<p>I have a child for some reason is looking at schools in Florida. Is it a good idea to be looking at schools in Florida are their any top tier schools down there?</p>
<p>I live in Florida… Not to get too personal, what are GPA/SAT scores? My son looked at quite a few schools here, he only ended up applying to 3 of them, but he visited about 10 of them over the past 18 months.</p>
<p>He is got above a 1300 SAT and a 3.8 GPA. Since you live in FL :), we received a brochure from the University of Miami, what’s the reputation of the school. I know when I looked it up on Google… party school came up a bit.</p>
<p>I can only speak to admission rates from Florida applicants, I am not sure how out of state admissions may differ.</p>
<p>From what I have seen, usually with those scores and that GPA students apply to Miami, Florida and the Honors program at Florida State. </p>
<p>Miami and Florida probably have the 2 best reputations in Florida during the admissions process, but they both also have mixed reviews when it comes to students actually attending. </p>
<p>Florida is known for large class sizes, little counseling help and a lot of partying. Somewhere I read that it was ranked as the # 1 school in the country for the least amount of time that students study. </p>
<p>For out of state residents Miami can be overwhelming when you visit. It is the Florida you see on TV, beaches, lots of water, boats, nice cars, south beach, etc… Miami however is also high on crime and has a lot of bad areas and a lot of drugs. </p>
<p>Florida State seems to get a lot of in state interest because you can get admitted with about an 1100 SAT. Florida is about 1300+ for an in state resident. </p>
<p>There are a lot of reviews of FSU being a party school also, but it is a lot smaller then Florida. The FSU campus is more of a traditional campus, where Florida is very spread out and a lot of kids take public transportation or ride bikes to get around. 50,000 + students makes it a pretty large environment.</p>
<p>New College of Florida and Florida Southern get mixed reviews. Both are expensive and private, both appear to give good aid packages though to try and make it affordable. We visited both and ruled both out. We really didn’t care for either environment. Both environments felt like the student would spend 4 years on campus with not much off campus activity.</p>
<p>UCF, USF and UNF are smaller schools with a lot of instate interest. UNF is probably the closest to a beach area of the group. I imagine beach life is a reason an out of state student would want to come to Florida.</p>
<p>I would look at programs each offer to see if it is a strength of the college. My son applied to Florida, FSU and Florida Southern after visiting a lot of colleges. He was accepted to all of them. The only other school he considered in Florida was Miami but the environment was not perceived to be as good as Florida or FSU by his counselors and they pointed out some concerns he should have about the student body and the surrounding area. Right or wrong, he chose not to apply there.</p>
<p>He ruled out FSU Honors because Florida has a better reputation and if he was staying in state he wanted to go to the school with the better reputation.</p>
<p>Florida Southern was ruled out because of a bad overnight visit in which existing students told him there was nothing to do in the area and 100% of their time was spent on campus. He is not a partier by any means, but he also didn’t want to be locked on a campus for 4 years. He could have just had bad hosts, but he left his visit with no interest in the school.</p>
<p>So, that left him with his only remaining Florida school as the University of Florida. It is choice # 2. He is currently waitlisted at his # 1 choice which is in the Northeast US.</p>
<p>As I said earlier, Florida probably has the best reputation of all of the schools in Florida. Students generally have the perception that going to Florida will open future doors for them in jobs, in grad school applications and in life. When a high school student gets accepted to Florida down here people generally know that the student was a very good student and there is often shock when 4.0 GPA students with 1300+ SAT scores get denied. It happens.</p>
<p>Isn’t it hard to get accepted to UFlorida as an out of state resident? </p>
<p>bobcat61: Do you have a budget or is money no object? Out of state rates for most publics is expensive. UMiami is expensive, but might give some merit with a bit higher scores.</p>
<p>How high in the rankings do you want when you ask about top tier schools?</p>
<p>rjpfl5, the information you’re providing isn’t very accurate. I take issue with a lot of the tings you wrote but I think the most egregiously misleading are the following statements:</p>
<p>“New College of Florida and Florida Southern get mixed reviews. Both are expensive and private, both appear to give good aid packages though to try and make it affordable. We visited both and ruled both out. We really didn’t care for either environment. Both environments felt like the student would spend 4 years on campus with not much off campus activity.”</p>
<p>NCF is public, not private.</p>
<p>“UCF, USF and UNF are smaller schools with a lot of instate interest. UNF is probably the closest to a beach area of the group. I imagine beach life is a reason an out of state student would want to come to Florida.”</p>
<p>UCF is the largest school in Florida! USF is the third largest… Both of which are in the top 10 nationally for number of students currently enrolled, so your claim that they are “smaller schools” is just ridiculous.</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshmen at the U of Miami. She is a top student (3.96 uw GPA/ 2100 SAT) and LOVES this school.</p>
<p>Miami is a great city and she takes the metro and buses to explore and is just fine! No different than NY, Boston, Chicago, LA. There are good areas and bad, you have to be street smart. </p>
<p>The school itself is NOT in Miami, but in Coral Gables, a very upscale suburb. I feel the campus and surrounding area are quite safe. </p>
<p>The party school rep is very undeserved. Sure kids party, but not as much as at a lot of other schools. Miami is VERY generous with their merit scholarships and they attract a lot of top students from around the country.</p>
