It's The Final Countdown!

Hello everyone!! It is January 31, 2011…do you know what that means?

It means that early action applicants will know their admission decisions tonight! All of our admission decisions will be live on the appcheck website (www.muohio.edu/appcheck) at midnight Eastern Standard Time. This is the first place you will be able to view your decision, so if you can’t wait or just don’t want to wait for the mailed letter check here.

Information on your decision was also mailed to your home address. We sent out almost 10,000 decision letters on Friday with hopes of them getting to you as soon as possible. We are excited about this year’s applicant pool and hope that you are as excited as we are!

If you have gotten this far and are now realizing that you cannot find your appcheck login information make sure you e-mail your counselor and ask them to send it to you again. You can find out who your counselor is and their email address at www.muohio.edu/askacounselor. We can only give out this information to you so make sure you personally request it.

Lastly, before I sign off, I’d like to leave a note for all of our regular decision applicants. We are working hard on reviewing your applications and you will be notified on March 15, 2011. If you are applying regular decision and you still have materials outstanding please remember that the postmark deadline is tomorrow February 1, 2011.

Until next time,
Lauren

Feb 1 is almost Here!

Hello friends!

I hope you are having a good winter. I can’t believe it is almost February! This year has been flying by!

Right now we’re getting set to mail out decisions to Early Action students. So if you are in this pool, be sure that you are checking your mail. In addition, you will be able to access your decision online at 12:00AM on February 1. To check your status, visit www.muohio.edu/appcheck. Let your admission counselor know if you are having any issues logging in!

We’re also getting ready to review Regular Decision applications. If you have not yet applied, you still have a few days! They are due on February 1. Go to www.muohio.edu/apply to begin your application.

There is a lot going on here at Miami right now. The hockey team is playing out the stretch for a bid at its 7th straight NCAA tournament and its 3rd consecutive Frozen Four. The Men’s basketball team, after playing games against Duke and Kansas are playing their conference schedule and looking for a MAC Championship. Bill Nye the Science Guy is coming to give a lecture on campus as is Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. This is a just a small sample of why students never run out of things to do on campus.

In addition, now that we’re about to hit February, not only are the days seeing more sunlight, but the temperatures will start to warm up soon. We’re no strangers to some cold February and March temperatures, but I can’t remember a year in the past 4 where we didn’t get some unseasonably warm days where we could go play football, hike in the woods, sit out and read or get some fresh air. It reminded us all that the warm weather would be here soon (and also unfortunately that the semester was going to end).

I hope you college seniors are getting ready for college. I know each time I write one of these blog posts I remember what an amazing experience I had at this university, and I hope you will have the same.

NOTE: Regular Decision Applications are due FEB 1, 2011

New Year, New Office

Hello, Readers! You may have recently seen a caption on Miami's visit website indicating that our office is under some serious construction! If you were to walk into our office today, you'd be greeted by a huge scaffolding... we like to call it "The Tunnel:"Don't worry, The Tunnel will be gone soon! In fact, check out the progress that's been made inside in just a few short weeks! Can you believe this is the same corner of the office?Check out the new home for our Visit Coordinator, Katie! Old hallway... new hallway!
As our construction draws to a close, we hope you get a chance to come visit Miami University to see what poet Robert Frost called "The most beautiful campus that ever there was." And maybe to sit in our fun new chairs!

Hello from Mobile, Alabama!

Last night the Miami RedHawks played in the GoDaddy.com bowl and defeated the Blue Raiders of Middle Tennessee State University 35-21. I have been down in Mobile since Wednesday to partake in the bowl festivities and support the RedHawk football team. The festivities included a Mardi Gras Parade, a fireworks display, and of course pep rallies for each team. The Miami University Marching Band and Cheerleaders were on hand to get all the RedHawk faithful pumped up for the big game. While the floats were quite amazing, the best part of the parade was watching the football players try to catch the beads and moon pies that were being thrown into the crowd. Miami University President Dr. Hodge and Athletic Director Brad Bates were both in the parade and yes, they threw beads too! The hotel I stayed in was the team hotel and the staff was nothing but accommodating, they even decorated the lobby with Miami Flags and signs of support from the student body and the Oxford Kroger. Staying in the team hotel also meant many funny encounters with the members of the football team.
The team left for Mobile last Saturday and they have enjoyed the Southern hospitality to the fullest extent. While in Mobile they were able to visit the USS Alabama battleship, and participated in and WON the bowling tournament pitting the two teams against each other in a competition not on the football field. Possibly a sign of things to come…

When Thursday finally arrived the team was electric with excitement, this was Miami’s first bowl since 2004 and we had a chance to make NCAA history. A RedHawk win in the GoDaddy.com Bowl would mark the first time in NCAA history that a team went from double digit losses to double digit wins. The players went through their normal game day routines and boarded the buses to go to the stadium. The game was long and hard fought through the first 3 quarters but in the 4^th quarter the defense stepped up into high gear and intercepted Middle Tennessee’s passes multiple times. The interceptions stopped touchdown trading that had occurred the first three quarters and sealed the victory for the RedHawks of Miami University. Under the direction of interim coach Lance Guidry and under the watchful eye of new head coach Don Treadwell the Miami University RedHawks became the GoDaddy.com bowl champions and added to their already historical season. Worst to first in the Mid-American Conference, a nine game win improvement (tied for most in NCAA history), and the first team to ever go from double digit losses (1-11 in 2009) to double digit wins (10-4 in 2010) in NCAA history.

