Am I the only one who automatically starts singing the Will Smith song in my head when I think about Miami? (It just occurred to me that anyone applying to college today was born years after that song came out.. yikes!)

I visit 30-40 schools per year to be able to stay on top of all of the new trends and recommend schools to students, but hardly any of my trip reports make it to this blog. One of my goals for 2020 is to change that!

I decided that my recent visit to the University of Miami was a perfect place to start, because it has a very wide appeal for many different types of students.

The school wasn’t always as well-regarded as it is now, and a lot of where it is today is because of former president Donna Shalala. I probably wouldn’t have said it this way myself, but I agree with the Miami Herald’s characterization that Shalala “transformed the university from a beer-and-party-school to one with a global reach, raising billions of dollars in the process.”

UM’s most recent Common Data Set statistics show a score average range of 1250-1430 for enrolled first-year students (or 29-32 on the ACT). If my calculations are correct, it also shows a 31.27% acceptance rates for students who applied via non-binding plans (early action and regular decision combined) and 55.6% acceptance rate for students applying via early decision.

Okay, enough on the statistics. Here are my thoughts!

WHAT TO LOVE:

• THE WEATHER! I mean, really. It was so depressing to fly back to DC!

• THE CITY! Miami is just booming right now. I stayed downtown near the new (ish) Brickell City Centre complex and it was beautiful. So much to do. It’s really a great city.

• Along those lines, it’s awesome that students get to experience the “city life” when they want, the “beach life” when they want, and a fully residential, closed campus when they want. Definitely a best-of-all-worlds kind of situation.

• It’s one of the few schools that has a ton of school spirit despite being both private and mid-size (11,000+ undergraduates). Typically we see this kind of school spirit at a much larger public school. This almost always correlates with a loyal alumni network and that’s definitely the case here as well.

• Sought-after majors that aren’t offered everywhere - from engineering to business to communication to nursing to architecture - to very highly regarded niche programs like meteorology, marine science, music, and sport administration. There are really a lot of options, especially when considering the size of the student body. UM does a lot, and does a lot well.

• It’s selective while still being possible for a “normal” (i.e. you don’t have to cure cancer) student with good grades and test scores to get in.

• There’s an incredibly active Jewish community (but it’s not the kind of thing where students who are not Jewish will feel left out - I do not get that sense at all).

• Generous merit aid to qualified students, especially those with high test scores.

• No essay on the Common App supplement - it basically takes five minutes to apply!

WHAT TO THINK MORE ABOUT:

• The surrounding neighborhood is not amazing. Coral Gables itself definitely does have some nice aspects - I had lunch at Bachour, which was soooo delicious, and I also went shopping at Merrick Park, which was very nice and upscale. But the immediate area surrounding campus is not exactly a bragging point.

• Students that do not speak Spanish might feel a little out of place. I am actually from Miami originally, but I do not speak Spanish - and whenever I am in Miami I am reminded that I wish I did!

• The campus itself has a lot of concrete, which makes sense given the hurricane situation. The school is beautiful in a lush, tropical sort of way, but it’s not beautiful in the “classic college campus” sort of way.

• Back to the whole “city life” thing - there’s a higher percentage of students that go out clubbing on the weekend than one will find at most schools. Some students appreciate this, some don’t.

All in all, it gets a thumbs-up in my book and I can see why it appeals to so many different kinds of students. Pro tip: if you decide to visit (and you should!), a lot of hotels in Miami have great discounts for those visiting the school. I stayed at the W for something like $249/night when the website was showing rates of $800+/night. Make sure to take advantage of that!