FYI
UF has an open house on 11/23/15 (Monday). They do this once a year, and it’s open to students in grades 9-12. Think of it as a super sized campus visit/tour. They will go into much more detail about UF, admissions, finances, college life, etc. They also have breakout sessions with each of the 16 colleges (back in 2013, we went to the Engineering and then CLAS breakouts). It runs from 10 am to 3 pm.
Do you work at UF?
Nope, Alumni with a daughter is in her 2nd year and son (HS junior) who will be applying in 2016 (for Fall 2017). So I’m keeping up on this admissions stuff. \m/
We got a lot more out of the open house, than we did the standard tour. I would also recommend the “specialize” tours, like the College of Engineering tour and the Honor college tour (Afternoon with Honors).
Only once a year??? We received that email, but we can’t attend on that date. I just figured we’d wait until they have the next one. Shoot!
Another question–do they place admissions consideration on whether you have visited campus? We’re oos, so it’s more difficult.
@gertyberty Yes, but not to a great extent. You’ll find that UF’s holistic admissions is 50% based on academics, such as GPA (most important), class rigor, essay and test scores (least important). The other 50% is nonacademic, extracurricular activities, volunteer work, work experience, leadership, etc. In this nonacademic category would fall “level of applicant’s interest”, but it’s given less weight that those other items I mentioned.
If you can, definitely try to do an “official” tour, it may help your chances slightly, but it will go a long ways to helping you make a decision about UF. 
In the past we scheduled a standard tour in the morning, followed by an engineering tour in the afternoon. To get the most out of your visit, you may want to schedule two different tours (like the afternoon with honors tour…etc.).
Good Luck!
@Gator88NE Thank you so much for all your expertise. I am also contemplating taking my son to the open house. I have questions regarding updating the Ssar with his senior grades. He is in IB and tons of EC. Do you think it is worth the effort to go to the open house? We did a tour over the summer.
@wpmomfl I don’t think it’s really worth your effort. At this point, most of his questions (about admissions) have been answered, and he’s already done the tour. Once he’s accepted, he’ll have to attend the two day orientation, over the summer. He’ll get a LOT more info out of that (and it’s covers much of the same info as the open house event).
What he may want to attend in the spring, are the specific college tours (like Engineering or Honors program). Once he’s accepted, they have some additional student events in the spring, I know engineering has a one day event (around April) for accepted students.
You do NOT need to update the SSAR with his senior grades. UF will use the SSAR (8/9th thru 11th grade) to determine if he’s accepted. If he is accepted, UF will request his final High School transcripts. If you do poorly (think D’s or a bunch of C’s) in your senior year, UF “may” rescind the offer of admission.
In other words, he should keep your grades up (a few B’s are fine!) and try to have some fun before he graduates high school.
Good Luck!
Update:
Went today! A total debacle!! Waited 1:15 in line at parking garage to get bussed to campus, many behind us. Was sent email to “sign up” only to find out it was open for anyone to walk in and they “did not expect the turnout” thus we all were waiting together signed up or not! Then no representative other than grad students to actually talk to from our interest major. We were told we could walk 15 minutes across campus and walk into the office. We could do that any day. We had already done a tour and applied so the rest of the options were repeat. Waited 40 minutes for bus tour that told us less than the previous walking tour and only pointed out about 6 buildings as we drove around…we then waited another 20 minutes with many others who were leaving at about 12:30-1:00. Got a couple of answers not ones we liked. Very disappointed…for my student and me.
^^^ Went also, and it did S#&*. We gave up on waiting for the bus at the (full) parking garage and hiked over to the O Dome. They have very few breakouts and events (what, no sessions for the school of business?), and folks got kicked out of several (Honors and Engineering, that we attended or attempted to attend) due to overcrowding.
Overall it was poorly supported and organized. I went to the one in 2012 and it was a far better experience. Then it was held in the large Ballroom (Not H, G, whatever), we sat through each presentation (didn’t have to hike around campus, only to be told it was “full”), and then they had two breakouts where we could go to a presentation done by each college, lead by a senior advisor(employee) and not two students. They also manage attendance (when it was full, they stopped folks from signing up), and parked in the fairly close commuter parking lot, no need for buses.
How do you do it “right”, and then put on this sorry show?!
I also attended with my D. We had a good day and she really enjoyed the experience even though it was indeed a total debacle. We arrived at Honors presentation a 1/2 hour early and were lucky to get a seat. It was really awkward when about a third of those in the room were asked to leave due to exceeding the room capacity.
The biggest disappointment was the double speak during the Admission session. They seemed to turn “Holistic Evaluation” into “we will know what we want when we see it.”
Because you can. UF is an awesome public university with high demand! 
Still, I’m relieved now that we didn’t go! Too much going on this week.
Unfortunately, I am starting to agree with CaucasianDad. My daughter has visited a few times and we are out of state so hasn’t been easy. While she was down there, she decided to go to UCF open house which was on friday. UF is her dream school but we have made her visit other FL schools to compare “apples to apples”. Can’t compare any florida school to Syracuse (BRRRRRR). She was very impressed with UCF and that open house was run well and went smoothly. They closed registration and offered another in the spring. That might have helped. UF probably needs to do the same. But once she got to UF, even with the chaos and huge long line (and yes she pre-registred) she just knew this is where she wants to be. But trying to get straight answers via website, email or phone calls has not always been easy. Different answer to her questions every time she goes and depending on who she talks to. She even got different answers from our local rep. UF is probably out of her reach strictly based on SAT and GPA (slightly below the middle range) but the “holistic” admissions they brag about gave her hope. Not sure if thats such a good thing. Once she filled out her application she felt as though there was not enough opportunity to show she who she is, how she is ready for that school and why she even wants to go there. As far as essay which they say holds a lot of weight, she was told to talk about something not in the application so they could get a better sense of who she is. But the topics didn’t really help with that. Ended up being a cute true story to “catch their attention” because they said make it memorable but I wouldn’t say it gave a great sense of they type of person she is especially with the character limit. How can you accomplish all they say? At this point after this open house, she is more discouraged than ever. She said the admissions officers didn’t seem like they wanted to give anyone the time of day. Its very disappointing to me that a 17 year old took her thanksgiving break as an opportunity to go down there, get to know the campus and faculty a little more, and become more excited about the possibility of getting her education there but instead was made to feel like she was “bothering them” or that she was “taking them away from their other job”. I realize they have an large number of applicants but I would think if they really have a holistic admissions, somehow they would find a way to take this opportunity to get to know the people who are applying. Especially since essays can be written by others, EC and CS can be exaggerated or even false. I almost wish they would just be honest and say "you need the numbers, you need to look good on paper and just leave the admissions department alone to do their job. I would be ok with that.