<p>I've been hearing from a lot of people how UF is declining in rankings and will continue decline, while schools like FSU and U Miami are on the rise...</p>
<p>I turned down U Miami, which cost about the same as UF for me due to scholarships, because I felt that UF would be just as good of a school for me for what I wanted to study (pre-med). I liked the traditional college atmosphere of UF more.. Now I feel that perhaps I made a mistake.. </p>
<p>I guess what I want to know is.. is UF still a top school? I know that it's not with the likes of Harvard, Duke, Cornell, etc., but I'm pretty sure U Miami and FSU aren't either... I haven't declined U Miami, and it's still technically an option for me.. so I am unsure if I should just stick with UF, where I will be majoring in Chemistry and plan to pursue an MD/Ph.D, or if I should drop UF and go to Miami and major in Biology or Biomedical Engineering with a pre-med focus so that I can also pursue an MD/Ph.D.</p>
<p>I heard that the only reason UF isn’t a top 20 school is because of the high faculty/student ratio. But, who knows. It’s really subjective and based on US News and World Report. Ranking is definitely important, but it’s not everything. </p>
<p>On a side note, everyone who finds out I’m going to UF says “Oh! That’s really great!” “That’s a really hard school to get into!” “You must be really smart!”.</p>
<p>I turned down a top 20 school to go to UF. The most important thing is that you’re happy and you take advantage of any and every opportunity presented to you.</p>
<p>Rankings also have to do with the amount of money available for research and professors salaries. The main reason UF dropped was because of the cuts coming from the Governor.</p>
<p>You chose the right school. Just ask the corporate recruiters which Florida University they consider #1? UF is it always has been always will be.</p>
<p>I know the recruiter for one of the worlds largest corporations. She hires engineers and business school graduates both MBA and bachelors the only university in Florida they recruit at is UF. She told me that this is the case with many of the larger corporations.</p>
<p>I asked her why this was the case? Why not recruit at UM, FSU or UCF her response was that the quality of students that attend UF is superior to the other schools.</p>
<p>I questioned her on this. She told me to think about UF’s admissions policy vs the other schools. UF selects the best students from each high school this insures that UF graduates the best students.</p>
<p>Take it for what its worth this is what she told me.</p>
<p>ufiscool - I agree with the above posters. I initially was concerned about my son’s UF choice because they did not offer him scholarship money when all the other schools did. But I have since gotten past that and realized they didn’t offer it to him because they didn’t have to, that’s a recruitment tool that schools give you to choose them…most of the top students from each high school will go there regardless. The valedictorian of my son’s school was offered plenty elsewhere and chose to go to UF along with most of the top graduates in my son’s school. Think about it, the best and brightest of the Florida public schools overwhelming choose UF. And gator4ever is absolutely right regarding recruiting. Top recruiters pick UF 1st in the state and 9th in the country for recruiting. Here’s the link to the Wall Street Journal article [Best</a> Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ.com](<a href=“Best Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ”>Best Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ)</p>
<p>And there’s a big gap in rankings between UF and FSU, and a huge gap to UCF. I would say let your mind rest easy and enjoy the full college experience you’ll get from being a Gator. It’s true, the Gator Nation is everywhere and it will serve you well in the future.</p>
<p>Thank you, everyone! I feel a bit more reassured now. </p>
<p>I know it shouldn’t matter what others say, but I guess I am just influenced by what my peers say, who tell me that Miami surpasses UF and that as a pre-med student, UM is the superior choice… I know that for engineering, UF is vastly superior to Miami and every other school in the state, and hell, even in the southeast (except GT, of course, which I was accepted to as well), but I’m not sure how their medical programs stack up… I hear some say that they are similar, and I hear others say that UM is much better…</p>
