and I believe the kids that really aren’t qualified at all are predictable. I expect once you get to that in between space it does become hard to predict because they do holistic review. And, I could imagine that how they do that holistic review is different at Blair than it is at another school in MCPS, and that would be different than how they apply holistic review with kids from Garrett County.

I can appreciate if that large middle swath feels unpredictable but again, our Naviance pretty clearly shows that there is a top line above which almost everyone is admitted, and a bottom line below which almost nobody is admitted. The middle shows more intermingling.

[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?

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.

It’s obvious when you know GPA and test scores and race. And most kids know this from their peer group.

And high school guidance counselors have an even clearer picture.

Sure sound like kids that would make a positive contribution to the campus

[Anonymous]

Who do they think they are, Harvard? (J/k) I’m sorry to see all of these high stat, in state kids rejected.

[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.

They have the option for CC to flagship. I know that route isn’t as popular here in Maryland, but it’s not uncommon for people to start at community college or directional universities and later transfer to their state flagship. Or if they are DCUM middle class, look for the OOS schools where they have a chance of merit and it’s not the public ivies. It might be more than UMD but it it won’t be private school triple the cost more expensive. I will also add that my co-workers are amazing and we all went to different schools including UMBC and Towson. Some people could only afford to live at home and go to a college nearby or start at community college first. That didn’t mean they weren’t smart or hard working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$400+ gas bills in winter, $600+ electric bills in summer, $15k a year in property taxes, crazy car registration fees, 3-4 soles trap mail in tickets per year, and my kid with a 4.4w/3.9 uw taking 4 aps senior year gets rejected. This state sucks.

Are you trying to say your house is too big with those bill $, your house is too drafy?

DP

Even THs are getting $400+ heat bills. Big jump in the service fee.

Plus, we pay a premium for everything in MoCo…and the leaders in Annapolis assume everyone in our county is affluent, so we get squeezed to subsidize the rest of the state.

It’s reasonable for longtime residents to be frustrated when their kid gets rejected from UMCP but gets into a handful of objectively better-ranked schools that were a reach. Something isn’t right.

Can I ask where your kid got in that is objectively better ranked? In MCPS, a kid with 4.4/3.9 has only 1/2 their classes unweighted. That is a very low level of rigor. I would love to know what top 40 schools are ok with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who do they think they are, Harvard? (J/k) I’m sorry to see all of these high stat, in state kids rejected.

These are likely kids from wealthy schools where those stats are now the norm. Do we really want UMD taking all the kids from Whitman and none from Seneca Valley? I don't think son. Bar is higher when your kid is at a high achieving HS. Same issue applying to Ivys.

[Anonymous]

There are more than 60k graduating high school seniors in the state and only 5k spots for fall freshman at umd (which is higher - used to be more like 4k).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$400+ gas bills in winter, $600+ electric bills in summer, $15k a year in property taxes, crazy car registration fees, 3-4 soles trap mail in tickets per year, and my kid with a 4.4w/3.9 uw taking 4 aps senior year gets rejected. This state sucks.

Are you trying to say your house is too big with those bill $, your house is too drafy?

DP

Even THs are getting $400+ heat bills. Big jump in the service fee.

Plus, we pay a premium for everything in MoCo…and the leaders in Annapolis assume everyone in our county is affluent, so we get squeezed to subsidize the rest of the state.

It’s reasonable for longtime residents to be frustrated when their kid gets rejected from UMCP but gets into a handful of objectively better-ranked schools that were a reach. Something isn’t right.

Can I ask where your kid got in that is objectively better ranked? In MCPS, a kid with 4.4/3.9 has only 1/2 their classes unweighted. That is a very low level of rigor. I would love to know what top 40 schools are ok with that.

Maybe UMCP is on to the severe grade inflation in MCPS and some of the other top 40 schools are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$400+ gas bills in winter, $600+ electric bills in summer, $15k a year in property taxes, crazy car registration fees, 3-4 soles trap mail in tickets per year, and my kid with a 4.4w/3.9 uw taking 4 aps senior year gets rejected. This state sucks.

Are you trying to say your house is too big with those bill $, your house is too drafy?

DP

Even THs are getting $400+ heat bills. Big jump in the service fee.

Plus, we pay a premium for everything in MoCo…and the leaders in Annapolis assume everyone in our county is affluent, so we get squeezed to subsidize the rest of the state.

It’s reasonable for longtime residents to be frustrated when their kid gets rejected from UMCP but gets into a handful of objectively better-ranked schools that were a reach. Something isn’t right.

Because you're oos

Universities compare the student with other students in the school, or in the district. Easier to get into UMDCP from Paint Branch than from Churchill.

[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.

Could you name the schools, please?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$400+ gas bills in winter, $600+ electric bills in summer, $15k a year in property taxes, crazy car registration fees, 3-4 soles trap mail in tickets per year, and my kid with a 4.4w/3.9 uw taking 4 aps senior year gets rejected. This state sucks.

Are you trying to say your house is too big with those bill $, your house is too drafy?

DP

Even THs are getting $400+ heat bills. Big jump in the service fee.

Plus, we pay a premium for everything in MoCo…and the leaders in Annapolis assume everyone in our county is affluent, so we get squeezed to subsidize the rest of the state.

It’s reasonable for longtime residents to be frustrated when their kid gets rejected from UMCP but gets into a handful of objectively better-ranked schools that were a reach. Something isn’t right.

Can I ask where your kid got in that is objectively better ranked? In MCPS, a kid with 4.4/3.9 has only 1/2 their classes unweighted. That is a very low level of rigor. I would love to know what top 40 schools are ok with that.

+1 4.4 lacks rigor. 3.9 for less rigorous classes isn't that impactful. What were the test scores: SAT, AP, ACT?

My DC who didn't apply to UMD and probably wouldn't get in has a 4.5 wgpa, and 3.75ish unwgpa, 1440 SAT. They've taken way more than 5 AP classes throughout HS.