Hi!! I am currently a Junior at a private school in New Hampshire but am looking for a serious change in scenery and UF looks like the absolute perfect place for that. This whole college process is scaring me to death because I hear it is harder for out of state kids to get into these schools, and I had some serious health struggles freshman year that ruined my grades for 9th grade so I have some low grades on my transcript. If anyone could chance me and maybe give me some other schools that I could match with as well I will give you a virtual hug
Scores–
Intended major: Marine Biology
SAT: 1310 (590 reading/720 math)
GPA: our school only gives us them once a year at the very end of the year but it is currently a 3.2. I know this is low but I finished freshman year with a 2.5, got it up to 3.2 after sophomore year and currently have all straight A’s and am hoping for it to go up to at least a 3.6 or 3.7 by the time I apply. (I heard that an increase shows commitment ?)
AP’s:
none yet but I plan on taking AP Environmental Science and AP gov senior year.
My school is weird as they only let you take one or two AP’s a year.
EC’s:
Varsity swim team all four years, voted MVP sophomore and junior year when my team also won the state championship.
four time state champion
20+ hours a week to club swimming, I don’t want to swim d1 in college because of the time commitment but I have been talking to a few schools, literally no idea if I’m gonna swim or not.
debate club- two years
art club- three years, president junior year
NH Envirothon team member- three years. where we learn all the information ever about New Hampshire wildlife and ecosystems and then go and compete against all the other schools in the state at the end of the year. super fun and my team placed well last year!
environmental club- two years
60 hours of volunteering at a local marine conservation non-profit. I work in their booth on the beach and show kids all the different crabs and fish in the touch tank and then tell them about whales!! its super cute
50 hours of volunteering and soon to be job at local marine research center, basically doing most of the same things as the other program but I go out on the boats and tag sharks occasionally with this program.
Spent 2 weeks at a school in the bahamas helping a masters student from oxford write her graduate thesis on invasive species (lionfish in particular), tagging sharks and sea turtles, and helping with deep sea research. absolutely the best experience of my life and will probably write an essay about it.
Helped canvas for bernie sanders during his presidential run in 2016
That is basically it, I am hoping to get some good teacher recs and I think my essays will be okay. Thank you guys sooo much for chancing me haha calming my nerves so much!!
Slim to no chance. Sorry. Your GPA and test scores are super below average for the school, especially considering how competitive it was this year. Your EC’s are strong, but won’t mean much with stats like that.
I disagree with the above statement because every application comes with an essay. So if I were you, I would make sure to state something on your essay about how you recovered your GPA. Obviously, state your sickness your freshman year and how that effected you. This essay would probably go under the category of “life changing experience” or “one of hardest challenges in your life”.
Hi, i had an experience sort of similar to yours. My freshman year GPA was a 2.7 unweighted/3.1 weighted. I got it up to a 3.5 weighted in my sophomore year, a 3.9 weighted after my junior year and now as a senior i have a 4.2 weighted. I wanted to go to UF and realized the only way to raise my GPA after my bad freshman year was to get straight A’s for the rest of highschool and take a ridiculous amount of AP classes resulting in me taking 13 in total. I have a 1320 SAT/30 SAT but little extracurricular involvement. I did a school mural, some volunteer work here and there and was involved in two clubs. I had a strong essay, in my opinion. I was admitted to UF for Summer 2018. I’m telling my story to show that it is possible for you to get in even with a sub par freshman year because my drastic improvement was one of the things that helped me get in. I think you do have a low chance because of your GPA, but if you can raise your SAT score even more and really sell yourself with your essay which should detail your sickness, you could have a solid shot. Also remember, it’s your recalculated UF gpa that matters and your application is considered holistically. Hope this helped.
If you can get your un-weighted GPA up to a 3.6 or 3.7, then UF is a possibility. UF’s uses holistic admissions, about 50% is based on academics, the other 50% is based on non-academic factors (like volunteering, work, EC’s, etc). UF will consider that your school doesn’t offer many AP classes.
Your EC’s look great. Continue to work on them through the summer (add more volunteer hours, if possible). As others have said the essay is very important, so put some effort into it. Also, if you can, visit UF and take one of the tours. UF does track it, and I would think showing “interest” is a big plus for OOS students.
As a “safety” you may want to take a look at USF (University of South Florida) that’s in Tampa/St. Pete. It has a very strong STEM program, great location (especially for Marine Biology), and is very affordable for OOS students.
OOS tuition and fees is about $17,250 a year at USF. However, they offer generous OOS merit based scholarships. Note that the GPA for these scholarships is based on a “weighted” average. It looks like you would at least qualify for the $6K a year scholarship.
if you pick up your SAT score I think you have a very good chance, and if you want to swim at UF you need to basically have an Olympic trial cut time, its very competitive in swimming especially the men’s team
and in Florida in order to graduate HS you need 100 hours of volunteer work, most have more,I know some with 500+ hours, UF likes to know what you do outside of the classroom
My son is also OOS for Florida. Makes a big difference as it looks like UF only accepted about 10%-12% OOS. He had a 4.37 weighted gpa and 31 ACT. Lots of Extra curricular, worked throughout high school, really strong essay and visited the campus twice (I think that makes a difference by expressing intent). He got denied to UGA. We were shocked. UGA is really tough to get into OOS these days.