<p>FLnative28, I do not agree 100% with your comments. I am not anti UF–on the contrary, my son will be attending UF this fall as a freshman and was accepted into the honors program. He was not offered any sholarship money from UF. My family is not affluent-as evidenced by qualifying for Pell grant money. My son had choices to several universities–as I’m sure others accepted to UF and especially the Honors programe did as well. He did not want to be to far from home–at least for now. However, when comparing UF with other elite public universities, he was also accepted to UNC Chapel-Hill. UNC is considered a public ivy, rated by many as the best public univiersity in the country, and definitely in the top 5 publics. UNC offered scholarship money that even though considered out of state (unlike UF), our true “all in” cost would have been within 3k per year of UF, excluding travel. I left the decision to him and he chose UF which I support 100%–it is his life and decision to make. The best universities, private and public want the best students and will incentivize those students to attend their schools. I believe UF is relying on it’s past rankings, perception, crutch of Bright Futures, and maybe even pre-paid program. I witnesed many of the top students in his public high school graduating class (colleges were named at graduation) that chose out of state schools–my son told me it was because of scholarship money. I believe other FL schools are closing the gap with UF. Is UF aware of this–UF is campaigning hard to charge higher tuition–“market rate” (only UF and FSU would qualify)to keep up with other top public universities. If UF ratings are slipping while other Florida schools are rising, allowing UF to charge higher tuition does’nt seem to make sense-IMO.</p>
<p>I understand, and this is a major concern that I have… the declining rankings. I feel that with U Miami, I would be more secure, but I do like UF more… I have no clue what to do about the situation… </p>
<p>As for the tuition increases, what else is UF supposed to do? They need more funding, and I wouldn’t mind paying more tuition if it meant that the quality of the school would remain top notch. I hate hearing that people only choose UF for financial reasons, and not because they actually like the school. I understand if one cannot afford an out of state school, but one complaint I have with UF is that all the smart kids, or the kids who were accepted to other top schools, don’t even like UF.</p>
<p>I think that saying “all the smart kids don’t even like UF” is really much too large of an assumption you can’t make. The majority of UF is die hard, bleeding blue and orange. Even if it wasn’t their first choice, after the first year very few imagine being other places or for that matter want to leave. Just look at the retention rate. I think you need to choose based on what you like. Let’s put it this way. UF does have good academics no matter what anyone says. Yes they aren’t ivy, but still awesome. We have awesome sports, awesome people, awesome atmosphere. If you like those things then I think you made a smart choice. The amount of decline UF could take over the next four years, at least in my opinion, couldn’t be soooo drastic that it would change career options or learning chances for you. anything beyond those 4 years doesn’t really affect you.(unless grad school at UF or 5 year plan, but you get the point)</p>
<p>I’ll be attending this summer as a freshman. The way I see it is you have to be towards the top to fall. Schools like FSU and UCF are both solid, no doubt about that, but are suffering similar budget cuts. However nobody cries wolf because in my eyes, they never attained or were hyped to the level that UF was. Does that kind of make sense?</p>
<p>las9436 - I went thru all this a few months ago when my son decided on UF so I’ll share with you how I came to that reasoning. My son was also accepted at UNC Chapel Hill as well as some other great schools who all offered scholarship money. They can do this for out of state applicants because even with the scholarship money you’ll be receiving from them you’ll still be paying pretty close to their in state rate anyway. UF does this too, they offer the Sunshine, Orange and Blue, and Gator Nation Scholarships to out of state students only. Because the out of state rate is 5 times the in state rate. So if the talented out of state kid goes there they’ll be paying pretty close if not more than the in state kid. Win-win for the school. UNC is very much like Florida in that they offer out very little academic scholarships in state. Like UF they know they will get a lot of the top students in the state already. If you look thru past posts you’ll find this conversation I had with a UNC mom, we were talking about how UNC and UF are so similar in this way. Also the original Public Ivy list was released back in 1985, when a new book was written in 2001 UF was also on the list. [Public</a> Ivy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Ivy]Public”>Public Ivy - Wikipedia) And Kiplinger just ranked UF #2 right after UNC Chapel Hill as the best public school value in the country. [Best</a> Values in Public Colleges, 2011-12](<a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/colleges/]Best”>Best College Values, 2019 | Kiplinger) As far as the other in state Florida schools…my son got offered money from every one one of them as I’m sure your son did. Truth is they are competing with UF for the top students and this is the only incentive they can really offer. When FSU called the house one afternoon to speak with my son about his pending