We’re 1,500 miles away so ultimately were unable to physically visit (we will visit if S23 is ultimately admitted and the financials make sense. What we did do was:
Attended virtual general college admissions session
Attended virtual school of architecture information session
Attended virtual “Miami Mondays student Q&A”
Reached out/introduced to admissions counselor
Did this as part of assessing the right fit for S23 - to the extent it fit into their “demonstrated interest” formula is fine but wasn’t original intent.
I think the demonstrated interest is kind of unfair. We live in Florida and know all about UM. So the Q/A sessions etc were not really needed. Doesn’t applying demonstrate that you want to attend? Anyway, switched into ED2, which will hopefully show enough “demonstrated interest”. Side note, I was told by admission counselor it used to be a thing, but really isn’t anymore. But who knows? I saw a lot of high achieving students get deferred…and find it interesting…and makes me wonder why when students with lower stats were accepted.
about half of UM’s accepted students come from the ED pool. if anything, that should imply that they want students who want to go to UMiami. It makes sense that if you live in Florida, you would know a lot about UM, but still…
If UMiami was one of your top choices, you would be involved as much as you possibly could - be it through tours, virtual sessions, etc. Most colleges don’t consider demonstrated interest, but UM does (or at least my AO implied that); they don’t want to accept students who are using it as a safety school and have no intention of enrolling.
High-achieving students getting deferred might indicate that they didn’t show a lot of demonstrated interest. Similarly, students who are sure they can get in somewhere sometimes don’t put as much effort into their supplements. The college admissions game is so much more than numbers now; thousands of kids have similar GPAs and test scores. that could explain why students with “lower stats” are being accepted over students with higher ones
My son show interest his friend cancel both his visits.
Son stats 3.75UW, 4.35W 33ACT. 8 Aice 7 AP 5 DE, Aice diploma and AA. Deferred
Friend stats 3.85UW 4.37W 30ACT. 8 Aice 5 AP 3 DE. Accepted
Asked because I’m in MA and son ad friend are in similar position - similar stats (+/-), similar EC’s. His friend got into honors college at UMass for engineering and my son got in but not to his selected major (Architecture). Not complaining, DS has been admitted to other Arch programs, was just trying to see if that might explain the dynamic on your side.
I get what you are saying, but not everyone has the same amount of free time to do such things. My daughter has ECs until 9pm most nights after school all day. And I’m a full time employed single parent with 3 other kids. If we’d known such a game needed to be played we would have done so…somehow found a way. However we did tons of research online (where pretty much any answer about the U can be found) so there wasn’t much to be gained by going to a Q/A. We did do an in person tour of the university once we heard about the demonstrated interest. And I get it’s not just numbers. My daughter has strong numbers and all of the other elements for holistic review. I think a lot of really strong candidates are deferred to see who is really interested and sticks around. Just my 2 cents.
For those who applied ED2, is there any chance decisions may release tomorrow? I know for the past two years, decisions have been released on the last Friday of February, but maybe this year it could be different?
Thanks for the replies on demonstrated interest…looks like there may be no rhyme or reason.
Ultimately ED is king these days.
We all keep hearing the advice love the school that loves you back well, schools do that too, they love the kids that love them back and ED is the ultimate love language when it comes to college admissions.
As someone who attended the summer scholars program last summer and an ED 2 applicant, I wonder if partaking in the program is a strong example of demonstrated interest. I have heard of people who participated in the program still being deferred or denied in early rounds. I would appreciate any information that anyone can offer!
don’t get me wrong, i think yield protection definitely ties into it too. Such as strong candidates with decent interest may be deferred EA as yield protection, only to be accepted RD after they sent a LOCI.
I also didn’t “play the game” necessarily, just the first sibling to go through the admissions process in my family, and I got in with a scholarship. Maybe your daughter is a great candidate and admissions is unsure that she actually wants to attend UM. Just send your regional admissions counselor a LOCI and that should probably do the trick.
I’ve often wondered that but also the idea that doing a summer scholars program at one school if it’s a turn-off to a different school with them thinking you’ve already made up your mind. Very easy to over-think these things.
When my middle son was applying to schools (2019-20), he only mentioned the Syracuse Summer program in his Syracuse app as he wanted to study & do research with the profs he met in their narrow field. He didn’t reference it in any other applications because it could potentially jeopardize admission (if they thought SU was his top choice) & also because it’s really just “pay to play” – pretty much anyone who could pay for the program could go – so it’s not like it’s prestigious to be admitted to such a program. (Although the fact that an applicant can afford such a program could maybe be a “plus” for a student because they may not need a lot of FA).