Chances at University of Florida

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Florida
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Posting for my daughter as I’m curious for feedback.

Unweighted GPA: 3.5
UF recalculated GPA: 3.94
SAT: 1270
State Of Residence: Florida
Male / Female: Female
Summer or Fall: Summer
Class rank: 16%

AP’s: World History, Environmental Science, Human Geography, Psychology, Language and Composition, Computer Science, Calculus, Literature

EC: Girl Scout Gold Award, project was 80+ hours, including creating an elementary school lesson plan on healthy eating and presenting the course to about 200 kids. Also built a website to sustain the project. She spent 10 years in Girl Scouts. She’s also in other organizations like NHS and the future educators with another 100+ hours.

Volunteering- More than 350 hours at a university affiliated pre-school for kids with and without special needs. Volunteered during three consecutive high school summers. Did it on her own with no prodding from her parents.

Awards: Silver Knight nominee (big deal here) and numerous for her community service including some high profile honors.

“Hooks”: attended a pre-college program at UF (CPET) this past summer - they loved her. From a family of Gators. Also went on the tour and spent a lot of time on the application.

Is UF first choice? Yes

Other schools applied for: Accepted to UNF, UCF, USF, FGCU. Pending at FSU and UF.

Major/Field of Study: Digital Arts and Sciences in Engineering

Comments: We know ii’s a reach. GPA is the big weakness, but grades have improved each year. She’s a monster on meaningful, long-term ECs,and wrote her essay about what she learned from volunteering with kids.

Thanks.

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Does your school have Naviance? If so, look up the admissions chart showing how applicants from her school did.

It may or not be applicable, but if she went to my son’s school, unfortunately, the Naviance data for the past few years shows there’s only been one student admitted with a GPA at or below 3.9 and an SAT score at or below 1270. But those same things may not apply to your daughter’s school since they may take the top X% from every school.

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Thanks, @milee30. That’s very interesting. I have not heard of Naviance, so I have to research it. She attends a large public high school in a major metro. I guess the question is whether or not the holistic admissions process seeks to 1) identify students who might not fit in the GPA/SAT box but have shown potential through ECs, leadership, volunteering, etc. or 2) Is mainly a means to identify students with very special circumstances, or 3) differentiate a whole slew of SAT/GPA qualifying applicants or 4) other things entirely. I appreciate the feedback.

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I don’t know the answers to any of that, including how holistic the process really is. The scattergram at son’s school looks more to me like this is a school with fairly hard cutoff points for both grades and GPA with very little exception, which implies it’s not a very holistic process at least for applicants from his school. But that’s one school out of hundreds in Florida so that doesn’t mean it’s indicative of how the process works for every school.

If I could figure out how to post a screen shot of the Naviance admissions chart, I would but the normal cut and paste thing doesn’t seem to work in this forum’s text box.

Good luck and try not to worry.

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thank you

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To me, I’d say she has a better chance of getting in than not. State schools seem a bit unpredictable and stats heavy though. I was deferred from Ohio State (in state) with a 3.4 and a 31. I’m confident that I’ll get in RD, but her stats will probably make them hesitate. Best of luck! UF is a great school (I’m applying there as well)

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@JDGatorfan same issue here in NC. We have Naviance and all it tells me is that S18 is on the bubble for UNC. He has a good enough SAT, great essays, great ECs, legacy, and GPA/rank is borderline or low. I’m guessing we’ll probably be deferred then waitlisted. A few more weeks will tell.

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Thanks @vwnyu22. I hope you get in.

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@chb088 I wish your son the best of luck. I am not familiar with Naviance. Is it more popular for private schools, by chance? My kids are at a large public high school in Florida. There was an interesting article in the Washington Post this week that specificallhy discussed the holistic approach and interview admissions people from UF. Unfortunately, one take-away that I had is that one goal of the holistic approach is to identify students with special circumstances vs. identifying more typical kids who have great EC/leadership/community service but perhaps not the highest GPA.

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@JDGatorfan my kids are at a large public NC school. We have it. But in our case it isn’t very helpful. Just says he’s on the bubble which is what I already knew. That’s good news about Uf. UNC says they are holistic but 82% are top 10% of their class so that doesn’t give me much confidence. He checks off every other box though. Good luck to your D!

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@chb088 @milee30 how do you get to the admissions charts for the schools you are interested? My school’s Naviance site may not have that functionality since we just started using it this year. I played around with it and could not find that information.

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@chb088 @milee30 how do you get to the admissions charts for the schools you are interested? My school’s Naviance site may not have that functionality since we just started using it this year. I played around with it and could not find that information.

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@fl1234 - In Naviance, first make sure you’re logged in so you can get access to your school specific info. When you’re logged in, there should be four folders near the top left of the screen: “colleges”, “careers”, “about me”, “my planner”. Click on “colleges” - there will now be a “search for colleges” box near the top left under the college heading.

When you input the college name, you’ll get a menu of colleges to choose from. Select which college you want to view. You’ll be redirected to a page that shows information specifically about the college you selected. A couple of inches down from the top of the page, you’ll see these headings “Overview”, “Studies”, “Student Life”, “Admissions” and “Costs” = those are folders with that info.