Well it’s time to board my plane and head back to Oxford so I can continue to read applications and answer all of your questions. Don’t forget our last application deadline is February 1st! I’m also going to leave you with some pictures from my trip.

Love and Honor! Go RedHawks!

A couple of floats from the Parade

Miami Representatives in the Parade: President Hodge, Athletic Director Dr. Bates, & the MUMB (Miami University Marching Band)!

Some of the guys on Gameday (Left: Tight end Ken Bruton; Right: Defensive linemen Austin Brown and Will Diaz)

Welcome New Members of the Miami Family (Left: New Head Football Coach Don Treadwell; Right: Newly Admitted Class of 2015 Student Curtis Jefferson)

Miami Players Celebrate their 10th win! (Clockwise from top-left: Wide Receiver Armand Robinson; Linebacker Evan Harris; Linebacker Austin Moore; Defensive Lineman Jordain Brown)

Winter at Miami

Hey everyone. I hope you are enjoying the beginning of your holiday season. There has been a lot going on at Miami. Students are currently gearing up for finals as they get set to go home for a few weeks. But if there is anything I learned in my time as a student, and certainly as a working member of the university, it is that while it is fun to go home and see family in friends, after a few days you are ready to be back at Miami.

A question I always get asked when prospective students and parents learn that I am an alum is, “Was Oxford the type of place that you missed when you went home?” The answer is always the same. “Absolutely!”

Every winter I would go home after finals, take a two day nap that would be frequently interrupted by chores, see my friends and celebrate the new year. Then it would be January 2, 200_ and I would wonder why I was still at home in Chicago. Don’t get me wrong. The most important things to me are friends and family. But Oxford has that magical quality to it. It always calls you back. So much so, that I would volunteer at Winter Orientation not only to help new students, but to get back to what more and more became my home.

I love Oxford in the winter. Growing up, it isn’t winter if there isn’t snow, and while we don’t get nearly as much snow in Ohio as I did when I lived in Illinois, the beauty of a snowy Miami campus is breathtaking. Some of my best Oxford memories occurred in the winter—moments that will be with me forever. Here are two of my favorites.

In the winter of my sophomore year, Oxford had a rare blizzard. I was with six of my friends in a residence hall room and we were watching the weather as we debated the odds of classes being cancelled (they weren’t). We were hungry, and apparently blizzards are the only conditions in which establishments do not deliver food (pizza has been delivered during a tornado warning). So we called Bagel and Deli, who said that even though they wouldn’t deliver, if we came in they would make us bagels. So we put on our snow gear, tracked through campus in the blizzard and made our way Uptown. When we got to Bagel and Deli, my friends knew the person working there, so we talked to him for awhile as he couldn’t believe we had decided to leave the hall for bagels. As we thanked him and made our way back outside, he handed us a bag of popcorn and told us to take it. We earned it for making the trek uptown.

The second moment happened in the winter of my senior year. The university has an emergency text message system. When classes are cancelled or there is inclement weather, students who have signed up for the service receive a text message. As I sat in class, I could hear the vibration of everyone’s phone go off. Afternoon classes had been cancelled. I called my friends. We took everything we could find. Trays, garbage bags and sleds were taking to the giant sledding hill. There, the five of us joined, and I kid you not, at least 75-100 other students who found whatever they had and taking it sledding. We raced, took turns going off jumps, and had contests to see who could go the farthest down the hill. It was an absolute blast.

These are just two of many Oxford memories in the winter. I can guarantee that if you spend your next few winters in Oxford, you will be filled of winter memories that will be pulling you back to Miami as you drink hot chocolate on your couch at home wondering what your college friends are up to. I’ll give you a hint, they’re wondering what you are up to as well. And they’re already making plans for what to do when you get back to campus.

Early Decision Notification!

Today is December 14th. That means it’s a mere HOURS before our Early Decision applicants are able to view their decisions online! For those of you who are unfamiliar, Early Decision is a category that some colleges use that will always mean the same thing wherever you see it: it means that you make a binding commitment to attend that institution if you are admitted. As you can imagine, it is a big decision to apply to a school Early Decision, and that’s why we require the contract to be signed not only by the applicant, but also by the school counselor.

There a few important things to know about applying Early Decision. First, Miami performs the Early Decision application review the exact same way as we review all of our other applications. We don’t give special priority to those students who apply in this category. One thing to remember, though, is that Miami reviews our applications contextually, so we look at the whole pool of applications in addition to just your application. This year, Miami got 500 applications for Early Decision, while we have about 13,200 applications for our other admission categories! Because we review Early Decision files first, our context is smaller, and in some cases that can work to the applicant’s advantage.

Another important factor to think about when you are considering applying Early Decision is that you will hear your decision prior to receiving your financial aid award. Because we want to be fair to all of our applicants, we review for financial assistance blindly (meaning we don’t see which category you applied for) in March. However, an Early Decision applicant has already committed to attending Miami without seeing what the award will be!

We are very excited to release admission decisions to the Early Decision pool tomorrow. Applicants, you can log on to your

appcheck website to find out your decision at midnight tonight! If you are having trouble finding your login information, contact your admission counselor before 5pm today! To find out about all of our application deadlines, check out www.muohio.edu/apply.

Hope you're enjoying this holiday season as much as we are here in Oxford! check out a pic one of our tour guides took of Uptown Oxford: