<p>I promised myself, and my son, I would just be a bystander and not get involved in this thread…I joined this forum BECAUSE of this thread.
Sorry to start off as a pessimist, but how can anyone believe what is being told to us. I have called UM several times. I have asked for a few people, each time getting a voice mail. I have asked for a return call, and over the past two days let me tell you how many of those calls have been returned—NONE.
I think that Danielle Fernandez is giving people lip-service. I hope I am wrong but I doubt she will be writing any emails to any of our kids today. My son has a few other schools in mind, one of which is in constant contact with him. When you call, you get a live person. When you get a voicemail you get an immediate response. We have also received a call from a student asking if we have any questions. This other school is also almost twice the size of UM.
When we received the email last week about the invitation to the Stamps/Singer Weekend we were screaming in joy. Now it is the UM Staff themselves who have made all of this a sour week.</p>
<p>Thanks @Illinoismom93 and @Biocellar & son. We appreciate your efforts. Perhaps you could direct some of those higher ups to this discussion. I’ve now given up. This has really turned my son off to UM. I was probably more excited about this prospect than him anyway as it could have kept him closer to home. </p>
<p>The bottom line, to me, is that anyone that was told they were selected as a candidate for a Stamps (or a Singer of course, but the Singer doesn’t seem to be the problem since there are 2 additional weekends for that) should have the opportunity to be interviewed and considered on an equal basis with all other selected students. It should never depend on a “first come, first served” basis to a single weekend. How is the speed of replying to an email notification a legitimate or meaningful method for screening out candidates? If Miami cannot handle this many candidates, then the solution is simple. Tighten up the initial selection criteria so that you only invite as many as can be accommodated in a single weekend.</p>
<p>Miami is a very fine school, but they screwed the pooch on this one. I have rarely seen so many people soured on a school because of something like this. And their slow reaction and lack of communication is just making it worse. My guess is they are huddling to come up with a fix, but then they should let everyone know that as well. Hopefully Biocellar’s son is correct that they are looking into it. But did anyone get an e-mail which they indicated to him they would send today?</p>
<p>Last year, they had a date when they would start accepting the RSVPs for the Stamps Weekend. DS promptly sent in his RSVP when it opened but when we checked the site later, it was full and not accepting anymore RSVPs. I don’t recall them having a wait list last year.</p>
<p>I thought it was strange that there was limited space available for all the candidates invited. That being said, it was a very nice experience.</p>
<p>No, haven’t received the email.</p>
<p>I didn’t find out that I was even accepted at UM until February 6th. My decision may have been posted on Cane Link on the 5th, but I was traveling home from Greece that day, so the last time I checked my decision was around 7am Athens time on the 5th. Even if I had found out on the 5th, though, the Singer invitation wasn’t posted on Cane Link and I didn’t receive an email. The Singer’s invite came in the mail, and I received it on the 6th.</p>
<p>Also, how can they expect every student to know that they should RSVP immediately? I just found this thread, and I had no idea I should have been trying to RSVP the second the website opened! I am extremely dissappointed. </p>
<p>Oh well. Singer’s is the same weekend as the Merit Scholar weekend at UCF, so I guess this just made my choice easier. </p>
<p>I was under the impression that there are 3 weekends for Singer, only one for Stamps. Can someone confirm or correct me on this?</p>
<p>That’s correct. marinebio444 posted the specifics with dates in this thread - on page one I believe.</p>
<p>@lovelylily28 Your invite may be in your SPAM folder. That is where my daughter found hers. </p>
<p>Yes, the entire thing is extremely disappointing. I am interested to see how the University of Miami deals with this as I feel like it is an indicator of how they will deal with other issues on campus. Fortunately, my daughter has other great options.</p>
<p>@cooper1025 You are right, it was in my SPAM folder. Everything else from UM has gone to my inbox except for that.</p>
<p>@fallenchemist to clarify - the first weekend is a combined competition for both Singer and Stamps. The second and third are for Singer only. Students selected as Stamps finalists are awarded the Singer and then have an interview (via Skype) with Mr. Stamps. At least that’s how it has worked the last three cycles since the Stamps award began. </p>
<p>Yeah, I got that the first weekend was combined and the other two were Singer only. But I didn’t know that the Stamps invitees that make that cut go on to a Skype interview with Mr. Stamps. That is interesting.</p>
<p>I also (now) understand that those that become Stamps finalists are automatically at least guaranteed the Singer, which is still a pretty nice deal. But is it also possible for a Stamps invitee that doesn’t become a finalist to still be awarded a Singer?</p>
