<p>My dd is in love with Miami after the 2 hr. tour. I am however being cautioned about excessive drinking and snobs. Would love to hear some honest comments from current students or recent grads as to student life. It seems their stats are high on the admitting side which we like but then kids put their feet up and party for 4 years?!</p>
<p>My daughter is an excellent student and very confident but she is not a partier. Will she feel left out?</p>
<p>My D. has graduated in May of 2011 and currently is at Med. School. She has been in love with Miami since her first visit and continue feeling the same. She has visited it numerous times despite of her busy life and always end up with the same comment about how gorgeous it is there and how happy she is about choosing Miami for her UG. She was in Honors and graduted Summa Cum Laude (Phi Beta Kappa). She had awesome opportunities at Miami in addition to having full tuition Merit scholarships that increased over years. Frankly, opportunities were beyond our expectations and she did not have enough time to take advantage of every one of them (had to decline nomination for Sorority president, had to drop her sport participation, did not have a chance to go to Luxemburg campus and probably many others).<br>
In regard to bars and other social activities, it is a matter of choice. When D. was done with her Med. School interviews in senior year, during which she had lighter academic schedule (as planned because of the interviews), she was able to spend more time relaxing on the weekends. Again, there are choices of how you relax, including your personal behavior at the bar. These choices are absolutely everywhere, kids need to know how to choose what fits them and not pay too much attention to others. I did not hear anything bad about any single person in my D’s crowd and she made sure that her crowd include more than just pre-meds. She is visiting in few weeks again and as always looking forward. As a point of reference, D. graduated #1 from private prep. HS and met many valedictorians in Honors at Miami.</p>
<p>Idavis. I pm’d you.</p>
<p>We have two D’s at Miami and they both love it! Neither one is a partier, but they have a good time there. They spend A LOT of time doing school work. D1 will miss it for sure. She has gotten accepted into top grad schools for a competitive program. Many of her friends have jobs or acceptances to grad and medical schools. </p>
<p>Good luck in your decision. Feel free to ask me anything. I will do my best to answer.</p>
<p>Coming from MA and just visited this past week. Great impression. My S is happy but wants to be challenged, wants to have some fun, and wants a “college” experience. This seems like the place. I do worry that with nothing else to do partying might be enticing. #2 on our list is Pitt, Maryland and College of Charleston. All over the place…</p>
<p>My Ds are always busy. I have never known them to be without multiple things to do. If anything it is hard to have more than a 5 minute uninterrupted phone call. They are always “off to do…” one thing or another. They have fun, but big time partying can’t be it, as they still manage to get great grades, work, perform in concerts, compete in their extra activities, workout at the rec center, fund raise for charity…they are BUSY!</p>
<p>Yes, they are busy…
Make sure to visit Pitt, if applying. D. did not care for location…</p>
<p>My son is honors business at Miami. This has been an amazing school experience, from our perspective.</p>
<p>Son attended a Blue Ribbon HS. Had very high test scores and a took a challenging HS curriculum that did not challenge him. He was not responsible about HW or particularly interested in maximizing his performance. My husband always claimed he was majoring in energy management - his own.</p>
<p>Son is a good looking kid (If I say so myself). H wore crummy bb shorts and t’s every day of HS. Within a month at Miami, he came home and told us he was not dressing well enough. We went shopping and he now has button down shirts and nicer pants. He started cleaning up his personal act in so many ways. Personal hygiene, keeping his room straight. </p>
<p>His dorm is an honors dorm. 3 stories tall, lots of RAs. Quiet at midnight. Very different from my daughter’s dorm experience in our home state. He has a very good relationship with his RA who spends a lot of time talking to the guys about how competitive the job market is…how they have got to be involved in things…have got to keep grades up…work if they can. </p>
<p>His grades first semester were less than we would have hoped, (well, one was) but his classes are tiny. Like 20 students or less. He started off in one of his honors seminar classes with his same HS attitude…not doing homework…missed a couple of classes. The Professor called him out pretty brutally in front of his peers. Nobody had EVER done that to him before. He ended up getting a D+ in that class. (The rest of his grades are good). But his advisor called him in and talked to him and he is like a different kid. Straight A’s this semester. There are lots of reasons why Miami has the reputation for undergraduate education that they have. They are focused on these kids as individuals. I hear this is more true in the Honors program, but it has been impressive.</p>
<p>Do the kids party? Well, yes. They also study hard, and at least in the honors program, we have found that the kids put in a lot of time and effort. There are clubs up town and under age kids can go and dance…and I’m sure some of the alcohol gets transferred from upperclassmen to underclassmen in the clubs. But there are cobs EVERYWHERE. And one of the funniest things to us is the fact that they publish kids names in the school paper, who get caught doing inappropriate things. It really is frowned upon to be out of control. There are a couple of kids in his dorm who smoke pot. It’s really not acceptable. There are drugs on campus, but truthfully, most of the kids look down on it.</p>
<p>The Greek system is very active. A lot of the frats and sororities have been under discipline in the past years and Miami is doing a lot to change the emphasis in the Greek system toward service versus alcohol consumption. We did not allow our son to pledge after first semester due to his lovely D, but I think he would like to. We’ll see. But there is a lot to do outside of Greek life. He plays on a broomball team and the rec center is the center of campus life for a lot of kids. He is in phenomenal shape. He plays basketball and works out regularly. He enjoys hockey games.</p>
