University of Maryland-College Park Top Questions

There is too much emphasis on sororities and fraternities

The worst thing about my school would definitely be the food. Maybe I am nitpicking, but the limited selection really puts a damper on an otherwise perfect university experience. Although there are a number of terrific establishments off campus, and even on campus, the plan offered to freshmen limit us to one of two dining halls (which are not very different from one another). This hurts my wallet more than anything as I find myself frequently ordering out to save myself from the misery that is the diner.

The worst thing about my school is the system for declaring majors. I feel that most students should know what they want to do by the time they go into their junior year of college, but my school almost penalizes a student for taking that long to make up his or her mind. Students have to complete courses in order to apply to a specific school for a major, but the longer a student waits to select a major, than they have to wait longer to start fulfilling the requirements to declare that major.

I think the most difficult thing to adjust to and possibly the worst thing about my school is its size. The campus is huge and its easy to get overwhelmed if you are stuborn to change. If you come to the university of Maryland with an open mind it is very easy to adapt to the campus and large social life. By simply associating with a club or a particular religion ect. you can become more comfortable with people and make a big university seem like a small community.

My school is in a somewhat rough neighborhood. It's best to stay on campus for safety and walking off campus after dark is never a good idea. The only main places to go around the campus are bars or small restaurants so there's not much to do off campus after dark anyway.

The dinning plan is the worst thing at the University of Maryland. It is overpriced and unsatisfying. The food is not p to par for the price that we have to pay. Each item needs to be payed for individually at the diner. For example, a banana is two dollars, drinks are two dollars, and and average meal is seven dollars, this averages to about eleven dollars per meal. Every semester I run out of diner money and my parents have to struggle to put more money on my meal plan card.

The food seems good at first but gets old really quickly. There isn't much selection and it's not great food.

I would consider the worst thing about the school is the parking and the housing. There is very little housing availability and not enought housing for the majority of the undergraduates. I think this is bad because it has been proved that students do better when they live on campus. The parking is horrible because the spaces are too small and their isn't enought spaces to accomadate all the studnets. Also, they are far away from campus and it takes a long time to walk to class.

It is very different from my high school. There is not a significant mixing of ethnic backgrounds.

Walking out of my dorm room around seven o'clock on the weekends into a hallway filled with raging freshman eager to find out where they can drink underaged is the worst. This may be the worst thing about any college because it is a shame how addicted these students are to getting wasted and waking up the next morning not being able to remember anything. I wish the University of Maryland would take more time to show students that they do not have to drink in order to have a good time.

I am dissatisfied with the amount of financial aid available for students. Hard working students who have persisted to perform at an exemplary level are given the same amount of time as those who are not. More emphasis on academic achievement needs to be given, so that the campus can encourage students to excel and take advantage of their college opportunity. There are many strict financial blocks imposed on students, even when they are attributing in an excellent way to the campus. Although the economy makes financial matters very difficult, there is not enough being done for financially burdened students.

It's hard for me to think of the worst thing about my school, but if I were to come up with anything I'd say it's our dining hall prices. Since everything is A La Carte, you end up paying more per meal than students at other schools. However, I don't eat on campus all that much, so it doesn't really affect me. My biggest complaint is the small number of buses that go off campus.

I have not spent that amount of time in the school yet. However, the distance between the buildings would give you a good work out by walking.

My school is too expensive and they're greedy. Yes, it is a nice school, but they ask for too much and a lot of the people in the aid office aren't helpful. The school also has favorite colleges/departments and give them more resources. This makes it extremly hard for other departments to have more activities and better programs.

The first-year and second-year students that attend University of Maryland, College Park will find that class sizes are relatively large. The classes that I attended reached upwards of 300 students. I consider this to be one of the worst things about my school. It can make it very difficult to get that "one-on-one" feeling that some need to succeed. Most of the time you have to wait until you choose your major and partake in those classes to see a reduction in the student-to-professor ratio.

Expensive parking at UMD is taking a toll in the wallets.

on campus housing is hard to get unlessyou meet certain requirements.

I think the worst think about UMD when I was there was the way they glorified sports. At the time a sizeable portion of money that came to the school was spent on football, basketball, etc. When I saw the pie chart I was appalled, but that was in 2004-2005. So a lot of things may have changed since then.

I love everything about my school except the surrounding area. There is a great amount of crime in College Park and it is hard to feel safe walking around after dark even if you are with other people. I grew up in a very safe area and it was a huge shock to me that in college I would have to live in fear of being mugged everytime I walked outside after dark. However, I have learned alot living here about personal safety and I think it will help me later in life if I live in a city.