<p>Thanks much for the elucidation. FYI, this is somewhat analogous to how Tulane does theirs, except there is no interview weekend preceding the final Stamps interview as far as I know. They have an award similar to the Singer called the Deans Honors Scholarship, for which 75 are awarded. Some subset of those winners will be selected as Stamps finalists to be interviewed in order to select 5 Stamps winners. But for the DHS, there is a creative project involved, along with additional letters of recommendation, but no additional campus visit or interview. Tulane also has 50 full tuition awards called the Paul Tulane, but those are not used to select for Stamps finalists. Just interesting to compare approaches.</p>
<p>I am wondering if my daughter will still be a candidate for the Singer if she is unable to attend the first weekend (due to reaching capacity.)</p>
<p>@lovelylily28 I am wondering how they sent out the email since the SPAM folder issue is apparent. </p>
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<p>@fallenchemist I hope I understand your question - please let me know if I’m misunderstanding what you’re asking. All students attending the first weekend (which since the addition of the Stamps scholarship three years ago has just been called Stamps Scholarship weekend) are in competition for one of a small number of Stamps scholarships and are also competing for one of a larger number of Singer scholarships.</p>
<p>Anywhere from 5 to 10 students are selected from the entire pool of attendees that weekend to be Stamps finalists. These students are awarded the Singer and proceed to the next step, the interview for the Stamps. In addition, a much larger number of students attending are awarded the Singer but are not named Stamps finalists. From the notes I took during the parent FAQ session at Stamps weekend: 20 to 25% of attendees will receive a Singer. </p>
<p>But this is info from the last few years and I have not seen the latest Stamps Scholarship weekend website to see if the info provided there has changed.The past three years the website was hosted at the same url and new info just replaced the old info, so I could see that most info remained the same but with new dates and times. This year the url has moved so I don’t know what info was provided to the invitees. To those who received a Stamps weekend invite - are there numbers listed there for attendees expected and/or how many awards are available? </p>
<p>Then there is the issue of the Foote Fellow designation which is also awarded to a significant number of attendees at each of the three weekends. </p>
<p>You did answer my question, thanks. I didn’t realize that everyone on the first weekend was Stamps eligible. I thought it was a mixture of Stamps eligible students and others that were Singer only. So essentially each student that attends that first weekend could end up with A) an invitation to be a Stamps finalist, which guarantees a Singer at minimum; B) a Singer offer; or C) neither, which means they remain “only” with their original merit offer. That’s assuming, as you say, things are the same as in the past, which I would bet they are.</p>
<p>@fallenchemist A & B yes. C however is not exactly the case (again in past years so YMMV) since attendees of the first weekend who were not awarded a Singer or Stamps were usually awarded an additional ANNUAL award called the Gables. The Gables amount I saw mentioned most often was $4k/yr.</p>
<p>Another CCer recently posted that the lower initial awards granted to those who did receive S/S invites as opposed to higher awards granted to some with lower stats and no invite (which was a new situation last year when the previous pattern of named scholarships in specific amounts were replaced by the Presidential in various amounts) were then balanced by the additional award granted to attendees who did not win a S/S.</p>
<p>@illinoismom93 - Gotcha. LOL, I have to say it seems unduly complicated. But can’t really criticize the award structure since they all come away with pretty nice packages, one way or the other.</p>
<p>@illinoismom93 Do you know if students who were locked out due to the first weekend reaching capacity are still able to come to one of the other weekends by chance? </p>
<p>We have gotten very little in the way of a meaningful response from Danielle Hernandez and are hoping we’ll get more info this week. </p>
<p>@cooper1025 I haven’t heard anything back as of yet from the admin I wrote to the other day after watching the proceedings here unfold. I can try going up the chain of command next to try to get some clarification on this situation. But when you say you’ve gotten very little in the way of a meaningful response from Ms. Hernandez - are you saying that you did hear something back but it wasn’t satisfactory? I was hoping to hear what info was in the explanatory email she’d told @biocellar 's son would go out to everyone on Friday. Did that email go out? </p>
<p>@illinoismom93 </p>
<p>No explanatory email. Just a “thank you for your e-mail. We had an overwhelming response to the invitation – more so than in years past. We are asking students to add themselves to the wait-list and every student will hear from us early next week regarding next steps.”</p>
<p>Frustrating. It’s hard to be patient with so much at stake.</p>