Miami is on my S23 list. Miami checks many boxes for him.
However, if your son is looking for city life, I don’t know that Miami will be a great fit. Unfortunately, neither school is diverse.
This is data from the Common Data Set for both schools. You can look this data up for almost every college. This is info for the year 2021 with language pulled from page B of each report. If you are searching for the exact number of other ethnic groups, it’s available on the Common Data Set. There are 8 categories other than white. Based on this data, you can understand why Miami has a diversity push but also why a non-white student with other options (such as your child) may be hesitant to attend. These numbers do reflect Ohio, which was 77% white according to the 2020 census.
Miami 78.5% white
16,977 undergraduates
13,332 White, non-Hisapanic
Xavier 74.7% white
5,129 Undergraduates
3.834 White, non-Hisapanic
This is a thread I posted recently about Miami. Responses were overwhelmingly positive with the cons being lack of diversity and small town.
For those considering Jesuit schools, one thing about Xavier compared to the East/West Coast Jesuit schools is that the COA is cheaper.
When my son applied to Xavier, COA was about $57K. The next “cheapest” of the schools he applied to was St. Joe’s which was around $63K.
I don’t know what it will be like this year, but when S21 was applying, it was the second application season since the pandemic started. It seemed like some of the schools were offering all sorts of grants that my older two were not offered, as a means of enticing students. Xavier was throwing money at my son - he got all these small grants for things like $1500 for attending an on campus admissions event, $1000 for early FAFSA filing, a housing grant, etc. All are four year grants. In the end, Xavier came out most affordable, but that wasn’t why he chose Xavier.
Not counting the $5500K federal loans he was offered, here was what his COA was for the three Jesuits and one non-Jesuit Catholic univ he applied to:
And last year my son got an additional $1K toward tuition at Xavier this year just for attending a presentation where he talked about his experiences transitioning to college as a freshman.
That is great information and you are giving me some hope with potential merit from Xavier. We will qualify for some financial aid, but not a ton. He has a 4.0 UW gpa and 1450 SAT so he is hoping he might qualify for their honors program, which sounds nice. If you could share that link, I’d appreciate it. He doesn’t need to be right in the city, just pretty close so that would work fine. We did a virtual tour today and he really liked it.
We also did a virtual tour and info session with Fordham today and he liked it, seemed to gravitate more towards the Lincoln Center campus but wants to visit both if accepted and is invited to apply for their full tuition scholarship (I think all Hispanic merit scholars can apply but only about 60% get the award.)
But I must say, he lit up a little more with the Xavier virtual visit, actually commented a few times and paused the video to look around (the tour had some cool options to look inside the buildings.) It definitely checks many boxes.
Fordham and Xavier were the only 2 colleges he’s applying to without an in-person visit (unless he adds MiamiU) but today’s sessions were very helpful and he still wants to apply to both.
Thank you for that input on your experience with Miami U. Someone else told me a similar story, that they were expecting X amount of merit and it came out lower, or maybe they couldn’t stack scholarships so it wasn’t as a good of a deal as they thought. Very helpful to know!
Thank you for this info! I think my son knows how to look up that demographic info because he was excited when we visited Barry University in Miami, FL and he later told me “It’s 30% Hispanic, 29% black and 23% white. Wow!” and he loved that everyone in the city spoke Spanish. That was like diversity overload and it became an attractive option for him. Having said that, he’s not opposed to a less diverse college as long as they are actively trying to improve diversity (which sometimes means bigger scholarships for him) and he especially likes to see a nice international population or even just socioeconomic diversity. And obviously he avoids colleges that don’t seem welcoming of diversity or if they are in a city known to be hostile towards minorities.
Thank you for sharing that thread. I don’t think he wants to sign up for the fly-in event at Miami U (think it may conflict with a gymnastics meet anyway) but he will sign up for a virtual session and decide whether or not he wants to apply. He’s having a hard time getting past the surrounding area not being a very “city” feel so not feeling too much hope on this one. But he has a good list of 13 schools (a few reach schools like Northeastern, some targets and some safeties as well as a few SUNY’s that are within our budget goals) so it’s totally fine not to add any others.
Wow-all those grants from Xavier add up and it definitely keeps the overall COA to a reasonable level! Every little bit helps and good to know they might offer more merit opportunities in future years. Loyola New Orleans was the only Jesuit college my daughter applied to, but she did apply to College of Saint Rose (Albany) which is non-denominational I believe. St. Rose didn’t give the biggest merit awards (Loyola did) but tuition was much lower there so the COA was the lowest at College of St. Rose of all her choices.
