University of Maryland University College

I just got a flier in the mail from the University of Maryland University College advertising their online masters degree. I don't know how they got my information. Anyway:

1. Is it a state university (the name seems to imply it)?
2. What is your opinion of their online degrees?

(The name of their school is pretty interesting in itself.)

 

It's a state school; the University College is the nontraditional branch of the University of Maryland system (much as Empire State College is the nontraditional branch of SUNY, Thomas Edison State is the nontraditional branch of the New Jersey state university system, etc). It holds regional accreditation through the Middle States Association.


Cheers,

------------------
Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

co-author, Bears' Guide to the Best Education Degrees by Distance Learning (Ten Speed Press)
co-author, Get Your IT Degree and Get Ahead (Osborne/McGraw-Hill)

 

As Tom mentioned, it is indeed the University of Maryland. Even schools that don't offer DL usually have different colleges for night/weekend/part-time students, Boston University has Metropolitan College, Harvard has the Extension School, etc.

As far as UMUC, they have solid programs, but are a bit pricey for out-of-state students.


Bruce

 

Bruce, It is important to note that the University of Maryland does not offer online courses. Univ of Maryland Univ College does. Two totally different schools in the same state system.

 

You seem to be very confused in your numerous posts. "University of Maryland" refers to the University of Maryland system, of which both UMUC and the College Park campus are a part; it does not refer solely to the College Park campus, as you seem to believe. UMUC is the extension studies campus for the University of Maryland system.

 

The "University of Maryland System" (formed in 1988 through merger of the 5 UM institutions and the 6 members of the State University and College System of Maryland) was renamed the "University System of Maryland" in 1997. Generally speaking the "University of Maryland" (by itself) is interpreted to be College Park -- in same way as "University of Massachusetts" (without qualification) would be the Amherst campus. And "Cal" = Berzerkeley. Etc.

I'm not sure it's worth nitpicking about this...


(For details, see http://www.usmd.edu/Overview/Timeline.html)

 

I've never assumed anyone was referring by default to any particular campus of a multi-campus university system. For example, the University of Texas in Austin is the largest, most prestigious, and most well recognized campus of the system, but noone that I know ever assumes that someone is referring to the Austin campus when they just say "UT" or "University of Texas." If I really want to know which campus someone is referring to then I will ask them, otherwise their statement is simply vague. If someone living in Austin tells me that they are attending UT then I would probably assume that they are referring to UT Austin, but that's just a matter of context. If someone on an internet message board were to say that they were taking courses from UT, then I wouldn't assume that they meant UT Austin, and in fact it would be more likely that they did not. Would people living in Baltimore County be likely to refer to the College Park campus as just "University of Maryland?" In the context of distance learning, UMUC seems the most likely candidate for an unqualified reference. In the context of division I sports it would be reasonable to assume that "Maryland" refers to the College Park campus, just as "Texas" refers to the Austin campus.

Almost without fail, whenever I mention in conversation a name associated with a system of schools, someone will ask me to clarify which campus I'm referencing if it's significant at all. People may refer to the Berkeley campus as "Cal," but if someone just said "UC" or "University of California," then I sure wouldn't know to which campus they were referring unless there was a context for it. Honestly, without a context most people would probably refer to it as "Berkeley," or "UC Berkeley."

Sorry, I was just annoyed by basically the same post being tacked on to numerous old threads. If it had only been done once then I would have just ignored it.

 

There is the same thing here in MA. For years, UMass-Amherst was THE University of Massachusetts. Then around 1980 or so, UMass-Boston arrived to crash the party when Boston State College was phased out. The waters were muddied further when the University of Lowell became UMass-Lowell, and Southeastern Massachusetts University became UMass-Dartmouth.

Now the various state colleges are making noise about offering doctorates, so we may yet see the Massachusetts State University system.


Bruce

 

When my daughter enrolled at Florida State as a Freshman, Bobby Bowden gave a short speech of welcome. He concluded by telling everyone that Florida State University was THE University of Florida.... that got a real howl of laughter, let me tell you.

Now, if there are any Gator fans amoung you, write to Bowden, I am only the messenger....


Wes

 

Did he also state that what we've **really** been drinking all these years is Nole-ade?

 

You are incorrect. UMCP is the Univ of Maryland

No offense, but you are clearly misinformed.

It is NOT the University of Maryland System. It is the University System of Maryland. www.usmd.edu. A federation, if you will, of the majority of public schools in the state.

