Chance Child for UF

Child has the below (Rising Senior)
In State from Jacksonville in Top County in Florida and School
GPA: 3.965 (only 2 B’s)
HPA: 5.0
UF Recalculated; 4.65
Ranked 17/575 students - top 3%
EC’s-Community Service 300 hours; Volleyball team 3 years, Basketball team 2 years, Started Club at School for kids with learning disabilities from Sophomore year on, Went to local Boys/Girls club every Sunday from freshmen year through Junior year, National Honor Society Freshmen year through Junior Year, Participated in University of Florida Youth Leadership Conference Fresh, Soph and Junior years- put on by UF Student Body Government

1310 SAT

Your child has an excellent chance to be admitted to UF. With UF’s holistic admissions process, it’s important to see everything through as no one is a sure thing. Spend time on the essay and application, go on the official tour and demonstrate interest. The SAT score is outside the UF lane for Fall admission, so that’s one area where improvement can still be made. If retaken on October 5, for example, there should still be time for a new superscore to count for the Nov. 1 deadline. That gives you two and half months of prep time. Also, you might look into the ACT if your child hasn’t taken it. Some kids do better on one than the other – my son did markedly better on the ACT and we have no real idea why.
On the whole and short of a screw up, your child should get in. Go Gators.

@GatorDad305 are you basing the excellent chance because of her 4.65 Recalculated GPA and her EC’s. yes she did a tour of UF and also did the UF YLC 3 years running showing interest… are her community service hours enough? she really focused on 2 areas other than a million things for her community services. 2 sports and starting an official club in school in 10th grade. if she stays at 1310 are we still in good shape… I am expecting a very good essay and she has already filled out the applications with a college planner. I know nothing is an exact science with UF admissions, but she should feel good?

I’m basing it on what you described and how UF weighs things. Grade point average and rigor are “very important”’ to UF, while standardized test scores are regarded as “important.” She seems like a well-rounded kid. All that being said, I think she should be confident that UF is a good match, but we have learned that no applicant is a total lock. Check back here at the end of February and you will hear countless stories of kids with great grades and great scores and strong ECs who don’t get in. The one area where she is weak is her SAT which is below the middle 50% admitted in Fall 2019 but in the lane for summer. My suggestion is that if she wants to increase her already excellent chance for UF, then try to raise that score.

My son is applying as a freshman this Fall as well, and I think it’s important for him to do everything he can to maximize his application. The competition will be even more fierce this year because UF will begin accepting the Common App. Look for a record number of applicants this year.

I just returned from UF Orientation with D. They announced high GPA of incoming class (4.5) and the huge percentage of leaders - sport captains, student government, etc. Absolutely no mention of test scores. I can’t say for certain that those are things they value most in admissions, but it was interesting that’s what they bragged about.

FWIW my D’s scores weren’t great, but her GPA and EC’s were excellent (lots of involvement and leadership at a big HS).

@GatorDad305 going in summer is not an issue for my daughter, have to do it anyway at some point… its my understand unlike when I went, asking for summer is not an option and they place you there based on space… they also stated that choosing summer does not increase your chances unlike when I applied for summer? is this true. how does that work. also PACE… when I asked about PACE, they said PACE is not the next tier of kids, they are accepted based on the same merit as any kid and they place them in PACE randomly not based on GPA and scores like I would have thought?

One factor you can’t control is where the other kids from her hs are applying. If all 400 from her class want UF, it’s going to be a lottery. My experience was that the class split pretty evenly between UF, FSU, and UCF, with a number going to other schools too. A friend from Gainesville’s daughter was very disappointed because everyone from that hs wanted UF. UF just isn’t going to take all the kids from one hs.

@twoinanddone yeah but if 400 apply there it is a slim chance anyone outside the top 50 of the 575 will get in. Probably 70-80% of the top 50 (top 9%) will get in and probably 90% of the top 30 (top5%) will get in. you might find a couple of outlyers that will get in beyond the top 10% but its very very slim. its no coincidence the average recalculated GPA is 4.3-4.6. its not because those kids have many more leadership roles or EC’s, its because they took the kids with the highest GPA’s. with a few exceptions…

@GatorDad305 when recalculating the UF GPA, which I totally know how to do, the only question I have is this… Does Psychology count as a core class for the recalculated GPA or not calculated? I have been told by several people it does not? do you know.? It was 1 of 2 of her regular classes she took Freshmen year along with Art… thats the first question? second one is here is her break down of her classes. does this show rigor? I am assuming its high end since her recalculated GPA is 4.65 (unsure of how to count Psych). appreciate your insight.

