Denied from Dream School

I applied to the Unoversity of Miami regular decision and I hear back from them earlier this week. The school website says they tell you in mid April so I was surprised to see that they answered quickly. I was denied admission as a premed major. I was hoping if they could review my application as a biology major instead and they can tell me if I could get in by mid April. Is there any way I can talk to them and see if this is possible? Has anyone ever done this before?

I don’t really understand this because premed isn’t really a major anywhere I have heard of --do they actually have a major called premed? That seems doubtful. Bio is a major a lot of premeds pick however. Premed is just a set of classes that med schools require, you can have any major. Any typical major in the arts and sciences for premeds like bio and chem are all in the same admissions pool usually and changing major isn’t likely to make any difference.

did you apply to the bs/md program or just as a regular undergrad?
http://admissions.med.miami.edu/md-programs/medical-scholars-program

On the common app, it asked me what my intended major was. It had a scroll down menu and I clicked on pre medicine. I heard recently that that is the hardest program to get into.

I’m sorry you weren’t accepted, but I think it’s unlikely that they’ll reconsider your application just for a change in major.

The [University of Miami](https://umshare.miami.edu/web/wda/planningresearch/CDS1415.pdf) gets something like 31,000 applications per year and accepts roughly 12,000 students to get a freshman class of about 2,000. They don’t have time to review the application of every student who was rejected.

I see from one of your other threads that your SAT was 1810. That’s at the lower end of Miami’s 25-50% SAT range (1810-2110), so they were a reach for you. Do you have any safeties lined up?

I just got into BU today so that’s good

Also, can’t I appeal the decision. I know someone with lower test scores and gpa and got in. He didn’t have legacy or anything like that. If I send the appeal I can tell them to consider the biology major instead.

That is good, @qpalzm13. Congratulations! Can your family afford BU?

Knowing someone with lower test scores and GPA doesn’t help because colleges use more than those in their decisions. If they didn’t evaluate students holistically, students could just submit scores and the schools could use a computer program to rank them and compile an admissions list that way. They ask for much more than test scores, though, and all those other things they require in their app affect their decisions.

Is this other student in your school? If so, you can have a chat with your GC and get his/her opinion about whether or not there’s anything more you can do. Check the university website, too, because they may have something about what kind of appeals they allow and how to proceed with one. I’ve heard of students being allowed to appeal if information was inaccurate (if the GC submitted incorrect grades, for instance), but not because you know somebody with lower test scores who got accepted. Many students know (or hear of) others with lower schools who get accepted to schools they were rejected from, but it’s difficult to say why that happens. There’s possibly going to be some student who runs across your threads and thinks, how did that kid get into BU with an 1810 when I have a 1950? None of us will ever know.

What’s the basis of your appeal? What did they NOT see in your file that was also in file of 1000s of others who were rejected? It’s time to move on. Saying you’re now a bio major is not going to move them to make room for you. Look – you weren’t even waitlisted. The fact is UoM chose differently. Congrats on your BU acceptance. Best of luck to you