<p>@illinoismom93 yeah. I’m driving. I live like 45 minutes away. </p>
<p>As a parent of a student invited and subsequently disappointed, I am not impressed by how the University of Miami handled this situation. </p>
<p>Our daughter is on the waitlist and if they are unable to confirm her for the “campus-based weekend program”, a phone or Skype Interview will be scheduled. To me, there is no comparison between a phone/Skype interview and a face-to-face/in-the-flesh interview. </p>
<p>My daughter loves the University of Miami, but has offers from other schools. I cannot say that I am pushing UMiami. AGAIN, I am not impressed and cannot fathom why on earth they would invite more students than they could possibly accommodate. It does not demonstrate forward thinking.</p>
<p>I believe they have been doing this for years and unfortunately, I don’t recall it being a huge issue for them. Last year, there were several postings from students locked out of the RSVP because they waited. </p>
<p>Maybe they are thinking if you really want to come to Miami, you would RSVP immediately – who knows what their reasons are :(</p>
<p>With the uproar this year, perhaps they will change their ways :)</p>
<p>Anybody know how they deal with regular decision Singer candidates? </p>
<p>
If they are thinking that, it is completely ridiculous. People tried to RSVP barely an hour after the invitations went out and got shut out. There are a thousand reasons people wouldn’t be able to respond faster than that, just a few of which are they are working, they are at a movie, they are busy with their family, they are performing in a school production,…need I go on? This is not directed at you MTnest, but if that is their thinking it is absurd beyond my ability to express it. If a person didn’t respond within a week, I could see that making some sense, although even then emails get lost in SPAM folders. But an hour??? Sorry to get so peeved, this behavior on Miami’s part for something worth so much money is very disappointing.</p>
<p>^I totally agree with you! This was the only school that over-invited students to a scholarship event (at least, the only one I know of). All the other schools DS applied to did not handle their scholarship event like Miami.</p>
<p>There must be a reason for them to do this. I couldn’t come up with a better one than the one I stated above but yeah, they really need to rethink this policy.</p>
<p>I agree with @fallenchemist. Can you imagine if you were trying to respond from the west coast? Most kids would still be in school at 2:00 (5:00 EST). So as @MTnest has stated, they really need to rethink this policy.</p>
<p>I wrote to Dr. Green this afternoon about the situation. He personally advises all the Stamps scholars, so my daughter knows him pretty well. He seems to run much of the show during Stamps and in past years the scholarship weekend websites have opened with a letter from him congratulating students invited to each of the scholarship competitions. </p>
<p>He answered within a few hours which was encouraging, sounded concerned, thanked me several times for conveying the information, and said he was going to share my email with admissions so that they could respond appropriately. Crossing my fingers for all of those affected by the situation that something comes of this. </p>
<p>I agree that a phone/Skype interview is in absolutely no way comparable to spending the weekend being “wooed” as some have related. My son has several other offers and is totally turned off by Miami and the way they have handled this fiasco. I know that if he does not attend the weekend where he is shown the benefits he could receive at UM, including three Foote Fellows, there is no way he will want to attend,
even though they have already given a nice Presidential scholarship. It seems to me that they would particularly want to impress the kids that do not end up getting the Stamps or Singer, but instead only get the Presidential, as the events of the weekend might sway them to attend the school anyway. By handling the invite in the manner they have, it seems that they will almost automatically cause the kids that do not get to go to the weekend, even though they clearly wanted to and tried to respond accordingly, to decline UM. Surely this cannot be the intended result.of the weekend! My son would have been more positive on the school had he only received the Pres and was not invited to the Stamps weekend. The university is shunning the very kids they have handre-elected as being the few they most want. Absolutely mind-boggling!</p>
<p>Thank you @illinoismom93 for working so hard to try to right this thing. As irritated as I sound, I do appreciate it. </p>
<p>Make that handre-elected. Typing on a tablet.</p>
