<p>Sorry for the delay, that job slowed me down yesterday!</p>
<p>Seekinguni - Zinc answered your question before I could (even while on vacation he drops in now and then!) and he is the expert on the late arriving Miami Grants : ) The advice he gave about keeping in contact with the U is exactly what I would have recommended. Of course I would merely have been repeating what he has told me; he’s the man! Oops, it took me so long to write this that I see you just posted that your Coral Grant situation is resolved; what great news for you!</p>
<p>Asiannerd - Thank you so much! Did you receive the Singer also? I get the feeling many recipients are being shy and not posting their good news; there must be many other Singer winners and I guess I assumed most would be on CC but perhaps not everyone is over here and they’re all hanging out at FB?</p>
<p>mt101101- Thank you so much for the congrats; how incredibly kind of you to take the time to congratulate others for receiving something that you so badly wanted; I am so sorry you didnt get one as well. But since you are from Florida did you perhaps receive enough aid which in addition to the University and Gables will allow you to attend anyway? I keep reading about the Florida Bright Futures and also a reference to a pre-paid plan of some kind, all things that make Florida sound wonderful for college students since our flagship U in Illinois for a biology major in the fall has a COA of $34,000+ and that’s the INSTATE cost 
Getting any merit $ here in Illinois would require D to be an engineering major and even then, there are only a few awards available. So sad for all the super bright kids who don’t know about schools outside the midwest, like the _, which continue to reward high achieving students. </p>
<p>thetruth2012- Congrats to you! Did you perhaps become a Stamps finalist as well? Happy reading!</p>
<p>Marinebio444 - Big congrats to you! I was definitely not surprised with your news; your enthusiasm for the _ and marine science is so obvious and with your stats, I knew you would be a lock. D told me she put down her books last night for a few minutes to answer PMs on FB from several wonderful girls she met at the scholarship weekend and then hunted you down there and friended you. Perhaps she wanted to see how many ocean/marine life pictures she could find on your wall :P</p>
<p>Shathdra - Congrats to you also! Did we meet you at Singer/Stamps? Is Miami your first choice? I know some kids are likely waiting on ivy decisions next week : ) </p>
<p>mithwhizmia - I’m so sorry! But I think you posted in the past that your S received the University, Gables and a Miami Grant, so will he still be able to attend? I hope so!</p>
<p>CodeMonk - I’m sorry, did you receive any of the awards that mitwwhizmia did? Zinc’s advice above is probably going to be your best plan of action right now if Miami is your first choice : ) </p>
<p>VHFather Thank you so much for the support during this whole process; I hope we get a chance to meet you and S in person in August! (though there is certainly a possibility that D might already have met him since your post said he was a student interviewer) Do you plan to drive down in May and move all of Ss things back to Illinois or perhaps put stuff in storage down there over the summer?</p>
<p>Dindune - You and I talk all the time privately (and if aol.com email would start functioning again I could answer your latest; are you having problems there at all? this has been going on - off and on - for about 3 weeks with no luck at all today) and you know how disappointed I am that your D didn’t win a Singer but she keeps winning everything else, that’s for sure! And I am so glad her fin aid package will enable both girls to attend together : </p>
<p>Dumbo11 I just dont know how to thank you for all your support; I PM’d you a much longer message as well. You and your male counterpart, Zinc, have been such invaluable mentors on this board and are always so incredibly helpful and patient with all of us who visit here with our never-ending and repetitive questions. I can’t wait to meet you (and H and your older D, if she comes along) in person in August! </p>
<p>Zinc - The board is so quiet when you’re gone, it’s Wednesday, get back here already! You really need an iphone with the CC app but I know as an IT guy you are stuck with that blackberry. My H’s firm will not allow iphone use either, and I feel so sorry for him since I downloaded the _'s app and now know where all the buses are and have maps and pictures and all sorts of goodies that he is missing out on 
Anyway, this next looong section is in response to your question although of course open to anyone who wants to read my extensive, rambling thoughts about this decision, perhaps it will help someone in the future who is faced with a similar choice.</p>
<p>Minnesota - IllinoisD93 really liked the beautiful campus which is built into both banks of the Mississippi with a covered pedestrian bridge spanning it and the Honors dorm is right on the water offering a spectacular view. How lucky she was to be accepted into their tiny, highly selective Honors biology program (~60 kids!) and to enjoy the personal attention they lavished on us (which is not that unusual for the College of Biology, trip reports on CC reveal others experiencing similar queen for a day type treatment) when we visited, giving the school a much smaller, more intimate feel than youd ever expect at one of the biggest of the Big 10. Then there was the undergrad research grant she was awarded allowing her to start research as a freshman while being paid for pursuing a project of her own interest!, the fact that Minnesota has one of only three colleges in the country devoted exclusively to biology which enrolls a freshman class of only 350-400 students in total across 7 different biology programs, the excellent merit $, the vibrant city of Minneapolis, the Mall of America : P and much more. </p>
