Chances for UF

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

Unweighted GPA: 3.5
UF 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: 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. Curious to hear thoughts from the group.

2

Clearly the GPA and test scores aren’t in her favor (i.e. they won’t be what gets her in). However they’re not terrible, and UF likes to see its applicants challenge themselves in their coursework, which your daughter is definitely doing. (A 4.0 in all “regular” courses wouldn’t be as impressive, IMO) Her extracurriculars look super strong, and that IS something that will give her an edge in the applicant pool! (unfortunately being a legacy doesn’t seem to count for much these days)

Also the girl scout project sounds really interesting, I hope she had time to touch on that in her essay. (Even if she didn’t, hopefully she was able to briefly describe it elsewhere because it really does sound unusual) With a strong essay and a strong extracurrucular interest, I think her chances are pretty good.

Certainly not definite, but a very decent chance.

Fingers crossed for you!

3

thanks.

4

@Gator88NE, would love your feedback as you seem like the UF goto!

5

Well, I think @Trisherella nailed it. Her GPA and test scores are a bit low, but class rigor and ECs are strong. The essay really matters, especially for your daughter, who’s EC’s are so strong.

It’s really hard to say anything about her chances, other than she does have a chance, with students matching her stats getting into UF. So much depends on her EC’s, and essay, which are subjective.

Check out section C of the Common Data set (if you haven’t already):

https://ir.aa.ufl.edu/media/iraaufledu/common-data-set/CDS_2017-2018_UFMain_Dec2017.pdf

Keep in mind that 25% of the students admitted to UF have the same or lower test scores and GPA.

Even if not admitted, it’s fairly easy (if you have the college grades) to transfer into UF’s Digital Arts and Sciences in Engineering program (it’s not crazy competitive like Mechanical engineering or finance), so going to UNF or UCF for a year or two (likely with a merit based scholarship to help pay for the cost) and then transferring to UF is not a bad option!

Good Luck!

6

Thank you @Gator88NE. Excellent feedback and guidance. I read the Washington Post article from this week, which you also shared, and one impression it gives is that the holistic admissions is meant to identify students with hardships of one kind or another but not necessarily late bloomers or kids with strong leadership yet borderline numbers. It was a bit disheartening, to be honest. thanks again to you and @Trisherella. In a month, we will know for sure.

7

This holistic stuff is all mystic mumbo jumbo to me. :slight_smile:

I’ve gone though waiting till the “2nd Friday in February” with two kids and it’s never fun. It does help to have several other acceptances lined up, while you wait…

After listening to AO’s on a few campus tours, etc., it’s clear that they do value leadership (it’s something they called out). In general, what they value is effort and time. They want to say, He/She had these grades while taking these courses and doing this stuff (EC, sports, etc.). That’s why they value, something like work, as a plus. The student wasn’t setting around all day playing video games and studying for class, they also worked, competed in sports, volunteered, etc. They are more impressed with someone with a 3.5 GPA that worked 20 hours a week, than someone with a 3.7 GPA that didn’t.

Overcoming hardships is also highly valued (to what degree? who knows). I think (based on ZERO insider knowledge) it’s used as a proxy to make the class more racially and socially (low income students) diversified (in the state of Florida, you can’t use race in admissions). About 25% of UF’s freshman receive Pell Grants.

On the other hand, I saw that one year about 35% to 40% of UF freshman were legacies…

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