<p>Duh, it changed it again. Hand selected.</p>
<p>LOL @18yrcollegemin. That tablet of yours is stubborn.</p>
<p>:) </p>
<p>Okay, I know this is kind of a dumb question, but does anyone have an idea of the attire? I know it says “Nice Casual,” but I’m not quite sure how they define that. The example of a polo and khakis doesn’t really translate to what a girl should wear…</p>
<p>My DD wore a sundress with shrug, many girls wore skirt/blouse or nice pants/blouse…sweater or cute jacket as the rooms are cold! Cute sandals or low heels…</p>
<p>Many girls wore a blouse/pant or blouse/skirt combo. Others had dresses on with a shrug or some type of jacket/sweater over it. Be sure to wear comfortable shoes, there is a lot of walking. Saw boys in suits with/without ties, khakis and polo shirts etc. DS wore khakis, polo shirt with jacket (it was very cool/rainy during the entire weekend we were there).</p>
<p>This is from a thread from 2012 regarding the attire for the weekend…
March 2012 edited February 2013 in University of Miami - Florida</p>
<p>March 2012
Vocalist mom - I found some posts for you re what the boys have been wearing to these weekends this year and in past years. I have a girl so I didn’t really notice what the boys were wearing over Stamps weekend myself! So here are some posts from some of our experts on the board :</p>
<p>ZincWhiskers :last year, at the dinner most of the men wore pants (like Dockers / khakis) and polo or golf or oxford (collared) shirts, a few had sports jackets, only saw 1 or 2 in shorts. I wouldn’t say the dinner is “formal” but it definitely had a stuffier feel to it than the rest of the weekend. Now, for Saturday, most of your day is not spent in the interview, but I would think you’d want to look “nice” for that - whatever your definintion of nice is…so technically if you could pull off a time to change and wanted to cart around extra clothes you could wear shorts in the AM and pants in the PM. If you were my S, I would urge you to wear pants and a polo shirt on both Friday and all day Saturday. After you arrive in August, you can wear shorts every day for the whole school year!! Except when you’re scuba diving…</p>
<p>rankinr : Agree with Zinc, definitely pants on Saturday, but Friday I think shorts (khaki) are fine. Is the dinner on Friday night? If so, switch into pants for the dinner. But especially if you’re going on the tour Friday afternoon (5PM!) you’ll thank me for suggesting shorts. Until you get to your interview it doesn’t matter too much, anyway. I feel like people on tours think that the tour guides are taking down their names and taking notes on them. We really don’t, haha.</p>
<p>As for the interviews, when I was helping out last year there was a huge variety in dress. It went all the way from wearing a T-shirt (sorry, man, not gonna get the scholarship) to a full suit. I’d recommend a healthy medium and wear, as Zinc suggests, a polo shirt (for comfort) or maybe a dress shirt. Most of the interviewers wear a polo shirt or a dress shirt with a tie, if my memory serves me well. “Business formal,” whatever that means.</p>
<p>racquetdad :The dress code should be mentioned somewhere in the Stamps/Singer weekend info. Last year my S wore a polo shirt and nice pants. No formal attire needed.</p>
<p>cpq1xtbu: At Friday night’s dinner, a few of the boys wore blazers, but most wore dress shirts and slacks or polos and khakis. The girls wore skirts or slacks. I did see one boy with jeans and a hoodie, but that was it.</p>
<p>Looking forward to the weekend. @Marinebio444 do you have any last minute tips? Did they give you information on how many will be there this weekend?</p>
<p>Hmm, nothing much in terms of tips I can think of. There will be 170 students at the first weekend. I was originally signed up to be a mentor this weekend, but I had another event that conflicted so I had to bail out. There are a few changes for this year that I don’t necessarily agree with. In the past they paired you up with a student in your academic area of interest, so someone who applied to the marine science program would have a marine science student as their mentor for the weekend. This is not the case anymore. Unfortunately, they are now assigning mentors on a completely random basis, with no regard given to major or school. I am not very pleased with this decision, and I intend to let those in charge know that. Additionally, in the past they would have the interview in the afternoon as the very last item on the agenda for the day. So if you had an early interview, you were able to end early and spend the rest of the day with your parents. This year, they will be having the interviews in the middle of the day, with the model classes and closing presentation after. Just a couple things to look out for.</p>