has anyone attended or are planning on attending the summer scholars program?
AMAZING program!
My son is attending the second session. We are OOS, and I’m hoping this convinces him to apply. I’m happy to report back in a few weeks after he has finished.
I thought I’d share my initial impression after dropping my son off on Sunday.
There are 192 students participating in session 2. We were told that 52% were in state, while the other 48% were out of state- including 4 other countries. Everything seemed organized, and they had a pretty full schedule planned for the students. Although, there is some free time built in to it. There are 13 academic modules- my son’s, Physics, is the smallest at only 6 guys. S said his professor is cool and so far the people are the best part. I was surprised (perhaps naively) that during the orientation they were very up front that Summer Scholars is foremost a recruiting event- that as much as the students were interviewing the school, the school was interviewing the students. Also, they mentioned that being a summer scholar was “the thumb on the scale” when it came to awarding scholarships and admission to honors programs.
I’d been on campus before- briefly a few years ago and in the 80s for a summer program as a middle schooler- but my memory was hazy. It’s definitely beautiful and well maintained. I saw two dorms that are in the middle of a complete renovation, and there were other construction projects as well- on streets and another building- I think the Armstrong Student Center? I loved all the green space. S kept saying that he wished he had his bike with him. The campus appeared to be very bike friendly- there was even a large indoor bike storage room in the dorm he is staying in.
I will stop back again when the program is complete to give my son’s thoughts on the experience. @RightyRiper I see from your other posts that you are also there now. Hope you are having a great time, and it would be awesome for you to share your experience too.
Well I can now review the camp and let me say it was incredible. Great people, incredible professors teaching classes and some great times. This is a camp that is both beneficial to attend and a good time. Some stats for the camp include - 1400 applicants, little under 400 accepted, 192 students attending (26% acceptance rate). After the camp, 98% of students who were at the camp are were accepted into Miami University. Incredibly 89% of students at this camp go on to attend the university. 70% rising seniors, 30% rising juniors. I also went into the camp thinking that a majority of the kids would be “weird” or different because I was coming from far away and I thought it would be like summer school. I was completely wrong and met some really fun people from all over the mid-west mainly.
As I am a rising junior, I will likely either attend this camp again next year, or attend another one similarly because of how well this camp blew me out of the water. It is a recruiting camp, so don’t expect to learn a years worth of information in two weeks but it is without a doubt worth it.
My son’s experience was similar to RightyRiper. He definitely felt like the people were the best part. He enjoyed the guys in his academic module and getting to know all the students in his “family.” I think another positive aspect for him was getting to know the counselor in charge of his family. She provided insight to the school, and her major is one that he is very interested in, so that was beneficial as well. Although he has no interest in lab type research, he did say they visited several labs where Miami students were doing summer research and he thought it seemed very cool. His module created a video that has been posted to Youtube, and when I was looking at it I noticed that other modules had done the same. There are also videos from past years. This may be a source of information for students considering this program in the future. I know it had never occurred to me to look on Youtube for videos about the program.
In the two weeks, he went from not really interested in Miami at all to it being at or near the top of his list.