<p>What are your thoughts?</p>
<p>(Although we never visited) D liked it a lot while she was searching and applying last year. The admissions office was receptive. Everything flowed smoothly. Merit award was fantastic. Everything we read seemed to suggest that Shalala was doing a bang-up job as president and that the school was poised to make a great leap forward in reputation and standing. I believe my D could have been very happy there.</p>
<p>Second best school in Florida (albeit by a small margin). Not sure that I'd go there vs. a UC though... especially Berkeley.</p>
<p>We visited last spring when D was still a junior. It is at the top of her short list, already accepted EA with a merit award that gets the cost within budget. UM has "shown us the love" big time. Its competition is a west coast school we haven't heard from yet. Could present quite a nice dilemma.</p>
<p>UM is in a niche, the only decent private U in Florida, the only decent U of any kind in south Florida. It has everything, engineering, music, med school, law school, big time football. It has a national reputation, in the sense that D's less sophisticated relatives have heard of it.</p>
<p>Campus is about what you would expect for south Florida: bomb-proof white concrete buildings with metal storm shutters, battered-looking perennial landscaping, raggedy topped palm trees, sandy soil, open air seating and breezeways everywhere. Everything planted within the last couple of years is green and jungly already. The overall effect is fine. Not a polished set piece of garden landscaping, more a fully-recovered, resilient tropical paradise.</p>
<p>The campus topography is dominated by this huge pond or small lake with a beautiful fountain spray, separating the dorms from the main part of the campus. My initial reaction was, how do they keep the kids from swimmng and fooling around in it at night? Then I saw the discrete signs at the perimeter advising the hazard from alligators. End of concern.</p>
<p>The location is really nice, set in an upscale part of town, Coral Gables, close to the airport, downtown, and the beach. Oh yeah, the beach. There is a regular UM shuttle to Key Biscayne, with a gorgeous beach that UM students pretty much own year around.</p>
<p>My main concern is that the female-male ratio is a little out of balance, 56-44, and the male population is likely to be vertically-challenged to a greater extent than, say, the Univ. of Minnesota. D is six-foot tall, and I am worried that once she has met all the tall guys she will be interested in transferring to a bigger school. I guess my job is to find something to worry about, and that's the best thing I have been able to come up with for UM.</p>
<p>I used to live in Coral Gables, so Univ. of Miami really dominated the local scene there. In many ways it's the Florida equivalent of USC --> large, full-service private university, good academics, obsessed with football.</p>
<p>However, I never really thought that Sebastian the Ibis was the sort of sports mascot that was going to strike fear into the hearts of athletic opponents. ;-)</p>
<p>I think outside of Florida, it has previously suffered from being known as a football school, and a thug football school at that. However, I think in the past five years more people are coming to know it for its academic strengths.</p>
<p>UM Football- I'm embarrassed, as a Floridian, for Miami football to be representative of our state. Shalala dropped the ball by the slap-of-the-wrist reaction to last season's on-field thuggery. The reaction by UM administrators was WEAK. No principles, no backbone, no attempt to set the bar higher and end the hoodlum reputation that has followed Miami football for decades. I was appalled.
BTW- Coral Gables is beautiful but don't step foot off campus.</p>
<p>SoCal-We have spoken before, so you know my feelings and that my family has been very pleased with UMiami and the education my S is receiving there.</p>
<p>Let me add that there's never a dull moment at UM. As we speak, the Chicago Bears are on the practice fields at the campus of UM. They will continue to hold their practices there through Thursday. My S said everyone was so excited when the buses rolled in, and that the security is unbelievable.</p>
<p>Welcome Home Devin Hester!</p>
<p>Probably the best private university in Florida, but very expensive. The med school gets some state support through Jackson Memorial Hospital. I wonder just how good a school it really is. I've looked for it's student data and it is not available to the public like public university data are, which makes me wonder.</p>
<p>Graduate programs rankings wise, it's behind UF and FSU. Undergrad rankings are debatable between the big three (UM, UF, FSU) in Florida and currently is probably #2 behind UF, but this has changed over time.</p>
<p>Generally (among FSU-UF alumni) it's been known as a rich-kids school for students not from Florida. We used to call it Sun-Tan-U (before the worry about skin cancer).</p>
<p>It supposedly has a loyal following among some residents of Miami.</p>
<p>It is the Tulane of Florida, except with a better football team. In fact, the football team is so good, our D thought it was a public school and wondered why they gave her such a large scholarship. Even tho' her dad went there, she still didn't know that it was an excellent private university with great merit scholarships (confession, her dad made her apply).</p>
<p>D's friend has a brother who is a sophomore there. He loves the place! He is a robotics "nerd" who didn't give a darn about football ... until he got swept up in the whole U Miami football fever, that is! It has turned out to be everything he needed and more. He is getting what he feels is a solid education, and he is also becoming a well-rounded young man.</p>
<p>Not much merit aid.
Popular college for Florida. The kids dress up to go out. More money there. Try also Rollins and Davidson. Even nicer.</p>
<p>UM has a financial aid calculator, and is generous to many in-state kids. Many south FL kids are choosing to attend UM rather than UF because of proximity, and the aid. Others are not admited to UF and then look to one of the many state schools. Some call it preppy, but none of the kids that I know (who attend UM) fit that category. They have some special programs, like the 6 y med program. They also have the resources to help students with LDs.</p>