UMD decision 2026

[Anonymous]

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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.

You must have a huge house. Quit your griping and move to bama if you want a big cheap mcmansion. Our moco house is 3,000 sq ft and we pay $6k in property taxes, $200 in electric in hottest months and around $300 in gas in winter.

It sounds like the previous poster lives in Baltimore. Property taxes in the city are insane and the old houses aren't fuel efficient. But also, I would wager moco has more McMansions than all of Alabama combined. Lord.

That's not a Maryland problem, that is a Baltimore problem and you should know that when you buy there or move to the county.

I’m the original complainer and live in Moco. I’m not whining about the property taxes per se, yes we knew what they would be when we bought. But kids of tax paying parents with 4.4w/3.9uw and 4 ap classes senior year should get into umd.

Here is the problem. Almost 40% of B-CCs class has a weighted average over 4.51 according to their school profile. And they are not a terribly large school or the most high performing.

My kid who really isn’t an academic superstar has a 4.8+. I think MCPS just has a lot of kids with very high GPAs and they can’t realistically admit them all.

It's because the MCPS grading system is awful and set up for inflation. 89.5 in no respected institution equates to an A. They need to fix this or else the top academic kids won't be able to differentiate themselves from the kids who are barely scraping by.

The change to the grading system will make this much easier, but I'm not sure about other counties, which might make it difficult to do a straight "top 10%" like they do in some other states. But some states use a combo of GPA plus SAT/ACT -- that would be a viable way to do it. They could also start re-weighting the GPAs to take out the fake weighting -- a lot of state college systems do that. My kid is a junior and reports that most of the kids with the highest GPAs are NOT taking the hardest classes -- if it's weighted it's only because everything is honors, they aren't taking the hard APs, so under the current dumb weighting system, there's really no extra boost for taking higher rigor.

Are APs a scam?:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1294379.page

Colleges don't give credit for all the APs. Some will let you to next level class with a 3 on AP test. But everyone knows students are taking APs in high school for other reasons.

They seem to be and that’s the lesson we learned this year with our kid. Don’t take max rigor and risk getting b is a couple ap classes. Take the easiest classes you can to keep your gpa high. There’s too many applicants, even at very selective schools and academies, it’s gpa and sat/act. They don’t have time to look and see which classes you’re taking. I’m not even sure how much extracurriculars, service, or the essays matter.

That is a good plan, but your student will need max rigor if they want engineering or CS.

Disagree that it is a good plan. IMO taking a B in a hard AP class is viewed similarly to an A in easy one. If peers are taking the hard AP class and getting an A and your kid getting a B then that kid will have and advantage in admissions.

[Anonymous]

The neighborhood surrounding UMD has improved a little.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS got into honors college at UMD with 4.68 a few years back (taking hardest rigor APs like Chem, Bio, Calc etc). DS 2 just got into College Park Scholars with a higher WGPA but less rigorous classes (no AP Chem, Bio, Calc).

This seems fair to us.

Similar here. One dc with 36 ACT and APs such as Calc AB, Both Physics C, both Economics, Chem, Lit, Comp Sci A, dual enrollment Calc 2 was admitted into Honors College and offered partial Banneker Key.
Another dc had 34 ACT and APs such as Lang, APES, Psych, APUSH, but none of the harder sciences was invited to Scholars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You must have a huge house. Quit your griping and move to bama if you want a big cheap mcmansion. Our moco house is 3,000 sq ft and we pay $6k in property taxes, $200 in electric in hottest months and around $300 in gas in winter.

It sounds like the previous poster lives in Baltimore. Property taxes in the city are insane and the old houses aren't fuel efficient. But also, I would wager moco has more McMansions than all of Alabama combined. Lord.

That's not a Maryland problem, that is a Baltimore problem and you should know that when you buy there or move to the county.

I’m the original complainer and live in Moco. I’m not whining about the property taxes per se, yes we knew what they would be when we bought. But kids of tax paying parents with 4.4w/3.9uw and 4 ap classes senior year should get into umd.

Here is the problem. Almost 40% of B-CCs class has a weighted average over 4.51 according to their school profile. And they are not a terribly large school or the most high performing.

