UF is my dream school! Please chance me!!
My stats:
UW: 3.75 W:4.2(recalculated)
SAT:1390
ACT:31
Top 15% of class
Freshman:(Academic courses)
Algebra 1 Honors
Biology Honors
English 1 Honors
World History Honors
AP Spanish Lang
Sophomore:
Geometry Honors
Chemistry Honors
AP English Lang
AP Psychology
AP Spanish Lit
Junior:
Algebra 2 Honors
AP Environmental
AP English Lit
AP Human Geo
AP Art History
Senior:
DE ENC1101
AP Euro
AP US GOV
Pre-Calc Honors
-Class Unknown
DUAL ENROLLMENT:
HUN1201: A
SYG2000: A
4 more classes undecided
EXTRACURRICULAR:
Key Club 10-12
NHS 10-12
10 year volleyball player
3 years of volleyball club
Animal shelter volunteer for 3 years
Hospital Volunteer for 3 years
450 community service hours
Internship at animal shelter for 2 years
3 years self taught artist
HOOK:
Come from an EXTREMELY competitive school in Florida, one parent did not attend university, the other got a Bachelor
Your academic rigor is very good which UF values. Your test scores are in the UF lane but they are valued less than rigor and GPA. Your GPA is at the bottom of the UF lane, so 75% of kids admitted had gpas that were equal or better. Having good grades while playing varsity sports is a plus and your volunteer work looks substantial. Not seeing any leadership, though.
Moving forward, it can’t hurt to retake the SAT/ACT, whichever one you think you can improve on. UF superscores SAT but not ACT. Also, write a great essay.
With Uf holistic admissions, no one is a lock. Have some safeties in your pocket.
Good luck and let us know what happens in February.
I will tell you what I have said several times on this board, check how previous students in your high school with similar GPA/Class ranking have fared with UF admission. If your school has Naviance, that can help figure it out. Or discuss with your counselor, or maybe you know from anecdotal evidence.
Since you go to a Florida high school, UF admissions is very familiar with it and typically admits about the same number of students each year. I suspect that you will see that most of the top 10% gets in and then it gets a bit ambiguous after that. That is often the range where the holistic admissions kicks in that leaves people scratching their heads after the second Friday in February.
At this point, the only lever you have is the essay, so hit it out of the park.
For my school, the only people that got accepted into UF were in the top 5%. There are 500 seniors in my school, and I was the last person in the cutoff for top 5% and I had a 4.4 UF GPA.
@hannahgomezZz – I believe the advice is that you are definitely excited but there isn’t any other concrete information that can be given to you. Your grades are your grades now that your junior year is over - you can definitely still have a huge impact on your decision through the holistic portion of the application so be focused on where you can still have some breathing room (ie before classes start in the fall)
@hannahgomezZz Not trying to be difficult, well maybe a little, but there’s little else that anyone on the forum can do for you. “Chancing” is fun and can be educational but you will not get any value from more people weighing in on your chances – although it might give your ego boost – or a knock.
Work on the things that you can augment: test scores, essay and showing interest. If UF is your dream school, be sure to go on the official tour so they know you are serious. And I would also suggest saying in your application, somewhere, that UF is your top choice and if accepted, you will be attend.
Good luck. Let us know what happens and I sincerely hope you get in.
thank you for the advice! I noticed on your name that you are a father of someone who goes to UF. Did your child/ren include the information about it being their first choice? And if they did, do you think that made a difference in their acceptance?
@hannahgomezZz I will offer some data first. If you look at UF’s Common Data set, you will see that “applicant’s level of interest” is considered by the university. It is not “important” or “very important,” but it is considered. https://ir.aa.ufl.edu/media/iraaufledu/common-data-set/CDS_UFMain_1819.pdf
Second, every school wants to have a high yield – meaning they want as many of the kids who are accepted to actually attend. I’m not sure if it is part of the US News ranking process, but US News tracks it. Also, universities are businesses that need students to survive.
This is an over-simplification, but if a school is making a choice between two students with very similar qualifications and one of them has said they really want to attend and the other one has not. Which one do you think they will choose? I know what my answer is.
Lastly, my daughter was on the bubble with UF and could have very easily been denied. She included in her application information about how a summer program she attended at UF inspired her and I made sure she stated, explicitly, that if accepted, she would attend. I think it helped, particularly that she was admitted to a bridge program and, again, could have easily been denied.
Now, lots of kids who really want to attend and show great interest in UF get denied each year. But if you are in the gray zone, it certainly can’t hurt to let them know you want to be a Gator.