These were her top 3 initial COA amounts including renewable grants:
Loyola $27K (her #1 choice)
Columbia College Chicago $28K (#2 choice)
College of St. Rose $19K (#3 choice)
CCC offered her $4K more in April unsolicited (she almost missed that email so be sure to check emails and portals in the last few months for extra offers!) And she wrote an appeal letter to Loyola asking if they could come down a little closer to College of Saint Rose, telling them they were her top choice and she REALLY wanted to go there. They offered $3K more which wasn’t as low as St. Rose, but sealed the deal.
So final offers were:
Loyola $23K
CCC $24K
College of St. Rose $19K
So my daughter takes the max Stafford loans and we cover about $17K per year. I feel like we really lucked out! She is doing music so she had extra talent scholarships which helped.
Not sure where my son’s offers will fall but trying to keep our budget around the cost of SUNY schools if at all possible. Even if my son gets the full tuition scholarship at Fordham, it’s still about $20K for room and board (NYC is not cheap!) but that would be very reasonable for such a great school, so my son is keeping an open mind and will see where the offers fall.
in regards to gymnastics - just curious if your son wants to continue in college - like being on a spirit squad or such? i’d think your son would have some great advantages making that team if he wanted to go the cheer/spirit team route.
So for HS dancers who want to dance in college on a big D1 dance team, it is CRAZY. Girls are being watched already throughout the country and on elite d1 dance tryout circuits with coaches already communicating. I dont know if the spirit/cheer squads are as intense or not as the dance squads; but just wondered if your kid was interested in extending his talents.
My daughter is applying ED to Boston College. I think her chances are good (4.0/4.68, 1530 SAT, full course rigor, great ECs) but we are also realistic. How do you get to be an “eagle for a day”? She would love that!
Wow-love how the cheerleaders save the day! Great video!
My son is a talented Level 10 gymnast but has no plans to continue gymnastics (or get involved with cheer/spirit teams) in a serious way in college for 3 reasons: 1) he wants to focus on academics 2) he knows gymnastics takes a toll on one’s body and doesn’t want to deal with long-term issues or injuries 3) he is leaning towards a small to medium school and most of the competitive men’s gymnastics teams are at very big schools.
He loves the sport and could see himself in a coaching or judging role in the future, but that’s where he stands at the moment. He does pay attention to the fitness facilities when we tour because he wants to continue workouts/stay in shape and maybe get involved in club sports (Miami U and Xavier both offer men’s gymnastics at the club level) but just doesn’t want a big commitment of being involved with an upper level or elite team. He was contacted by the gymnastics coach at Temple, and had a great conversation, but seems firm in his stance on this.
Having said that, I’m sure if word gets out of his gymnastics background-no matter where he ends up-he’ll probably be encouraged to get involved with spirit-related activities/ cheer or dance teams, so maybe he will be open to the idea in the future.
@LAP23 - I believe you can just register for the Eagle for a day on their website. I think my S27 is going to apply ED2 to BC, depending on what happens with REA at ND. I think BC is a better fit overall, he wants to be closer to a city and he’s not a big sports fan but loves the community aspects of ND. BC is also a lot easier to get to from NJ
You just register on the BC website. My daughter scheduled hers last night for October 6th. There are still many available dates. The applicant is paired with a current student and they attend a class and have lunch in the cafeteria together.
My son is a senior at Notre Dame and loves it, but my daughter is not applying there because of the distance. In my humble view, it’s hard to go wrong at either place!
Someone mentioned Temple; has anyone else applied there? My kid is souring on the city; the crime around campus is actually penetrating even to teen level. But I had expected something like, oh, I dunno, a portal email by this point. Six weeks and crickets.
My 21 applied to Fordham/Lincoln Center Alvin Ailey and was accepted. We have a very low EFC, with partial Pell. Fordham with scholarship gave us, what I thought was a decent price for that school, approx. $25,000/yr. But what I didn’t like as I sat in on FA meetings when DD was trying to decide, if you get a position as an RA, your FA will be reduced the amount of the RA position, so there was no way to make it more affordable. Mine ended up giving up dance for a killer deal elsewhere.
I have a friend who has had 2 kids apply there. They are instate. What do you want to know? Yes crime is bad right around campus, but there is a lot of revitalization going on in the surrounding neighborhoods.
i have a kiddo who got to a level 7 tumbling (ms/early hs) but he too didnt want to continue in college. i get it! but, sure makes for some great party tricks walking around on his hands or doing a random back tuck!
So basically, you would pay $25K no matter what? That is definitely a bummer and would be a game-changer for sure! Glad your daughter followed the $$$ Smart decision!
