The University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business has just announced a BIG change – now all transfer applicants who meet the Smith School’s Gateway Requirements and have an overall GPA of 3.6 or higher will be admitted without a competitive review, starting this Fall 2023! Here is the news from the Smith School Director Luke Glasgow at USG – this change applies to the Smith School at both the Main Campus and USG:
Beginning with Fall 2023 admissions, students applying to Business, who have completed all of the LEP Gateway requirements, and have a 3.6 or higher cumulative grade point average across all attempted college coursework will be directly admitted into the Business major. Previously the guaranteed admission GPA was a 3.8 or higher. So now students applying to Business, who have completed all of the LEP Gateway requirements, and have a 3.0 - 3.599 cumulative grade point average across all attempted college coursework will undergo a competitive review for admission to the Business major.
This change is already stated on the Smith School’s Limited Enrollment Program LEP page: https://lep.umd.edu/documents/BusinessLEP.pdf
The MC to UM Smith School Transfer Advising Page, found on the MC Transfer Resources for Counselors Page https://www.montgomerycollege.edu/counseling-and-advising/transferresourcesforcounselors.html, has been updated to reflect this change. This is a good page to give all MC students who express an interest in majoring in Business.
With Summer and Fall registration about to start, here are some additional advising points for prospective Smith School Business students at MC:
Choosing Electives for the Business AA Degree - Stated in two places on the MC to UM Business Transfer Advising Page:
- Page 1 - Elective – Choose electives with care! Check course transferability http://transfercredit.umd.edu/ &
see #1 on next page. For example, only ONE MGMT course will
transfer (MGMT 201) – see #1 next page.
- Top of Page 2:
#1. Will any course at MC transfer to UMCP as an
elective? NO. Choose electives with care. The
only ACCT accounting courses accepted are ACCT 221 & 222; only one
CMAP course is accepted – CMAP 120.
These business courses @MC are NOT accepted for Business majors: MGMT 101, 110, 207, 211, 214, 220. These courses have a Footnote 11 which states: No credit toward BMGT Degree. MC’s MGMT 201 Business Law is not required, but it does transfer to BMGT an ELECTIVE only – so it is suggested as an elective in the MC Business AA. Students who are Accounting majors should not take MGMT 201. If you do not take MGMT 201, other suggested electives: any course from the MC General Education Program; any 3-credit HLTH course, or any course that appears as transferable on the UMCP Transfer Credit Website: http://transfercredit.umd.edu/ - CLICK ON FOOTNOTES, right side, to see if a course has a "Footnote 11 - No credit” toward BMGT degree.
Although this is not stated on the page, BSAD 111 Personal Finance is also a possible Elective for Business students.
Why
is MGMT 201 Business Law not the best choice
for Accounting majors? All Accounting majors hoping to sit
for the CPA must complete 30 credits beyond the 120 needed for a bachelor’s
degree. UM will accept MC’s MGMT 201 Business Law as an Elective only,
and then UM students must take an upper-level BMGT 380 Business Law course for the degree. The MD State Board of
Accountancy considers MC’s MGMT 201 Business Law to be a duplicate of UM’s
BMGT 380 Bus. Law, so the MC course cannot count toward the 30 additional
credits beyond 120 for the CPA. If an MC student is certain that Accounting is the
preferred major, then suggesting something other than MGMT 201 here at MC as an elective is a good idea.
Communicate with students about COMM 108 / COMM 112!
Hopefully everyone is aware that UM will only accept ONE course from COMM 108 or COMM 112 (and also COMM 121 Public Speaking)– some students see that COMM 112 is specifically for Business and they think that it could be a good elective in addition to taking COMM 108, but UM considers COMM 108 and COMM 112 to be the same course (their COMM 107), so only 3 credits will be granted if both are taken. So only one please!
AP Credit Caution
UM has not published their new AP credit Transfer Policy yet, which will only take effect for AP tests taken this coming May 2023, so if you see any students currently who have AP credits granted at MC from tests taken in 2021 and 2022, there are still significant differences in how MC and UM will grant credits.
Of specific note is the fact that MC gives many more credits for AP History courses, and note that MC also gives more credits for more AP test scores of 3, so the MC AP Comparison Chart is still very important when advising students transferring to UM for Business or any other major: AP Comparison Chart – MD https://www.montgomerycollege.edu/_documents/counseling-and-advising/transfer-resources/apcreditcomparisonchart10172022.pdf
For example, although MC gives students with an AP US History, score of 4 – six credits for both HIST 200 and 201, UM will only grant 3 credits for US History score of 4, so the student will only get 3 credits upon transfer and may be short of the 60 credits needed to transfer to UM as a junior. This is true for many other AP scores as well. Give students the link to the MC AP Comparison Chart above to calculate for themselves how many transferable AP credits they truly have.
Also, as a refresher, if the student fills a General Education Program requirement with an AP credit that UM will not accept, this policy on the MC AP Comparison Chart describes how UM and other transfer schools should treat the AP credit:
AP Credit transfer policy to Maryland State Public institutions: If a student satisfies a General Education Requirement w/ an AP score of 3 (example, a score of 3 in Environmental Science @ MC fills a 4-credit Lab Science), then the MD transfer institution should consider a Lab Sci. Gen Ed 4 credit requirement to be filled upon transfer, but the student will have to 'make up' those 4 credits w/ transferable elective credits if a score of 3 is not accepted. Students may need to work w/their MD public transfer institutions to ensure that this policy is applied after transfer.
Advising Note: UM is VERY good about honoring this policy; however, the student still needs to “make up” the missing credits with a transferable elective.
Tip – how do you see a student’s actual AP
Scores or transcripts from other colleges? They can be found in
Perceptive Content – if you don’t have access to Perceptive Content, ask a
counselor for assistance with this.
Worth Mentioning: AP Credit for Statistics or Transferred In Statistics courses from other schools:
This one is rare (statistically speaking), but we sometimes see that an MC student will get credit for MATH 117 based on an AP Statistics score of 3, 4, or 5 – or they may have been given MATH 117 credit from a Stat course transferred in from another school.
UM does NOT consider the
AP Statistics Test to be equivalent to their Business Statistics,
so a student who has even a 4 or 5 on AP Statistics will only receive credit at
UM for STAT 100, not BMGT 230.
UM has determined that Montgomery College’s MATH
117 curriculum has enough business applications to allow it to be considered
equivalent to their BMGT 230 Business Statistics course.
Note that not all basic STAT courses
from other schools have that additional business emphasis. If you see
that a student has earned MATH 117 as “CR” on the MC transcript from either an
AP Statistics test or from another school, they can still use MATH 117 credit
for an Elective and they should also take MC’s
BSAD 210 to meet the Gateway requirement for Businss Statistics. Ditto if
the student transferred in MATH 117 from another school, ask the student to
check the UM Transfer Credit
Center List to see if UM accepted the course
from a previous college as STAT 100 – if yes, they also need to take
BSAD 210 Statistics for Business Administration.
Okay, time to leave the scary “additional advising points” and circle back to repeat the great news, MC students with a 3.6 overall GPA who have met the Business Gateway Requirements are in! It is also worth mentioning that for students interested in going to the Smith School at Shady Grove to major in Accounting, Entrepreneurship, or Marketing, admission is very likely for students who have a 3.0 or higher and USG is willing to look at students who may have individual circumstances (example, more than one repeat of a Gateway) – refer students to a USG Business Advisor for more information.
Fear the Turtle just a little less now 😊
Anne Schleicher, Transfer Counselor (Part-Time)
Montgomery College Online Advising Services