Its really big. Hard to get one on one time with the instructors.

The worst thing about UMD is what I call the PCP factor. This stands for "parking lot, car, parking lot." If you live off campus, in some ways you are deatched from the true college life. This stands for parking lot, class, parking lot. The college is big and sometimes you find yourself not going to the events, clubs, or games but, returning home. just to get away from it all or to even beat traffic. If you are a PCP factor, then sometimes you feel left out. The worst thing is becoming a PCP factor and not enjoying college.

Maybe the service? More likely the food here.

Because it is such a big school if someone is having trouble in a class they really need to seek help on their own the professor is not going to reach out and find them; if they do not seek extra help they will not get it and will just get lost int he crowd and continue to have trouble in class.

The worse thing about this school is the way they spend money on building new bulidings,landscaping and the atheltes but do not give out enough finsancial aid for the students who go here.

On campus housing because we are currently having a huge issue with having too many students that the university housing cannot afford to hold. Thus, juniors and seniors used to have priority to choosing their housing but nowadays seniors aren't even considered to live on campus and juniors can merely depend on their "luck" based on random lottery numbers to get housing on/around campus.

I would consider the lack of on campus housing for all students to be the worst thing about Maryland.

It is very expensive and they do not give as much finanical aid as I would like. Hence, I have to take out a lot of loans in order to pay for school.

I like everything about my school

If you don't drink, the social life sucks.

A lot of alcohol for social life, because it can very much be a distraction to those of us who don't drink and are very focused. I did experience a little bit of pressure and had some challenges with my roommates during my freshman year regarding alcohol, although everything is good now, and it did help shape me into a stronger person!

The amount of underage drinking is pretty insane.

The lack of sufficient on campus housing is the worst thing about my school. The surrounding area is not safe.

I consider the worst thing about my school would be either the amount of money it costs to go here or the fact that you must be in a fraternity or sorority in order to get the most out of the social scene.

That is is often not enought time to get to your next class on time (10 minutes is sometimes not enough time to go from one building to another on the other side of campus).

The proffessors and their outlook on education. Courses are designed not for you to succeed, but to have a certain drop rate, a certain amount of C's, and a certain amount of A's. Class sizes are horrendous and getting to know your proffessor is almost impossible because they themselves dont really care to see you. Although they may be experts in their field, theyre not effective teachers which makes it all the more difficult to learn calculus or organic chemistry, etc. TA's are generaly better help than the proffessors are.

Not enough minority

There are a lot of people from New York that go here and that a lot of people dont interact outside of their group of friends.

The worst thing about my school was the academic advising. Advisors would remove blocks on classes and give you a list of required courses, but they would not help to figure out what core courses would best fit into your schedule. It was more of an assembly line process than a one-on-one conference.

expensiveness of the dorms, textbooks, meal plans, the way in which the academic workload and pressure causes stress and frustration and puts people in bad moods

Lack of AC in many freshmen dorms

One of the worst things about this school is how worried and strict the administration and the local police are about parties, when there is a great deal of real crime that happens on and around campus almost daily. Parties have a good chance of being broken up, but while the police are busy with that, there are muggings, assaults and robberies that occur. Also, campus is very strict with Greek Life, and they have put a strong control over what is allowed to happen. Administrators also did not build in "study days" this semester for final exams.

their lack of updating their facilities

That it is in Maryland. Maryland weather is the worst.

The worst thing about UMCP is the transportation to baltimore. You can easily get to DC and other areas, but to get to baltimore a car is needed.

It is too big and the housing situation can be ridiculous. Also, too expensive!

The worst thing about my school has to be the need for more housing, which affected my class last semester. The majority of us juniors had to find places off campus, because we were basically kicked off campus.

The surrounding neighborhood of College Park. I wish we had a classic college town but instead it's dirty and crime-ridden. This makes some off-campus housing options unsafe, which is especially disconcerting because so many students are forced to find housing off campus because of our on-campus housing crisis.

It would be the weather. It is far too windy and cold

The worst thing about this school would have to be how some of the teachers run their classes. I have had quite a few classes where the professors do not try to make their classes interesting and seem like they do not even want to be there. Then they have things on the exams that they did not cover in the lectures and are not in the readings.

The worst thing about this school is the lack of communication between advisors and students. It is nearly impossible to talk to an advisor, and when you do, they are usually not very helpful.