Hi, can anyone tell me when the University of Miami usually sends invitations for the premier scholarships? And how many people who receive an invitation actually end up getting the scholarships? Also statistics of anyone who has received the scholarship would be much appreciated.
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My daughter applied EA and just received a Singer (letter states worth $241K+ as scholarship increases with tuition increases, and “recognize your truly superlative achievements”).
Based on her research, she THINKS about 60 each receive Singer & Weeks, and about 1/2 accept. This is just a guess.
She was not invited for Stamps (5 total) but received her Singer/Weeks invite on 12/21 to submit a single 250-word essay by 1/1/24. We felt she’d receive a 1/2 tuition presidential as a backup, so she felt pressure as $120K was riding on this single supplemental essay.
On 1/26/24, she received:
- Admission decision
- Singer notification
- PRISM program acceptance
- Foote Fellow Honors Program acceptance
- Financial aid award
Stats:
- National Merit SemiFinalist (should make it to finalist, UM gives add’l $2K/yr)
- ACT 36 (all sections, single test)
- Valedictorian (public high school)
- Spent few months on main essay (had theme and covered many areas - goals, personality, diversity, community service, activities, etc.) and supplement, and showed high impact in Singer essay.
- Enough AP/college classes to cover almost all UM’s required courses
- Varsity sport
- International competition - 2 activities
- State competition - 3rd activity
- President of NHS, started another club, 10th grade class president
- Received stipend for extremely highly competitive program in 11th-12th grade summer
- Helped start community non-profit
- Her grandfather and I are alums (but I don’t think this mattered for Singer)
There’s an excess of those w/exceptional academics (scores/grades) when competing at this level (full tuition). Thus, one must have strong essays to make the next filter.
She did not apply ED anywhere. She can receive full COA scholarships to 3 in-state public schools due to her expected NMF status. She’s received 3/4 tuition from a UM competitor (waiting on their full ride, and on scholarship offers from a few similar schools), and decisions from 5 ivy league schools plus a few similar schools. Applied to 20 schools in total.
Her top 3: Miami, Penn, and one of the in-state full rides.
Her criteria: Tier 1 Research, affiliated business (MBA), law and med school (means well-resourced university).
I attended Miami a VERY, VERY long time ago on a 1/2 scholarship (125 in my class) when only 10 fulls (all Singer) were offered. Miami was VERY different school then (tuition was $6K/yr), but I still think it was the best college decision for me. I did very well both academically and socially.
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Is Prism program more suited for premed students? Is it more for research? My DS didn’t get it with his admission but got Foote Fellows.
Does she know that one of the highest resourced schools, Princeton, only meets the tier 1 criteria? Most of the other criteria have zero to minimal impact on the undergraduate experience.
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UM Admissions blog on PRISM (from 2018)
UM Website
My D was accepted to PRISM and Foote Fellows but was not selected for HPM. She also included a line about all these in her essay and secured research exp. via a competitive program last summer. Admissions told us that HPM is designed for those without research experience, which we think went against her for HPM. They also said she can apply to HPM at the end of freshman year as they’ve expanded the program to under 100 entering and the same number after 1st yr. She prefers HPM over PRISM as she’s read mixed articles of whether PRISM might be a GPA killer. So your son may be fine without PRISM and instead researching directly with a professor. I didn’t ask if one can apply to PRISM after being admitted. Admitted students can arrange 15 min 1 on 1 sessions with an admissions officer via the applicant portal.
Yes, CalTech is in the same boat as Princeton. Hence, she did not apply to either.
Full criteria we used:
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Tier 1 Research (all 20), as the premed program must be considered rigorous enough
List of research universities in the United States - Wikipedia
(A chunk are out-of-state public schools which are out due to cost after limited scholarships) -
Affiliated (top 50 preferred) Med School, as these can take some of their own. UM is on the high side of taking 40-50 per year of their own undergrads:
https://med.miami.edu/medical-education/admissions/class-profile
Note Baylor med is not affiliated with Baylor college so she didn’t apply. -
Offer Algebra-based, vs. calc based, physics (Many most and very highly competitive colleges do not)
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Where her stats place her in the top 10% of entering freshman class (based upon the school’s Common Data Set) as she’ll need to achieve an overall 3.9+ college GPA. (slight to no GPA break if attending very competitive colleges)
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That there are more students accepted to med school than National Merit Finalists in the college’s undergraduate class year. As almost all premed course grades are curved everywhere, the 3.9+ GPA will be tough when competing with super-brains. E.g. half of every Ivy League entering class will graduate in the bottom half.
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Premed office which does NOT rate (prescreen) students in committee letter (several schools including UM fail this criteria but luckily UM does not mandate a committee letter in its Committee packet) See pg 18:
https://prehealth.miami.edu/_assets/pdf/pre-health-guide-revised-fall-2023.pdf
Many students are heartbroken when they learn their pre-health office won’t let them join due to their non-stellar grades (at least 1 ivy league school does this) or rate them in the bottom grid in the committee letter.
Due to heavy state financial support, most med schools (both public and public including UM) have limited out-of-state resident enrollment despite high out-of-state applicant pools. AAMC data shows out-of-state public med schools enroll 0 - 2% of their out-of-state resident applicant pool. Many private medical school out-of-state rates are similar at 1 - 2%. So, she knows she’ll most likely end up at an in-state medical school despite where she attends college.
Why so tough? There are 32,000 U.S. high schools but only 20,000 freshman M.D. slots/yr in the U.S.
Many private med schools are small with class sizes of 100 (e.g. Stanford, Johns Hopkins med). That averages to 2 students per state. Thus, the discouraging weed-out funnel. Here’s Yale undergrad’s med placement stats (actual numbers, reason colleges only disclose percentages):
So her choices were limited to under 50 colleges in the U.S. of which only a few met most of the above criteria. The 4th best in-state (and full-ride) school which has an affiliated top 100 med school ranking, where about 50 of 2,000 starting pre-med get in to a med school. Going there worked for her oldest siblings (who all ended up at top 50 med schools without taking gap years) but she wants to attend a more competitive college. Her 20 includes 5 which don’t have affiliated med schools due to full/full ride scholarship/potential.
Fascinating! So could you share the list?
Thank you so much. May I DM you?
Sure, but I don’t know how DM works on here.
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Sure. As a general rule, if they’re going for a graduate degree, I tell my kids no MIT, Princeton, Columbia as they’re difficult undergrads. No NW & Chicago as Chicago is just too cold. I know my kids won’t be getting out to socialize.
PM me for the list.
She ended up receiving full tuition and COA merit scholarships at 2 near ivy schools. So her stats may not be representative of what’s needed for a Miami Premier Scholarship. Although I think Miami is still an excellent choice, she’s still deciding between them or one of the top ivy’s.
She was also invited to the HHMI (Howard Hughes Medical Institute) Integrated Biology and Chemistry Authentic Research Lab set of science courses at UM.
She decided to attend the top Ivy (we did not expect admissions offer), received the $2,500 National Merit Scholarship from NMSC, and was just named a US Presidential Scholar from a large competitive state. You don’t need a similar background for UM’s Premier Scholarships.