What does it take for MCPS kids to get into UMCP?

[Anonymous]

Add UVA does same thing- so hard to get in from NoVA much easier from rural areas

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child and friends did MC2. All got into UMD early decision except one.

UMD does EA not ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How rigorous a courseload are they looking for? How many APs do you typically need to take to get in-- do kids sometimes get in with only a handful of AP classes or do they need to be closer to maxing them out? Do they have to be on the advanced math track/make it to calculus by senior year to get in, or is it okay to be on grade level and just do pre-calc or AP Stats senior year (if not interested in STEM)?

28:15 here, our kid had 12 APs, mostly humanities (not math/science), but also Econ, and got 5s on all AP exams, including micro and macro economics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you want a reference from '23? My kid was admitted Honors to a Humanities major with a 4.67 weighted gpa, a dozen AP courses (but he skipped the 12th grade exams and had mostly 5s on the others) and a 35 out of 36 on his ACT. He did come from a "W" school, although I'm not sure UMD differentiates where kids come from within MCPS. They could also see on his transcript that he'd had a resource class for 9th and 10th grade and no first period in 12th grade. (He has special needs, but they didn't see the IEP.)

Also, UMD swears that they don't select by major, and they say that their freshman class mostly comes from Early Action applicants.

They absolutely do cap students from each high school, not the whole county. They even know specific teachers at larger schools like Blair and BCC to know “oh that lower grade isn’t as concerning because Ms X is a hard grader.”

You’re competing against other kids at your own high school mostly.

This 100% which is why its harder at a W school where their are more higher preforming students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How rigorous a courseload are they looking for? How many APs do you typically need to take to get in-- do kids sometimes get in with only a handful of AP classes or do they need to be closer to maxing them out? Do they have to be on the advanced math track/make it to calculus by senior year to get in, or is it okay to be on grade level and just do pre-calc or AP Stats senior year (if not interested in STEM)?

28:15 here, our kid had 12 APs, mostly humanities (not math/science), but also Econ, and got 5s on all AP exams, including micro and macro economics.

My MCPS Wootton grad did not have close to 12 APs. Maybe he had 7? He didn’t have all 5s for scores either. All his other courses were honors though, except the PE and art credits. UMD wants to see rigor but is not over the top in expectations. He did have a great GPA (4.7 weighted) and a good SAT and I think that in recent years both have been required for admission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you want a reference from '23? My kid was admitted Honors to a Humanities major with a 4.67 weighted gpa, a dozen AP courses (but he skipped the 12th grade exams and had mostly 5s on the others) and a 35 out of 36 on his ACT. He did come from a "W" school, although I'm not sure UMD differentiates where kids come from within MCPS. They could also see on his transcript that he'd had a resource class for 9th and 10th grade and no first period in 12th grade. (He has special needs, but they didn't see the IEP.)

Also, UMD swears that they don't select by major, and they say that their freshman class mostly comes from Early Action applicants.

They absolutely do cap students from each high school, not the whole county. They even know specific teachers at larger schools like Blair and BCC to know “oh that lower grade isn’t as concerning because Ms X is a hard grader.”

You’re competing against other kids at your own high school mostly.

This, exactly. You're up against those from your own HS. If you have access to Naviance, take a look at it for recent trends as well.
At my kids' HS, UMD accepted ~25% of applicants in 2025. In 2024, it was ~35%. In 2023, it was around 55%!

I see a similar big drop in the % and number of students accepted from our MCPS high school in the past few years. The number of students applying has been pretty consistent, but the number accepted has dropped a lot. What's the reason for the big change in the past two years?

2020 - 152 applied, 79 accepted (52%)
2021 - 181 applied, 88 accepted (49%)
2022 - 183 applied, 86 accepted (47%)
2023 - 187 appliec, 88 accepted (47%)
2024 - 145 applied, 54 accepted (37%)
2025 - 171 appliedd, 48 accepted (28%)

While the number of students from your HS may have been stable, the number of applications to UMD overall has grown a ton. The admissions officer at the information session we attended when we toured said they had a record 66,000 applicants for the class that just started this fall. This means UMD can be a lot more selective.

[Anonymous]

Do people think it is a disadvantage to apply to UMDCP from a magnet like Blair or RMIB if they are limiting the number of kids they take from each school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do people think it is a disadvantage to apply to UMDCP from a magnet like Blair or RMIB if they are limiting the number of kids they take from each school?

No, but the magnets make it harder for the school’s general population to be accepted because they aren’t in the most rigorous courses at the school. It can make it harder to then be accepted to an LEP, because there are more students in the magnet aiming for the same LEPs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you want a reference from '23? My kid was admitted Honors to a Humanities major with a 4.67 weighted gpa, a dozen AP courses (but he skipped the 12th grade exams and had mostly 5s on the others) and a 35 out of 36 on his ACT. He did come from a "W" school, although I'm not sure UMD differentiates where kids come from within MCPS. They could also see on his transcript that he'd had a resource class for 9th and 10th grade and no first period in 12th grade. (He has special needs, but they didn't see the IEP.)

Also, UMD swears that they don't select by major, and they say that their freshman class mostly comes from Early Action applicants.

UMD doesn’t select from major BUT there are majors for that are Limited Enrollment. Meaning you could potentially get accepted to UMD, but not get accepted to that major. CS and even Business are some of the LEP majors.