Coppin State, UMES, UMUC, Bowie State, Frostburg State, UM, UMBC, UMES etc etc etc are all members of this federation. This does NOT mean if you go to Frostburg State or UMUC that you will receive a degree from the University of Maryland. Only UMCP confers that degree. An MBA from UMUC is not the same as an MBA from the University of Maryland - Smith School of Business. Try to pass this off on your resume as you apply for interviews and see what happens.

Meanwhile you can delude yourself into believing a degree from Texas-Arlington is the same as a degree from Texas all you want. Or that UC Riverside is "Cal". You clearly need to get out of the chat room and into the real world. When you see a bumper sticker on a car saying North Carolina alumni do you think that the person wearing it on his/her car went to UNC-Pembroke? Of course not. Carolina is in Chapel Hill and only Chapel Hill.

Again, I repeat it, the University of Maryland is UMCP...not UMUC.
You degree WILL have the words University College or Baltimore County on it. BTW, UMBC is simply known as UMBC by people in Baltimore County. They all recognize that the "University of Maryland" means the Terps located in college park.

To confuse matters further, UMUC was the Open Enrollment Extension Continuing studies branch of UM (meaning UMCP not USM) until 1949 when it got its own campus in nearby Adelphi and got its own name.

Indeed you mention Div I athletics. While UMUC does not have sports teams, UMBC does, and they are Division 1 and they are not called the Terps. So does Towson State. UMES and others have sports teams as well though probably not Div 1.

I mean this in the nicest possible way: Take it from someone who went to UMBC. Different school entirely from the highly ranked University of Maryland with 65 top tier grad programs. You'll notice as an example that the following are DIFFERENT WEBSITES.

www.umd.edu - The University of Maryland
www.umuc.edu - UMUC
www.umbc.edu - UMBC
www.umes.edu - UMES

Hope this helps.

 

I went to the University of Pittsburgh, and we always referred to the stuff as "Panther Piss"..... but, I think the manufacturer was afraid to put that on the label for fear of offending the rest of the NCAA.

Wes

 

Continuing our foray into University of Maryland trivia, let's give the final word to the University of Maryland itself:

• In 1997, the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation allowing the state's flagship university in College Park to be known simply as the University of Maryland. This action recognizes the historical roots of the institution and formalizes what most people have called us for years. As the only university in Maryland with a mission to serve the needs of the entire state, the University of Maryland is well known by residents from the western panhandle to the Eastern Shore. Our global reach in research and teaching has carried the University of Maryland name around the world.

So since 1997 (when University of Maryland System was renamed to University System of Maryland), UMCP has had the right to be called simply the "University of Maryland."

Source: What's in a name?

 

Good post, Gert.

Good post, gert. I am surprised the defensiveness with which people respond to the whole flagship school issue.

The act in 1997 merely "put on paper" a practice that had and has been done for decades and even centuries. At UMBC, we never mistook our school as being the University of Maryland, rather we were proud of our school too and saw it as different - we were UMBC (Go Retrievers!)- not necesarily worse. But different. We had different sport team mascots and competed against other div 1 schools including the Terps at college park. My degree says "University of Maryland Baltimore County". My sister who went to UMCP has a degree that states, simply "University of Maryland". My mother's secretary, who went to UMUC, has a degree with says "University of Maryland University College".

These are three different degrees.

My key example is the MBA example. Indiana-Kelley, Duke-Fuqua and Florida-Warrington are the only ranked MBA programs to offer online courses as far as I know.

UMD-Smith does not. However, UMD (UMCP) Smith offers an MBA (even part time and on weekends) some of which can be taken at USM facilities in Shady Grove. UMUC does as well and even offers classes in the SAME FACILITY. But they are very very different PT MBA programs and degrees with very very different ramifications on your career and placement and very very different faculty and admission standards. This is important to know as a buyer beware issue in case you plan to earn your MBA on line. Hence, my drilling home the point that UMUC is not UMD. I do not mean to suggest that you cannot get a solid MBA on line. You can...just not at UMCP because they don't offer it.

Final Words: In fact the moniker UMCP is only ever used within the context of discussing public schools in the state of Maryland. UMD is the moniker everyone else in the world applies to UMCP.

I am surprised at the defensiveness with which people react to this and my post was not meant to offend. Merely to educate for those who were unclear since I am a product of the USMD.

http://www.inform.umd.edu/CampusInfo/Departments/InstAdv/newsdesk/identityguide/

provides the full details on this name issue on UMCP's website. Good luck to all.

 

wow, it's almost kind of dirty how some of these schools intentionally leave things vague to make you think they're part of a more prestigous school.

Anyone know what a diploma from UMass Online would say? U of Mass, or U of Mass-Lowell?