<p>I recommend this school wholeheartedly! They have small class sizes and the professors (who actually teach their own classes) are very approachable and interested in the students. Some even give the kids their cell phone numbers!</p>
<p>What is your son’s intended major? I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.</p>
<p>Gordon… When touring UCF the information they provided is that in total enrollment (something like 50k+) that a good portion of that enrollment was non-traditional, adult education, night class or commuter enrollment. I believe the total enrollment between UF and UCF is close, my comments are geared more towards a kid staying on campus for a 4 year term. I just looked for actual numbers of both UF and UCF and couldn’t find a catagory outlining enrollment just for this. UCF themselves did not represent themselves as the largest school in Florida in this regard during the tour. </p>
<p>My mistake on New College. We toured, didn’t like, did look real hard at it. They market themselves very similar to small college Liberal Arts Schools and don’t make it very well known that they are a public school. That is good info.</p>
<p>My information is from actual tours and info provided. Every person visits a school and leaves with their own opinion. You can disagree, but these are my opinions.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the information :)</p>
<p>Just pulled out my notes from tours… The UCF tour gave information saying that a little over 5,000 students live on campus. The Florida tour gave information that about 12,000 live on campus. UCF is large, did not try to portray it as small, however, as a parent doing a tour there is a huge difference in the “feeling” of how large the campuses are. Florida felt much larger and more spread out then UCF.</p>
<p>In comment to Miami. For people in Florida you guys probably will understand this… There is a huge difference in opinion of schools here. If you live in North Florida, Miami isn’t looked at too positively. If you live in Northeast Florida then Florida State also isn’t looked at positively. If you live in Northwest Florida then UF isn’t the best. </p>
<p>The reality is that they are all decent schools. They all have positive and negative perceptions about them. Not being from Florida originally it was easy to look past a lot of that and do the tours. But there are families and kids that are born and bred to think negatively about other schools in the state. People here at times seem fanatical about their support for 1 school and dislike of others.</p>
<p>As long as we are in Florida - how do you feel about Eckerd as a safety school for a male B+ student who might want to major in business?</p>
<p>If you are interested in a small LAC then consider Rollins College in Winter Park Fl. It is outside Orlando so there is plenty to do. Merit aid is pretty good. Highly recommend.</p>
<p>I’m with SweetTea, I would definitely go with Rollins over Eckerd especially for business.</p>
<p>Correct me if I’m wrong - but I did look at Rollins and the major was International business - my son hates foreign language - so wasn’t sure about the fit. I saw they have a 3/2 MBA program - but not sure how hard that might be. Here in the mid-Atlantic - Rollins has sort of a wealthy kid, country club image - what do you think?</p>
<p>Lots of luck gaining acceptance to FSU with an 1100 SAT.
See: [FSU</a> Highlights](<a href=“http://www.fsu.edu/highlights/students.html]FSU”>Strong Students and Outcomes | Florida State University)</p>
<p>S attend Rollins and yes the stereotypes were a concern but then alot of college has those stereotypes so he wasn’t too concerned. S is a laid-back kid and says there are all types on campus. While it is a small campus it is not hard to find your group that fits your personality. Rollins looks like a country club and is gorgeous. Not necessarily snobby or pretentious which is a complete turnoff to S. He just chooses not to associate with the kind of people that might flaunt their wealth but overall he doesn’t feel it is overwhelming. His friends are from the northeast and Florida. He is from the southwest. His roommate is in the 3/2 MBA program and he never heard any issues of concern. Don’t know too much about the program otherwise. It is worth a visit if you look at other Florida schools. It may or may not stay on the list. S is very happy there.</p>
<p>Interesting - I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for your input.</p>
<p>Plenty of students get accepted to FSU with an 1100. In looking at my son’s schools Naviance account, since they started using Naviance (a few years now) the average SAT score accepted to FSU from his school is below an 1100, the average GPA from his school accepted to FSU is a 3.4.</p>
<p>Naviance also reports that the middle 50% of kids accepted ranges from 24-28 on the ACT and from 1050-1200 on the SAT.</p>
<p>1300 gets admission to the FSU Honors College.</p>
<p>“the only other school he considered in Florida was Miami but the environment was not perceived to be as good as Florida or FSU by his counselors and they pointed out some concerns he should have about the student body and the surrounding area. Right or wrong, he chose not to apply there.”</p>
<p>Wow, I guess those counselors must have a thing against “their” students going to the school in state with the highest test scores and far smaller class sizes. Maybe they thought Miami’s student body was too “different.” Maybe the low admit rate made them think twice about recommending UMiami?</p>
<p>Valedictorian son is at Miami (and we are OOS and he had numerous acceptances at great schools). Doing incredibly well. Miami is a great school with great academics. If you do research, you will see all the wonderful things going on in the school. Any professional (guidance counselor or other) that is negative, has obviously not done the research or knows much about the school. </p>
<p>We are thrilled with UM. Miami has become quite popular at our Long Island High School. The parent of a HS senior recently told my husband (and he did not know our son is a Junior at Miami) that all the “smart kids” are going to Miami. (Obvious exaggeration, but we do know three of them going.) Miami gives great merit aid and the top students get 3/4 to full tuition merit so it is a big draw.</p>
<p>UF is also a great school for your son to consider.</p>
<p>While Florida has a poor reputation as far as education (K-12) it has great universities. There are many other than the obvious (UF adn UM) to consider.</p>