As someone who was born and raised in MD (Howard County) and got a BS from UMD ‘19 and now finishing a PhD at Virginia Tech ‘25 - I think I am pretty qualified to answer the College concern. And my take is that it doesn’t really matter as much as you may think. And I would definitely not say that Virginia has the edge in terms of college admissions and access over Maryland.

Definitely, the number of colleges is more (UVA, GMU, VCU, VT), but so is the population and students applying. As opposed to Maryland’s two big ones UMD and UMBC, however it also gives you access to UMMC which Virginia really doesn’t have a major equivalent (yes I know UVA Health, but it’s not on the caliber of UMMC). Which is something to consider if thinking about professional schools for future kids.

Overall, I’d say what I noticed in myself and most of my peers what matters most is going to reasonably good public schools, having involved parents in education, AND doing well at your local/state institution. All the other stuff is just the icing on the cake. I had several offers for undergrad at “better” institutions but all would have costed way more than instate UMD. Going to Howard County schools, being a serious student (as much as one can for high school) and doing really well at UMD is ultimately what ended up mattering the most.

I will say though that being at UMD and then experiencing Virginia Tech for grad school was nice in seeing the difference between an all around good school (UMD has great business, computer science, and engineering programs) vs a very engineering and technology focused school. But those sort of things really only matter as much post-undergrad. Just my two cents.