Is the University of Maryland or NYU harder to get into?

NYU is typically considered harder to get into than the University of Maryland for most applicants. NYU draws a very large national and international applicant pool, has especially intense competition in popular programs like Stern, Tisch, and some specialized majors, and is widely viewed as the more selective school overall. UMD is still selective, especially for out-of-state students and for limited enrollment programs such as computer science, engineering, and business, but it usually does not sit at the same overall level of admissions difficulty as NYU.

For a student building a list, NYU should usually be treated as the more ambitious application. Its applicant pool includes many students targeting highly selective private universities, and interest in New York City plus strong name recognition tends to push competition higher across the board. Even students with very strong grades can find NYU unpredictable, especially if they are applying to one of its most sought-after schools.

UMD makes more sense to think of as selective in a different way. If you are an in-state Maryland student with strong academics, the path can be more accessible than NYU overall, though top majors can still be tough. If you are out of state and applying to a high-demand program, UMD can become much more competitive than people expect, but that still does not usually make it harder than NYU in the broad sense.

If your question is simply which school is harder to get into overall, the answer is NYU. The main caveat is program choice: a less selective NYU major versus a highly restricted UMD major can narrow the gap, but in overall college-list terms, NYU belongs in the tougher category.