My kid who really isn’t an academic superstar has a 4.8+. I think MCPS just has a lot of kids with very high GPAs and they can’t realistically admit them all.

It's because the MCPS grading system is awful and set up for inflation. 89.5 in no respected institution equates to an A. They need to fix this or else the top academic kids won't be able to differentiate themselves from the kids who are barely scraping by.

The change to the grading system will make this much easier, but I'm not sure about other counties, which might make it difficult to do a straight "top 10%" like they do in some other states. But some states use a combo of GPA plus SAT/ACT -- that would be a viable way to do it. They could also start re-weighting the GPAs to take out the fake weighting -- a lot of state college systems do that. My kid is a junior and reports that most of the kids with the highest GPAs are NOT taking the hardest classes -- if it's weighted it's only because everything is honors, they aren't taking the hard APs, so under the current dumb weighting system, there's really no extra boost for taking higher rigor.

Are APs a scam?:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1294379.page

Colleges don't give credit for all the APs. Some will let you to next level class with a 3 on AP test. But everyone knows students are taking APs in high school for other reasons.

They seem to be and that’s the lesson we learned this year with our kid. Don’t take max rigor and risk getting b is a couple ap classes. Take the easiest classes you can to keep your gpa high. There’s too many applicants, even at very selective schools and academies, it’s gpa and sat/act. They don’t have time to look and see which classes you’re taking. I’m not even sure how much extracurriculars, service, or the essays matter.

That is a good plan, but your student will need max rigor if they want engineering or CS.

Disagree that it is a good plan. IMO taking a B in a hard AP class is viewed similarly to an A in easy one. If peers are taking the hard AP class and getting an A and your kid getting a B then that kid will have and advantage in admissions.

Maybe one B in a very rigorous class. Beyond that, the student taking the easier APs with all As is better off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You must have a huge house. Quit your griping and move to bama if you want a big cheap mcmansion. Our moco house is 3,000 sq ft and we pay $6k in property taxes, $200 in electric in hottest months and around $300 in gas in winter.

It sounds like the previous poster lives in Baltimore. Property taxes in the city are insane and the old houses aren't fuel efficient. But also, I would wager moco has more McMansions than all of Alabama combined. Lord.

That's not a Maryland problem, that is a Baltimore problem and you should know that when you buy there or move to the county.

I’m the original complainer and live in Moco. I’m not whining about the property taxes per se, yes we knew what they would be when we bought. But kids of tax paying parents with 4.4w/3.9uw and 4 ap classes senior year should get into umd.

Here is the problem. Almost 40% of B-CCs class has a weighted average over 4.51 according to their school profile. And they are not a terribly large school or the most high performing.

My kid who really isn’t an academic superstar has a 4.8+. I think MCPS just has a lot of kids with very high GPAs and they can’t realistically admit them all.

Right- so UMDCP apparently weights the GPAs differently depending on the rigor. And AP Calc is different/better/harder to get an A in at.. Blair magnet or wherever than at BCC.

They do recalculate GPAs? Do we know how?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rejected. 1540 SAT, 3.5 UW / 4.5 W GPA, 11 APs, W-school, high income. Varsity sports, solid community service and leadership activities. Really bummed.

good SAT score, but the GPA is probably on the low side for a W school.

My kid had super high stats (1580, 4.0/4.92 wgpa from a magnet) and was rejected at schools like UIUC. They did get into UMDCP. It was an ego hit and shocking to all of us really that such high stats would get them rejected to UIUC. Didn't help that they are a CS major.

Your kid will find a good fit and be happy where they land. I think most kids do. But, it is a real bummer initially.

UIUC CS has a less than 7% acceptance rate. A rejection there is nothing to beat yourself up about. Plus UMD CS is one of the best. Your kid will land somewhere great––UMD or another place they like more.

UIUC was brutal this year!

For CS is always is

Yup. But other majors are easy. CS+X is not nearly as hard as CS (though not as easy).

[Anonymous]

Would you prefer cs+x at UIUC or CS at UMD

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would you prefer cs+x at UIUC or CS at UMD

CS+X at UIUC!

They’re taking the same SC classes as the CS kids. Also, if X=Math/Physics, they’ll have a good foundation.