+1. See here:

https://admissions.umd.edu/academics/limited-enrollment-programs

+2

I really want to emphasize this because it is confusing for students and parents. UMD admissions office is the first gate for admission to the university. Only after students are admitted to the university do the LEP programs get to see the applicants for specific programs. If a student is admitted to UMD but not the desired LEP, they are placed in Letters & Sciences and will declare a major later.

Many of the LEPs have guaranteed transfers in upon meeting gateway requirements EXCEPT computer science. If you aren’t admitted to the LEP they will reject you from UMD completely, because they won’t take internal transfers anymore. (Note - this may change if CS demand drops due to students figuring out how hard it is to get a job in CS now.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do people think it is a disadvantage to apply to UMDCP from a magnet like Blair or RMIB if they are limiting the number of kids they take from each school?

No, but the magnets make it harder for the school’s general population to be accepted because they aren’t in the most rigorous courses at the school. It can make it harder to then be accepted to an LEP, because there are more students in the magnet aiming for the same LEPs.

I think most RMIB kids apply to UMD, but a lot don't go, and I think UMD knows this. I also know a couple of RMIB students who didn't get into UMD. They did get into other state flagships but not UMD, while non IB kids did get in.

It seems to me that UMD knows that RMIB is a magnet, school within a school, so they don't compare the IB kids with non IB kids. That's just my opinion based on what I've seen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you want a reference from '23? My kid was admitted Honors to a Humanities major with a 4.67 weighted gpa, a dozen AP courses (but he skipped the 12th grade exams and had mostly 5s on the others) and a 35 out of 36 on his ACT. He did come from a "W" school, although I'm not sure UMD differentiates where kids come from within MCPS. They could also see on his transcript that he'd had a resource class for 9th and 10th grade and no first period in 12th grade. (He has special needs, but they didn't see the IEP.)

Also, UMD swears that they don't select by major, and they say that their freshman class mostly comes from Early Action applicants.

They absolutely do cap students from each high school, not the whole county. They even know specific teachers at larger schools like Blair and BCC to know “oh that lower grade isn’t as concerning because Ms X is a hard grader.”

You’re competing against other kids at your own high school mostly.

This, exactly. You're up against those from your own HS. If you have access to Naviance, take a look at it for recent trends as well.
At my kids' HS, UMD accepted ~25% of applicants in 2025. In 2024, it was ~35%. In 2023, it was around 55%!

I see a similar big drop in the % and number of students accepted from our MCPS high school in the past few years. The number of students applying has been pretty consistent, but the number accepted has dropped a lot. What's the reason for the big change in the past two years?

2020 - 152 applied, 79 accepted (52%)
2021 - 181 applied, 88 accepted (49%)
2022 - 183 applied, 86 accepted (47%)
2023 - 187 appliec, 88 accepted (47%)
2024 - 145 applied, 54 accepted (37%)
2025 - 171 appliedd, 48 accepted (28%)

Same at my kids HS but admissions at all schools even UMBC, Towson, Miami pt Ohio etc all dropped way off so I am not sure the Naviance data is right either.

Class Year Applied Accepted Enrolled Admission Rate
2025 254 64 45 25.2%
2024 222 38 33 17.1%
2023 265 123 53 46.4%
2022 241 125 57 51.9%
2021 227 126 54 55.5%
2020 262 156 74

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you want a reference from '23? My kid was admitted Honors to a Humanities major with a 4.67 weighted gpa, a dozen AP courses (but he skipped the 12th grade exams and had mostly 5s on the others) and a 35 out of 36 on his ACT. He did come from a "W" school, although I'm not sure UMD differentiates where kids come from within MCPS. They could also see on his transcript that he'd had a resource class for 9th and 10th grade and no first period in 12th grade. (He has special needs, but they didn't see the IEP.)

Also, UMD swears that they don't select by major, and they say that their freshman class mostly comes from Early Action applicants.

They absolutely do cap students from each high school, not the whole county. They even know specific teachers at larger schools like Blair and BCC to know “oh that lower grade isn’t as concerning because Ms X is a hard grader.”

You’re competing against other kids at your own high school mostly.

This, exactly. You're up against those from your own HS. If you have access to Naviance, take a look at it for recent trends as well.
At my kids' HS, UMD accepted ~25% of applicants in 2025. In 2024, it was ~35%. In 2023, it was around 55%!

I see a similar big drop in the % and number of students accepted from our MCPS high school in the past few years. The number of students applying has been pretty consistent, but the number accepted has dropped a lot. What's the reason for the big change in the past two years?

2020 - 152 applied, 79 accepted (52%)
2021 - 181 applied, 88 accepted (49%)
2022 - 183 applied, 86 accepted (47%)
2023 - 187 appliec, 88 accepted (47%)
2024 - 145 applied, 54 accepted (37%)
2025 - 171 appliedd, 48 accepted (28%)

While the number of students from your HS may have been stable, the number of applications to UMD overall has grown a ton. The admissions officer at the information session we attended when we toured said they had a record 66,000 applicants for the class that just started this fall. This means UMD can be a lot more selective.

At our high school, Seneca Valley, it looks like 35% of applicants were admitted in 2025.

[Anonymous]

I am crossing my fingers for my kid- 1460, straight As, all rigor and APs with 4s and 5s (except BC calc 3, which I don’t think he will submit). Humanities not STEM. Who knows though.

[Anonymous]

(From Blair but not the magnet)

[Anonymous]

I read they massively increased the out of state admissions last year so that may be why admissions went off a cliff. I saw that on Reddit.