Freshmen year (7 classes)
1 AP
4 honors
2 regular classes Art and Psych

Sophomore (7 classes)
2 AICE
1 AP
4 Honors

Junior 1st half of year (7 classes)
3 AICE
2 Dual Enroll (but were 1 full year credit classes so it counts as 2 classes each)
2 Honors

Junior 2nd half of year (7 classes)
3 AICE
2 Dual Enroll
2 Honors

Senior Year (signed up for 7 classes)
3 AP
3 AICE
1 Honors

@jhmoney Unless something has changed in the application, you can request to start in summer. Many kids like to get a headstart and others are placed there by the school. For a few years, UF’s posted stats showed that Fall and Summer admits were identical. Last year, it showed that kids in summer had slightly lower test scores than fall admits. For other state schools, the difference between Fall and Summer admits is significant. The state publishes the data: Google Florida SUS matrix and download the PDF.
UF says that they don’t care which term (Fall or Summer) that you select. They will place you where they want to place you. Essentially, they are saying there’s no advantage to a kid on the bubble saying that they are “willing” to attend summer, for example. I wonder if selecting summer is a way of demonstrating interest? (Have we thought about that one, @Gator88NE ?)
I don’t know a ton about PACE but I disagree that it is random. First, I can’t imagine UF randomly placing, for example, a national merit finalist in its online only program. Next, there are specific PACE majors. If you look at the UF admissions annual report, it lists the PACE majors. So, for example, nursing and engineering are not available as PACE majors. Again, it doesn’t make any sense to me that UF would accept a kid (or randomly place a kid) who wants to be a nurse into an online program that doesn’t have nursing as a major.
As to UF saying PACE is not for the “next tier,” I would call that marketing spin. There’s nothing wrong with the bridge programs (my daughter is in one), but they are non-traditional paths offered to kids who wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to be a Gator.
And @houndmom’s points make sense. UF doesn’t regard test scores with the same importance as GPA and rigor --this is published in the common data set, not an opinion. I also believe, anecdotally, that they like to see leadership, so it doesn’t surprise me that they would brag about having team captains, student body presidents and (hopefully in my son’s case) Eagle Scouts.

@jhmoney I’m a little out of my depth on the overall schedule question, as I don’t know anything about AICE. My inclination would be to say psychology is an academic class, as it is a social science, but I’m just guessing. Perhaps someone else knows for sure.

Yes, it’s fine, especially if she earns her AICE degree. As a general rule, UF see’s IB and AICE programs as very rigorous.

Lets say 40,000 students apply to UF (I’m making up these numbers). UF may determine, after reviewing the applicants, that 20,000 are well qualified and could succeed at UF. However, they may only have 6,600 residential slots open, so they only offer to 14,000 students (UF is predicting that 14,000 offers will YIELD 6,600 students). UF admissions goes through the applicants to whittle the number down to 14,000.

That leaves 6,000 well qualified students. These are the students that get offered alternative paths to UF, like PaCE or Gator Engineering at SF.

Due to the nature of Holistic admissions, some of the students in the “6,000” have better Test scores, GPA’s, etc, than those in the “14,000”. I can see why UF wouldn’t want to call these students “2nd tier”.

Did your daughter get in? What was her UF gpa and scores?

Thx for the this is for the reply. So here is my question. Are you saying that UF admits everyone possible they is in the lane then have room for kids to be admitted to PaCe or is there a level of student that doesn’t get admitted into UF regular and they don’t invite to PACE becasue they would Never accept being in pace ? So there is a tier of kids that is higher than pace but lower than regular that don’t get accepted ?

Makes sense ok that makes sense. Thx

Is the .35 approx yield they talk about including Pace though ?

@jhmoney i will try to add some figures to @Gator88NE 's example. This is from the UF Admissions annual report.

For Summer/Fall of 2018 – admitted as freshman last summer/fall
40,059 applicants
15,057 admits (37%)
Enrollment target 6,898

The other programs are a drop in the bucket by comparison.
Innovations Academy (which applicants select) had 1852 applicants. Admitted 599 and enrolled 282.

PACE (which you don’t select) accepted 531. (they don’t breakdown applied/admitted/enrolled)

Gator Engineering @ Santa Fe et al admitted 435 and enrolled 121.

So, if you crunch the numbers, of the 25,000 or so kids who did not get offered fall/summer admit, only about 1,000 were offered PACE or GE@SF or the other bridge programs (I’m not including IA).

My guess is that the Santa Fe bridge program will soon be larger than PACE, if it isn’t already. I also think that UF knows that most top performing kids who want to go to UF are unlikely to choose the all-online PACE option.

@GatorDad305 now that makes sense 100%. although you said only 1000 kids got offered PACE? is that an factual amount? reason I ask is it seems like so many kids in our home area got PACE which led me to believe 1000 is a small amount offered? but maybe I have no clue lol. the rest makes 100% sense and now I understand.