Click on “Admissions” and the info for that school will appear. For our school, when I bring up the info for University of Florida and click on the Admissions tab, I see the deadlines to apply, app fees and acceptance rate, then below that, I see how many students apply to UF for 2018, 2017, 2016. For 2017 and 2016, the information also includes how many were accepted and then how many attended/enrolled.

Right below that are the scattergrams (charts) that people keep referring to. The charts are a quick way to visualize what scores and GPAs were for accepted and rejected applications. You can selected which variables you want to see - like weighted/unweighted GPA and SAT vs ACT.

Looking at the scattergram gives an impression of how holistic admissions have been at a particular school. A totally holistic school that doesn’t place much emphasis on GPA or test scores will show a mix of green checks and red xs all over the chart. A school that is 100% metric (no holistic) will show all green checks and red xs in fairly clear areas without much overlap, showing you clearly what the GPA and test score cutoffs were. UF - for my son’s school anyways - appears much more like the latter. There are a few high GPAs and test scores showing as rejected (red x) and a few low GPAs and test scores showing as accepted (green checks) mixed in with the others, but it looks far more metric than holistic.

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@milee30 Thanks for the very detailed instructions, very helpful. It looks like we don’t have the same functionality within Naviance that others have. When I get the Admissions Tab at the University of Florida page, I do not have the number of students that applied and the acceptances/enrollments. Beneath the Deadlines, Application Fees and Acceptance Rate section, the section below that is called Application Requirements then below that is Recommended Courses, which is blank, no scatter charts.
I am not sure if it is because we just started using Naviance this year and there is no history loaded, or whether the school is not paying for that functionality. We are a small private school, so the sample size may not be meaningful either.
Thanks again.

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Gotcha. Reading between the lines of what different people have posted, it appears that Naviance is a subscription service and schools not only have to pay to participate, but then they also have different amounts and types of information available. I’ve seen some people even mention that Naviance data that their student has access to is the summary for all the schools in that city rather than by school.

It’s not fantastic data since there are so many factors it doesn’t capture (quality of essays, “hooks”, quality of letters of recommendation, etc.), but if your school or population group has more than 10-12 applicants a year and the data covers the last three years, seeing the Scattergram does give a quick visual indicator of if your student’s stats are in the ballpark, which is helpful. Our school appears to pay for a subscription that shows exactly where your student’s grades and test scores are on the scattergram. So if your student (shown in a blue circle) appears in a sea of green (students with those scores that were admitted), that tells you that s/he has a reasonable chance at admissions. If your student’s blue circle appears in an area of mostly red (students with those scores that were rejected), then you know admission is a long shot so can consider if you want to still pursue it or to direct your efforts elsewhere.

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Wanted to know my odds of getting in :slight_smile: Any feedback appreciated
Date Applied: September 29
Unweighted GPA: 4.0
Weighted GPA: 4.87
UF GPA (If you calculated it): 4.37 (I think, it is my core GPA)
SAT: 1390
ACT:
State Of Residence: Florida
Male / Female: Female
Summer or Fall: Summer
Class rank: 53/583 (My class is relatively competitive)
AP’s: Human, Environmental, Psychology, Lang, Lit, Biology, Macroeconomics (online), Government, Dual enrolling developmental psych next semester.
Extra Curriculars: Been volunteering/volunteer coordinator at a special needs equestrian therapy program for 6 years and wrote my essay about that along with my 4 year long commitment to Best Buddies, 4 years with the same buddy in Best Buddies, NHS recording secretary, Student Voter’s registration drive volunteer coordinator, started a horticultural therapy program for the special education students at my school, Harvest Drive co-chair, Founded Blessings in a Backpack at my school (it is a club that packs lunches for students on free and reduced lunch programs), Yearbook sports and club editor for 2 years, 4-H president at my barn (I know that’s important as UF developed 4-H), Swim team captain, Cross Country MVP my freshman year but got injured, camp counselor for 4 years…There’s more but those are my main things that I emphasized on in my application (I kept busy in high school LOL)
Senior Schedule: (DE = Dual Enrollment) Developmental Psych second semester, AP Macroecon (online), AP literature, Pre-calculus honors, AP government (second semester), American political systems (first semester), AP Biology, Holocaust studies honors (first semester), Spanish 4 Honors, Journalism 3 Honors (yearbook).

Is UF your first choice? Yes
Other schools you applied for: FSU, Ohio state
Major/Field of Study: Nursing
Comments: My essay was one of the strongest aspects on my application. I wrote about meeting my buddy, Christina through Best Buddies, and then volunteering at an equestrian therapy barn because of her and how I invited her to start riding and how well she took to it and how much it meant to me to be able to do something that was beneficial for her and I tied in how it inspired me to want to become a nurse. I also wrote about how I started an organization that benefits families in need within Best Buddies once I learned about Christina’s family’s financial struggles.

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End result: my daughter was offered Gator Engineering at Santa Fe. Seriously considering it.