College Park, MD: Situated in a quiettown, the University of Maryland is perfect for those lookingfor a large college in suburbia.

Offering majors ineverything from music to nuclear engineering, Maryland hassomething for almost everyone.

The university has12,700 undergraduates, but guarantees housing for allfreshmen.

The campus is beautiful; the universityboasts the largest open the grassy space of all universitiesin America.

With an average SAT score of 1300 and anaverage GPA of 3.5, the University of Maryland is a verycompetitive school. Since 75 to 80 percent of the studentscome from Maryland, it is very difficult for an out-of-statestudent to be accepted. As well as being highly academic, theuniversity is also athletically competitive. The school has 25Division I teams. The girls' lacrosse team clinched theirfifth national championship in 1999 and the boys' basketballteam has been to the Big Dance 15 times since 1973.

Thetour was two and a half hours long, and still only covered asmall portion of the campus. While the size of the dorm roomsare average, the buildings themselves are huge.

Thereare three cafeterias which are almost completely identical.Each has as many options as a food court in a mall. Theuniversity has a very effective safety system and its ownpolice force to protect students.

A competitive schoolin the classroom and on the courts, the University of Marylandis a wonderful school for learning and, only 10 minutes fromD.C., a wonderful place for recreation.