<p>But
.now that our financial concerns are assuaged, D will be a Cane this fall! H has been on cloud nine since the news arrived; he is a doddering 60 year old and D was a late in life HUGE surprise (she knows this, of course, and knows it was a most WONDERFUL surprise) that the doctors had told us would never happen for us again but did - six years after our long awaited son was born. So now H can stop worrying so much about the cost of D studying through the PhD level; she hopes to pursue the study of the genetics of autism, a highly heritable spectrum disorder that strikes very close to home for our family. </p>
<p>While the Singer scholarship is what will enable her to attend, we ultimately ended up with a similar COA at Minnesota (an ad rep first emailed and then called D on her cell phone and told her she had been awarded an additional $4000 in merit $ on Saturday afternoon during scholarship weekend at the _, which they knew we were attending at that time, now those are some dedicated ad reps, calling students over the weekend; their admissions office, particularly in the College of Biology is truly incredibly dedicated, which is really unusual at such a huge U and we will always greatly appreciate the personal attention and value the relationships we established up there). We loved all these things about Minnesota, plus it’s so much closer to home, too!</p>
<p>But the <em> just has so many positives, even BEFORE we saw the campus. So many reasons - the diverse student population (69% of students at Minnesota are instaters with almost the exact opposite proportion at the </em> - [Student</a> Enrollment ? Fall 2011 | University of Miami](<a href=“http://www.miami.edu/index.php/about_us/fast_facts/student_enrollment/]Student”>http://www.miami.edu/index.php/about_us/fast_facts/student_enrollment/)), warm and sunny weather, small class sizes, opportunity for a Spanish language immersion experience even outside the classroom (D intends to double major in Bio/Spanish), FOOTE FELLOWS which makes that double major so much easier, plus we have several sets of old and dear friends of the family residing in the city of Coral Gables, the Brickell neighborhood of Miami, and in Coral Springs who can help D out in an emergency since we’ll be so far away. </p>
<p>Before our visit, the thing I had been most worried about was fit, picturing a much higher level of umm
.social sophistication than D could handle and a lower emphasis on academics than she would experience at Minnesota. I stopped worrying during the scholarship weekend. When Dr. Green told all of us that half the kids attending the weekend would attend (based on past data) and I looked around at all those serious students with uber-stats, knowing there were two more weekends to come which would yield even more kids with the same academic focus D has, I stopped worrying well about that anyway; Im a natural worrier so I cant stop completely! </p>
<p>The kids we met at the scholarship weekend were all super smart, hardworking and down to earth and none of them will berate her for choosing the <em>, unlike some of her friends at school, who have been critical of her choice. The </em>'s old reputation is still flourishing here with some who haven’t kept up with all the changes wrought during Dr. Shalala’s tenure. When D delivers her speech at graduation in May and the 2500+ people in attendance and many more watching the streaming event hear that our school’s last salutatorian (class rank is abolished starting with the class after hers and there will be no more vals/sals) is going to be a Cane, I know that will bring more awareness in our area of the dramatic changes that have taken place at the <em> in recent years. (it’s not your father’s </em> - for those old enough to remember that ad ) Also D was recently nominated by her school for our suburban newspaper chains annual Academic Team, and all nominees are profiled in the paper in the late spring, with their college choice always listed along with all their stats and since I dont believe I have ever seen the <em> as a students destination in this yearly competition, it’ll be yet another plug for the </em>.</p>
<p>Last, but certainly not least, the parents we have met here on CC and in some cases, also in person at the <em>, have made our family very sure that we are sending D off to the right place. The support and sense of camaraderie reflected on the CCs </em> board seem unusual to me, and I have been on CC since S, age 24, was perhaps a sophomore or junior in high school (my user ID is newer since I lurked but never posted, and when I finally decided to post here on the _ board, I realized I probably would embarrass D to death since my old user ID is just my full name and so had to get a new one since CC doesnt allow you to change user IDs). </p>
<p>Sorry you asked that question , Zinc? A bit more info than you anticipated youd be stuck reading when you arrive back in town tonight, Ill wager : )</p>
! Who else got it?