 

Re: You are incorrect. UMCP is the Univ of Maryland

Your posts would probably be more pursuasive if they were less combative.

I don't know, nor do I care, about the University of Maryland. I'm not going to comment on it except to say that if it's an affront against decency to suggest that Baltimore Countty or (yes) UMUC are U. of Maryland campuses, then perhaps they should remove the words "University of Maryland" from their names.

But separate from that, you are mistaken about the University of California. UC is technically a single university, with nine, soon to be ten, different campuses.

While nobody would ever suggest that a degree from UC Riverside is a degree from UC Berkeley (or UCLA, or UC Santa Cruz, or...), it IS a degree granted by the University of California. It says so, right on the diploma.

True, for many years the University of California only had one campus, in Berkeley. Its college farm was in Davis, its marine laboratory was in La Jolla, its Southern California branch was in LA and it had a citrus experimental station in Riverside.

During those years Berkeley naturally referred to itself as if it simply WAS the University of California, because that's what it was. But starting in the early 1900's, the outlying branches started spinning off and offering their own degree programs.

That meant that you could get a University of California degree from UCLA as well as from UC in Berkeley. Nobody confused the two schools, but nobody tried to deny that UCLA was really a UC campus either.

Nevertheless, through all these changes the "Old Blues" at Berkeley resolutely kept referring to their campus as "Cal", in an attempt to assert some attitude. But that's all it was, and there was no reason to defer to it or to consider it anything more than school spirit.

 

Sorry that you feel offended by what you perceived to be combative rebuttals (I submit it was no less combative than a post that started the debate addressed to me) but I apologize nonetheless.

Its a question of semantics. In the end the point is UC Berkeley is not UC Riverside, just as UMUC is not UMCP. I grant UC is an odd bird because in point of fact, all 13 or so campuses use a checkbox uniform application system. Indeed, as you suggest, there is no "legal" support to claim that the University of California, or "Cal" is Berkeley and only Berkeley. Only traditional support, including as you suggest "attitude" of those lucky enough to be accepted to the flagship Berkeley campus.

While you don't care about Maryland, let me bore you anyway. Not only is it traditional in Maryland to call the flagship school "The University of Maryland", it is also now the Legal name of UMCP as of 1997. Plain and simple. Thus the fact that there is a USMD system (just as there is a UC, UNC, UW etc etc system) is irrelevant. Affront or not...the University of Maryland is a different school from the University of Maryland University College whether you consider it elitist...or an affront...or not.

As I mentioned, I went to neither school. I went to UMBC, another USMD institution, not UMD.

UMCP Name page:

http://www.inform.umd.edu/CampusInfo/Departments/InstAdv/newsdesk/identityguide/

Hope this helps.

 

<mistake sorry>

 

Since the University of Maryland's top ranked Smith School does not offer an online MBA as we've established and I do not wish to go to another local online school like U of Balt. or UMUC, let's redirect this conversation since it is clearly not serving any purpose.

It is possible to get a high ranking MBA on line from a legitimate flagship State school and or established non public U. IU-Kelley does it, UF-Warrington does it...i believe Babson has something in the works. At the upper end, Duke-Fuqua has a program for employees of certain companies, but the bar of entry is indeed high.

With a mediocre GMAT of 610, I am particularly interested in the UF program if I do not get accepted to UMD-Smith Part time "real-life" program in DC because they have a strong Accounting reputation but am concerned that I will not get the benefits of real time interaction, Warrington's FT or PT programs can provide. Anyone in this program? I am impressed with the programs overall ranking in the top 50 and have questions regarding placement of on line MBA students there.

 

Re: You are incorrect. UMCP is the Univ of Maryland

So? The names of the universities still begin with "University of Maryland..." They are organized into a system of universities, thus there is a system which includes several "University of Maryland..." campuses.

I never suggested that anyone try to "pass off" a degree from one campus as actually being from another. When listing schools on a resume it is typical to list the location of the campus. To my knowledge there is only one "University of Maryland" campus in College Park. Are you saying that for some reason you wouldn't list the location of the campus if you had a degree from the College Park campus?

Huh? When did I start doing that? What I did say is that people qualify the UT campus to which they are referring, unless there is an obvious context. You are obviously just trolling. Your attempted personal attack is especially ridiculous since I don't participate in chat rooms.

I did not imply that different campuses share sports teams or the same mascot; that is just asinine. You really are reaching, aren't you?

Yes, it does. I now recognize you as a confirmed troll and will ignore your bait no matter how many old posts you resurrect in your attempts.