@EmeraldCoastMom- The minute my wife and son walked to the campus, they loved it. We have visited different schools, but UM is almost " too good to be true". The campus, the students, the staffs and instructors are just amazing. My son is doing pre-med, and we had a chance to go to a fully equipped hospital/ simulation hospital and it is a breathtaking. We talked to several students that are currently attending UM and they all have nothing but praises about the school. I can say a lot more about UM we like. One thing that we noticed when were at the campus, students are taking care their business and the environment was super safe and friendly.
I am not sure if there are any body at the school that is from our area, so our son will have to make new friends if he goes there. He is still waiting for a couple more after hearing back from UF during dinner time at UM.
Does anyone know how difficult the classes at UM are curved? Is there grade inflation or deflation? Are there a lot of weeder courses? Especially interested in science classesâŠ
@bilardo - so funny! My daughter showed me her UF acceptance during dinner, too. To be honest, she wasnât really excited about it. She really, really loves UM. She has a few more schools to hear from, but I really donât see any of them beating out UM for her. I think thereâs only one person from her high school who will go to UM and he will be in architecture. I think most kids will be making new friend groups, no matter what school they go to (even UF and FSU).
My son was a freshman in 2017-18, so this info is a little dated. Check out Ratemyprofessors.com for more current info. My son wasnât pre-med, but took Chem 1 & 2 â Chem 1 didnât have a curve IIRC. Chem 2 had a small curve, but I think it was half grade only (his C+ went to a B-). I remember a lot of panic about physics, as the prof didnât post any of the grades during the semester, so students were panicking because they were flying blind for most of the semester & a lot of kids dropped it at the last minute. Iâm not sure how the bio courses were.
My son was in the business school, where a few classes had grade deflation â where the top student would get an A, no matter the score, and the curve would be created from there. In one class, the top score was 100 & that was the lone A; my sonâs 88 was still a B+, but his friendâs 92 was also a B+ (& boy was he mad!) Iâm not sure if Calc 1 had a curve but my son got a A (without needing the curve), probably because he went back & took pre-Calc first semester to really solidify his foundation in calc, plus it padded his GPA for scholarship reasons. I strongly recommend this approach if your student falls into the gray area or barely qualifies for Calc I (mine was in the gray area with a 3 on the Calc AP & a 690 on the math section of the SAT). A lot of students fail or struggle with Calc 1 at UM.
My son had reported that a few pre-meds on his freshman hall were in danger of losing their scholarships because they needed a 3.0 by end of freshman year & it was hard to get that taking bio, chem & calc (plus freshman Eng). A lot of the poor grades he chalked up to poor time management & too much partying & tailgating (football was good that year).
@EmeraldCoastMom My daughter is in love with University of Miami and Frost School of Music! The weekend was great - we went for the audition in December but this was a longer visit and students werenât off studying for finals - much better look. She will hear from more colleges at the end of March but she is strongly thinking she will be in Miami no matter what she hears. We got all of our questions answered about double majors and Foote which was great. My mom went with us and she said she couldnât imagine how someone could visit that campus and hear about the academics and not say âyes!!â. She called it a resort. haha
@LaxMom2020 - no, she did not interview. A lot of kids at scholarship weekend were wondering about Stamps, so my daughter went and asked an admissions officer if any Stamps scholarships had been awarded yet. The admissions officer told her that the Stamps organization/foundation had not yet decided how much funding is going to available, so they donât know how many scholarships Miami will be able to award. Miami awarded 4 Stamps scholarships last year. It was my daughterâs understanding that no one has interviewed for Stamps yet. Hope this helps!
@Newmommy9999 - same here! In fact, Iâm not sure if my daughter will wait to hear from all of her schools before committing to Miami. I have a feeling we will be discussing this very soon. ?
@EmeraldCoastMom thanks for the update. We were also at Scholarship Weekend, but assumed that Stamps winners were in the mix⊠Didnât realize that no students had interviewed for it.
@bilardo no interviews for academic or music scholarships were requested. Obviously, he had prescreening and was called for the early live audition date. My understanding is that âmeritâ awards (if any) for Frost will include both academics and music. I donât know if other Frost applicants were asked to separately interview for their academic merit scholarships.
My D was at scholarship weekend and officially committed last night. She is so excited, loves Miami, and would start classes there tomorrow if she could. She joined the Facebook group for the class of 2024 and has been in contact with many future Canes. I canât believe that this whole process is over, as weâve been visiting schools for almost two years. What a fun journey, and definitely a fairy tale ending for my daughter!