decision (he was at work) I kindly let them know he had already decided on another school, they asked which school and I told them UF. I got a sigh and an “Oh, OK thank you”, that said she hears that quite a bit. I also don’t really get the whole dropping in the ranking thing either…are we talking two or three spots? There is still a huge gap between them and the next closest public school, FSU. And ufiscool’s comment “all smart kids don’t even like UF”…that sure wasn’t the case at my son’s school. He attended a top 50 public high school and the great majority of his peers (top 2%) including the valedictorian are going to UF so I don’t see that being true. I guess in the end it doesn’t matter what anyone else says, you have to choose what feels right to you. My son didn’t apply to UM because it wasn’t they type of school atmosphere he wanted. Everyone’s different and what’s right for one person isn’t necessarily right for another. I had another parent on here give me some really great advice who has been through all of this…we were deciding between UF and UNC Chapel Hill at the time…he private messaged me so as to not stir up the UNC board and told me that he felt that for undergraduate studies UNC and UF were pretty much the same (he attended UNC himself and still lived there). He had been from Florida and choose UNC…and he said while he loved UNC he didn’t feel that UNC had done anything for him (as an undergraduate) that UF couldn’t have. He said where UNC shines is in it’s graduate studies and after some research I have to say I agree with this (and think the same of UF). Ufiscool, I wish you the best with your decision, I think you’ll be happy with wherever you choose because it will be “your” school. Good luck :)</p>
<p>UF is by far still the best school in the state, U.S. News rankings be damned. If med school doesn’t work out and you instead decide to go get a Ph.D or find a job out of state after your BS, you’ll be glad you went to UF over UM. Premed is a highly standardized curriculum and so I can’t see how one school would be better than another unless you’re talking about benefiting from grade inflation.</p>
<p>Honestly, go where you’ll be happy. As a pre-med junior in college, I can tell you that being pre-med is hard, but it’s even more difficult if you are unhappy. It’s more important to succeed in college than to pick a college that is slightly better than another. With stressful classes and pressure to participate in more extracurriculars than you can fit into a day, you need to be somewhere that you enjoy, so that you don’t add depression to your list of stressors.</p>
<p>Pre-med isn’t a major. I chose UF over Miami because I saw that the graduate rankings for the sciences was way higher, and that most of the graduate rankings were higher, so I thought that perhaps research opportunities would be better… Plus, I liked UF more… it seemed more intellectual to me (I know that there is a huge party atmosphere, but I felt that in the academic sphere, people wanted to study what they were studying for the sake of learning, and not because they wanted a job, if that makes sense…)</p>
<p>I just don’t want to regret my college decision, as I worry that perhaps Miami was a better choice…</p>
<p>ufiscool - You sound like you really WANT to go to UF…if you had chosen UM I think you be regretting not going to UF more. And remember nothing is permanent you could always transfer into UM later if UF is not working for you. Or go to graduate school at UM. I think you should go with you gut, go to UF and stop worrying so much! It’s a great school and you’ll love being a Gator!</p>
<p>My son has been at UF for one year now. He was accepted by:
UNC
GA Tech
Texas A&M
UM
UCF</p>
<p>He choose UF over the rest primarily because he is majoring in Env Engineering. His passion is the Florida Everglades and its restoration. He was offered scholarships at UM full ride, UNC70%, UCF full ride, Texas A&M 50%. He choose UF because if you are planning on working in Florida and being envolved in the Environmant. UF was the obvious choice.</p>
<p>The fact that our home is a Gator home and the Gators is all he has heard, seen and experienced all of his life, made the decision a no brainer.</p>
<p>UF offered 0 dollars. But that is OK. I am proud to pay his expenses. We have a deal: if he keeps his GPA over a 3.5 Mom and Dad will pay every dime. So far he is holding strong at 3.85.</p>
<p>I will repeat this. Every student in his HS class of 778 that was accepted by UF are at Uf today. Some had to start in the Summer. My son and one other student started in the Fall. Every student that was turned down by UF are either at UCF, or FSU today.</p>
<p>Thank you for the support, everyone! I feel a lot better now. I went to orientation, and loved it. I feel that UF is my home now. Everyone was really nice, and my honors adviser was great. I’m going to major in biochemistry, and plan on applying to top medical schools.</p>
I hear some say that they are similar, and I hear others say that UM is much better…</p>