<p>This is an affluent school, no doubt. A lot of kids come from towns and schools like the ones he attended. Although there are a lot of minority and international kids, most of them just blend in to the pretty cleancut upper middleclass vibe at the school. If that translates into “snobby”, well, our family is fine with that. It’s still a state school, and like my son says, there are kids from all kinds of backgrounds there. With 15k kids, there is a place for everyone and every sort of club, perspective, faith, etc. They have more kids from out of state than a lot of schools. In our region, Miami is kind of considered a hybrid public…smaller, all undergrad, lots of personal attention.</p>
<p>I was shocked when I got a personal call from the school from a staff member who wanted to get our impressions of our son’s first semester experience. Very different from the public my daughter attended in our home state. We get a lot of emails with good information from the school. They do not try to shove parents off a cliff after they pay tuition. They see us as a partnership. Refreshing.</p>
<p>We have LOVED this school for our son. He has developed extraordinarily in so many ways since starting there. He holds very intelligent conversation with us about economics, is thinking about his future, he has even already secured his summer job. He’s a different, much more polished kid than we sent to them.</p>
<p>Debrockman,</p>
<p>Thank you for your update on Miami, I found the information very useful. We had a wonderful tour of the school last month. Do you happen to know the male/female ratio for the business school in particular? We went in the very lovely new Farmer Business School building but it seemed like it was mostly females who were in there studying. I just wondered if that just happened to be the day we went or were there more females than males which would be very unusual for a business school.</p>
<p>When our son applied, the ratio was something like 60:40 f/m in the honors program. He tells us there are large numbers of girls in the program.</p>
<p>debrockman…thanks for the insight from a parent of a current student! Your description matches both my perception of Miami and what my son is seeking in a college. He has been accepted to the honors program and I anticipate he will attend Miami in the fall…awaiting reach school decisions at end of March. Sounds like the “work hard/play hard” mentality is alive and well there. </p>
<p>As a parent…the outstanding undergrad program at Miami, history & residential college, professional school placement record and affordable tuition makes Miami a perfect place to attend school. The 8 credit tuition waiver for studying abroad available to honors students is icing on the cake.</p>
<p>For parents concerned about drinking, I have two thoughts…it will happen at every college in the country and small town Oxford is probably much safer to do so than large cities like Chicago, Philly, NYC.</p>
<p>"For parents concerned about drinking, I have two thoughts…it will happen at every college in the country and small town Oxford is probably much safer to do so than large cities like Chicago, Philly, NYC. "</p>
<p>-Very good point…</p>
<p>"The 8 credit tuition waiver for studying abroad available to honors students is icing on the cake.</p>
<p>-D. took advantage of that and got credits (that she did not need, but why not?) for her lifelong dream travel to NZ. They have a group going every year, if anybody is interested. D. wanted to visit “Lord of the Rings” grounds, but it was just one of her many experiences there.</p>
<p>debrockman: - I think you were talking about my son (Blue Ribbon hs, top 100 on all reports, scores, hs dress code, etc) - except mine didn’t apply for honors because he didn’t want to do the extra work. Sure enough, it didn’t take long before he started dressing nicer, really applying himself in class, loves his dorm and has a very supportive RA who really helped with course selection for 2nd semester. I really don’t have to add anything because we’ve had the same experience.</p>
<p>thank you debrockman and bkbmom - our sons seem very similar and I can’t wait to watch mine grow at Miami. We are out of state but think it will be well worth it!!</p>
<p>^Not much of any kind of extra work in Honors, but there are certain benefits. Early registration was crucial for my D. There are also Merit award(s) for being in Honors. Honors calsses are much smaller and for that reason are somewhat easier because prof. is more available. D. has never mentioned much of additional work at all, but her Diploma is with Honors, nice!</p>
<p>MiamiDAP - I was referring to the essay for applying to the Honors program, not additional work while at Miami. He wanted nothing to do with extra essays and eliminated some colleges in the selection phase based on how many additional essays were required! Lucky for him, he arrived at Miami with 36 credit hours due to AP and dual credit classes that transferred. He was placed out of entry level Business classes and will have completed his Miami Plan courses in 3 semesters. He was able to register for spring semester a week ahead of the freshman because he is classified as a sophomore. Also, because he’s classified as a sophomore, he’s going on a summer abroad program with FSB in May - after his first year at Miami. Unfortunately we have to pay for it, though. He’ll spend almost 7 weeks in France, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and London. I’m jealous. He’s finding lots of great opportunities at Miami. Keeping my fingers crossed and mouth shut, hoping my son who’s a junior will follow his brother to Miami. </p>
<p>ideagetter - we’re OOS, too, and definitely think it’s worth it!</p>
<p>Yes, one summer is also covered for Honors, as mentioned in above posts. Essay is a tiny portion of his writing at college, lots of writing, in all classes, including science (lab reports).<br>
If your S. is interested in abroad, as I have mentioned there is a group going to NZ every year - 6 weeks (do not remember, maybe less), also expansive. Best wishes! D. loved Miami, visiting frequently…</p>