University of Maryland – Baltimore County (UMBC) appears to be one of the most successful but largely unknown schools in the US. Last week, UMBC’s president, Freeman Hrabowski, spoke at North Carolina State and in today’s Pope Center piece, Jesse Saffron, who attended his talk, writes about it. UMBC students seem to thrive in the environment of high expectations and no-excuses that Hrabowski has engendered. UMBC is another of those institutions that isn’t prestigious, but offers a stronger education than students would get at many schools that are regarded as being prestigious.