Getting To Know: University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC)
The University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) was the last school that I visited as a guest of the Baltimore Collegetown Network. Labeled as “Maryland’s Honors University,” a place where “it’s cool to be smart,” UMBC has less than half the undergraduate enrollment of the University of Maryland-College Park. It also has fewer academic programs, conspicuously the lack of an undergraduate business or health professions school.
The major appeal of UMBC is for Maryland residents. International students make up five percent of the undergraduate student body and four percent come from out-of-state. Just over two-thirds are men and women of color.
However, UMBC works very hard to attract and support young scholars through a set of well-established programs in the arts, humanities, social sciences and sciences. UMBC is also well-located for access to internships as well as full-time jobs after graduation. The campus is 15 minutes from downtown Baltimore and 45 minutes from Washington D.C.,
UMBC is fairly new for a state university.
It first opened in 1966. Legendary rhythm and blues artist Otis Redding performed at the school’s first spring week dance the following spring. I hope that you will check out the UMBC profile on The College Tour as well as my UMBC Pinterest page. For now, I invite you to read on!
With nearly 11,000 undergraduates, UMBC is not a small school.
However, it is organized like one. UMBC is organized more like private research universities such as Brown, Johns Hopkins or Tufts., than a flagship stater school. UMBC has only three undergraduate schools: Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, Engineering & Information Technology, and Natural & Mathematical Sciences that offer majors in 41 academic departments. There are several minors and certificates
The larger schools such as the University of Maryland-College Park offer far more choices. Those who are seeking degrees in areas such as agriculture, business, journalism, health professions will have to either choose another school or transfer out. In addition, UMBC offers only six engineering programs, including Computer Science. For comparison, Morgan State, which has about 2,000 fewer undergrads, offers eight..
The academic offerings might be impacting retention and graduation rates.
The university’s freshman retention first topped 85 percent with the Class of 2011. While the size of freshman classes has grown since then from 1,400 to just over 2,220 for the Class of 2028, retention has remained about the same. Four-year grad rates have improved over the past 30 years. Only 30 percent of the members of the Class of 1999 graduated on time. For the Class of 2024 this was 47 percent.
Although labeled as an Honors University, UMBC is not exceptionally selective.
Seventy-two percent of applicants for the Class of 2028 were offered admission. Twenty-two percent decided to come, about the same as Rutgers’ main campus in New Brunswick. The current freshman class has approximately 2,200 students, less than a third the size of the freshman class at Rutgers. UMBC wait listed another 1,600 applicants, then later accepted about 650.
Admissions to UMBC are test-optional. Only 27 percent of the entering class submitted test scores. The middle 50 percent was between 1240 and 1420. A third of the test score submitters scored 700 or higher on the Math section of the SAT. This suggests a STEM orientation to among those applicants although the school takes other disciplines quite seriously. The average high school GPA was 4.1. The statistical profile of a freshman class is strong, though the numbers are below what you would find at the main campuses of Maryland, Penn State and Rutgers.
The costs can work out, if you’re academically motivated.
UMBC’s estimated cost of attendance (tuition & fees, room & board, incidentals) for this academic year is $34,500 for residents and $51,500 for non-residents. However, need-based and merit-based awards offer significant cost reductions for Maryland residents.
Just over half of the Class of 2028 received need-based scholarships averaging $13,000 according to UMBC’s 2024-25 Common Data Set. Forty-one percent received merit awards that averaged just over $5,700. UMBC requires a minimum GPA of 3.25 to renew a marit scholarship, a higher hurdle than you might find at other schools.
Only thirty-five percent of graduates in the Class of 2024 had any student loan debt. Those who borrowed owed an average of less than $23,000 whether it took four or more years to graduate. The maximum that graduates could have borrowed over four years from the Federal Student Loan Program was $27,000.
Because UMBC is a fairly new school, it has a very modern campus.
If you want a school that has history and old ivy-covered buildings, look elsewhere. I likened this school to a corporate office park that kept expanding from the late 1960s to today. But I also heard and read that the layout was designed with students in mind. I did see that in some public spaces such as the student center and student housing. It is also nice that campus planners did not try to make every building look similar, although they’re all brick and glass.
UMBCs campus is just over 500 acres. It’s about half the size of Binghamton University which opened only two years before. Like Binghamton, UMBC is very easy to navigate to walk anywhere. Parking was not as bad as I have seen at larger state schools. However, this is not the place where movie producers are likely to go to make a romantic comedy about college life. It’s a stark contrast with the University of Maryland-College Park where the fraternity row field and houses appeared in the 1985 movie St. Elmo’s Fire.
More interesting: just over 40 percent of UMBC students enter as commuters, yet the university is capable of housing 36 percent of its student body on campus. I can believe that anyone who asks for on-campus housing can get it, and some of the housing is very nice. There are also nine living-learning communities. Apartments near campus are fairly expensive. Buses are available but students really need a car to get to campus on their own schedule..This is one state school where prospective students should consider on-campus housing for four years.
It’s hard to see what bonds this community.
To me this school was a lot like SUNY flagship campuses, especially Binghamton. Binghamton has a tremendous selection of undergraduate programs and research opportunities but no main events that bond the campus socially. The academic opportunities are more accessible to undergraduates because there is less of an emphasis on producing doctoral degrees as there is at flagships such as the main campuses of Maryland, Rutgers or Penn State. Bonding seems to be around ambition and shared interests at all of these schools, through UMBC has a homecoming as you would find at the bigger state universities. Greek life is not especially popular at UMBC, attracting only two percent of the men and seven percent of the women.
UMBC competes in 15 NCAA D-1 (scholarship) varsity sports. The men’s basketball program has achieved the most notable success. In 2018 the Retrievers, a 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament, upset the top-ranked Virginia Cavaliers. They were also conference champions in 2021. I dropped a photo of the basketball venue below.
However, the men’s lacrosse programs has had more sustained success. The men have won six conference championships and three conference tournaments since 2000. The women’s softball and volleyball programs have had successes as well.
Conclusions
UMBC has become what many parents and politicians would like to see in a public college: a reasonably priced school that takes academic accessibility and opportunity quite seriously. It’s quite possible to hit it big at UMBC with a scholarship, research opportunities, internships, friends, and success in life after college. But you have to know that the programs UMBC offers will give you the specific opportunities you want.
Report Card: University of Maryland-Baltimore County
- Four-Year/Six-Year Graduation Rates: C/C
- Freshman Retention: B+
- Costs: B+
- Comforts: A
- Community: B+
- Curriculum: A
- Connections: B+(Baltimore/Washington)/C (elsewhere)
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