<p>I have fallen in love with UM and am going stir crazy waiting for Feb. 1st (I applied early action) I would appreciate it if you gave me my chances :)</p>
<p>Female, Caucasian
Candidate for International Baccalaureate Diploma
GPA: 3.8 UW, 4.6 W
ACT: 31 (English: 32, Math: 30, Science: 31, Reading 31)
Rank: 40/130 (really competitive school)
Extracurriculars:Key Club (service club), varsity swimmer, spanish honor society, national honor society, head robotics team designer, etc
Work: Lifeguard, swim teacher, cashier
Awards: general awards for high grades, el premio de oro for National Spanish Exam (scored in the 100th percentile)
I'm applying to College of Engineering
Average to Good Essays</p>
<p>I think I got everything. Let me know if you need more information.</p>
<p>In spite of the low class rank and average GPA, I think the excellent ACT score (converts to about 1400 SAT) will get you in. I hope you highlighted your lead role on the robotics team in your essay? Do you know if your letters of recommendation were good? Not sure about the merit scholarship - if you were to be awarded one, I’d say no more than 16k per year. All speculation on my part of course!
~Zinc</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply
And no, I didn’t write about the robotics team. I wish I had now. I wrote about one of my swim team members passing away in an accident and how that motivated me to become active in my community and school. I know one recommendation was excellent (from my physics teacher of 3 years and robotics sponsor) and the other was probably average to good. I am so nervous about the rank and GPA. I would need some kind of scholarship to attend, but I’ve fallen in love. If you want I could chance you, but you seem well informed already.</p>
<p>I’m actually a parent of a UM freshman. She applied last fall EA as well and was on pins and needles as we waited thru December and January. Such a relief when the email finally came on Jan 28th. I think your essay about loss and its motivation will be better than one about robotics - give the reader a chance to know more about you as a person at an emotional level. I really do think you’ll get in, but be planning now for the possibility that you may not get a merit award: look hard at outside scholarships, are you eligible for need-based aid, maybe work study, maybe you have a rich uncle…?
Best of luck to you!
~Zinc</p>
<p>P.S. Love your handle…</p>
<p>Trust me, I’m looking into every option, but $16 k would definitely give me some leeway. I’ll be at UF otherwise. I just wish Febuary was sooner. Thanks for the advice.</p>
<p>Meant to ask you about the rigor of your Junior and Senior years - lots of AP, IB and honors courses? Have you taken APs yet - if so, how were your scores? I know UM places emphasis on the difficulty of coursework - and since you are in a competitive HS, that rigor may explain your rank a bit.
~Zinc</p>
<p>I’m in a completely IB high school. Most of my courses are IB except three electives I took between freshman and sophomore year. How does your daughter like it at UM?</p>
<p>To be honest, I’m not too familiar with the IB program - do you have the opportunity to take AP courses too? Does UM give you credit for IB courses in the same way they do for AP? I know my daughter got credit for all of her 6 AP’s and ended up technically a sophomore based on number of credit hours.</p>
<p>She absolutely loves it there. She’s in RSMAS as a Marine Biology-Biology major and is doing well in all her courses. She’s joined 4 clubs, has gone on 4 or 5 SCUBA dives, has made friends with a group of 6 or 7 other freshmen that enjoy doing the kinds of things she does. It was a very smooth transition for her from high school, even though the setting and social aspects are like night and day from our upstate NY world.
~Zinc</p>
<p>Well I can’t take any AP classes, but we are allowed to take the tests. The school had me take two, because they thought I would be able to pass them with my knowledge from my classes. Unfortunately, I didn’t score well. IB at my school is a step above AP classes. It’s harder, requires more work, and also requires students to complete many additional assignments including a extended essay, CAS hours (form of community service), and internal assessments. In May, I will take tests over two years of material. Miami only gives credit for Higher Level courses which means I can only receive credit for Spanish, English, and computer science. More and more schools are recognizing that Standard Level courses should be given credit too; Miami just isn’t one of those schools. So that’s a short explanation of IB. Hopefully, it helped.</p>