I got rejected from 15 out of the 16 schools I applied to

Applying to College Admission Stories
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Total undergraduate fall enrollment in degree-granting postsecondary institutions, by attendance status, sex of student, and control and level of institution: Selected years, 1970 through 2029 shows the following numbers in 2018 for reference:

Control of institution Number of undergraduates Percentage of undergraduates
All 16,610,235 100.0%
Public 13,049,326 78.6%
Private 3,560,909 21.4%
Private Non-Profit 2,821,653 17.0%
Private For-Profit 739,256 4.4%

It is easy to tell whether a public college (other than one that is open-admission by policy) has extra capacity to absorb additional students if its competitor private colleges closed by noting how selective it is. Less selective colleges are the most likely to have extra capacity. The more selective ones would simply become more competitive to gain admission to, probably resulting in some “push down” mentioned previously (obviously if a private college that is less selective closed, then a more selective public college would not see “push down”).

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They’ll be bumped to other public schools. Lots of directionals (and some flagships) are far from max capacity (or their peak historical enrollment) right now.

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Florida doesn’t have enough room. It has a resident grant so that students will stay instate because there isn’t enough room at the state universities; it’s about 40% of instate tuition, so about $3500. Students can also use BF at private schools.

My daughter enjoyed her time at a private school, only possible because of Pell, SEOG, Bright Futures, Florida resident grant, the private school’s merit and athletic awards. The same opportunities weren’t available to her at the public schools.

Why take that opportunity away from her? Her school provides a lot of public service work, has a very big ROTC program, trains NASA engineers and other scientists for the government. They have students on defense department scholarships, astronaut scholarships, interning at government agencies. Professors get government grants. Why shouldn’t students get the benefits of Pell, SEOG, loans? (well of course they do)

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My friends who had similar profiles got into many of these schools
I’m international, these were some of the only schools I could apply to to get some aid.

Students who need financial aid should have several financial safeties/likelies on their lists. When you’re following the money things like prestige, atmosphere, location, selectivity, etc. are luxuries. I think your list needed more true safeties.

It’s great that you have an affordable option. I wouldn’t waste my time worrying about why you didn’t get more acceptances. Focus your energies on the school that accepted you.

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A couple of things that I find interesting in that site. First is the number of students has nearly doubled. Second, that most of that has been women. The number of women attending has nearly tripled from 1970 to 2021, the number of men has increased by around 50%. Finally, that while the number of students applying has fallen recently, the number of students applying to 4 year institutions has increased slightly or remained flat. The fall off has been at 2 year institutions.

Supply and demand would indicate that prices would increase dramatically. It would also indicate that admission rates at the perceived "elite’ universities would plummet. I think perception has changed over the last 50 years. Where once a college degree from nearly anywhere was an indication a person had certain intelligence and skills today the perception is that the degrees value is dependent on where the degree is received. There are a lot of other conclusions I might infer from the data but they aren’t relevant to this conversation.

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Also, publics can increase the number they admit.

There are also large public which are neither directional nor flagships, like the different SUNY campuses (Stony Brook, for example), the UC campuses, UIC and UIS, MSU, VTech, and many many others.

Florida seems to be an exception, maybe because it has experienced population growth, and has not done enough to adjust the sizes and capacities of its universities.

Texas has experienced similar growth, but seems to have kept up, more or less.

I kinda have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, the state should be investing that money in their public university system. On the other hand, providing the same funding that a student would get at a public school to a Florida students who wants to attend a private school in Florida opens up more opportunities for Florida students.

In any case, Florida does not have enough space at its public universities for all students who have the academic capabilities to attend college, and also wants students to stay in FL. So providing these funds is a good temporary solution to help all of the students who would be able to afford in-state tuition, but cannot afford the tuition for private colleges or for OOS colleges.

I also think that private colleges in FL often give precedence in admissions to FL residents, but I may be wrong.

But, as I mentioned, Florida is an exception, and most public universities have plenty of space. Many do not charge extra for OOS students. Florida should also increase the capacities of its public universities.

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@purplemama our star sighting was Sarah Jessica Parker touring Brown with her S21 in the Fall of 2019! :star_struck:

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did you apply for fin aid? you would be considered an international given your circumstances (I know this because I was in the exact same shoes as you)

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UCF already has 50,000 undergrads. How many should they admit?

I do think more Florida students go to private Florida universities because they are more affordable with the resident grants, BF, and other state aid. At my daughter’s school, there were about 3500 undergrads on campus. About 1/3 international, 1/3 Florida residents, and 1/3 from other states. If you took those 1200 Florida residents and dumped them into the Florida public school system, that’s 1200 students who would be bumped to a lower ranked university or community college. Do that with Rollins, Florida Southern, Stetson, Lynn, St Leo’s (all with similar instate/OOS splits) and the system is overwhelmed.

I don’t agree that other states have excess room at their universities. Most flagships and other state 4 year colleges accept to capacity every year. Dorms are full, parking lots are full. California, Colorado, Texas, Michigan…full.

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Flagships aren’t the the only publics that exist (contrary to what you may see on CC).

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In California, CSUB, CSUCI, CSUDH, CSUStan, HSU and SFSU are not full, indicated by admitting students meeting baseline requirements (as opposed to competitive admission needed to prevent going over capacity).

This is probably true of some state universities in other states mentioned.

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UNF has 17,000 and UWF has 13,000, so both have much more space to expand. So do Florida Gulf Coast, Florida A&M, etc.

The Florida public college and university system is more than UFL, UCF, and FSU.

The entire Florida public college system has, including the community colleges, 730,000 students. That of, say, Texas, is twice that, at 1,420,000. The population of Florida is 21.5 million, while that of Texas is 29 million. There are large differences in the number of college age students and that many of those students are graduate students, however, Florida universities also have larger numbers of OOS students than do Texas universities. But even without those considerations, the fact that Texas colleges enroll almost twice as many students as do the Florida ones means that Florida is not doing a good job in keeping up with their growing student population.

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UNF is in the city of Jacksonville. It could never grow to 50,000 students. It used to require that all freshmen, even local, live on campus and couldn’t even keep up with that requirement and now allows freshmen to live off campus. It’s growning, but painful growth. Florida has lots of smaller schools but the students aren’t as interested in them. New College doesn’t even have 1000 students, and not one from my kids’ hs went there. If they want a small honors type college, they head to Rollins or another private.

My daughter wanted to play lacrosse and the only public school in the state that had a varsity team was UF. She wasn’t good enough for that team (often ranked in the top 5). Her choices were to go to a private school in Florida or go OOS. Florida wanted her to stay instate so gave her the grants she needed.

Florida is supporting its private schools because it wants to run its higher ed that way. I’m glad.

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However, keep in mind that only 18% Florida HS graduates get Bright Futures (most don’t qualify due to the higher requirements, some get better offers or find better fits OOS). There was a while when BF wasn’t fully funded – at least now it is, but requirements have been drastically increased compared to the original setting, reducing the number of students who qualify.

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Could be letters of rec? Most of those schools want 35 or 36 ACT. That trumps everything else bc they can advertise those stats.
St Olaf surprises me as that’s not that hard to get into usually. Maybe just bad luck or timing. :frowning: Miami Ohio is good school!! Don’t worry about honors. Write and ask them if any way to join later. They may now have space or may say you can join second semester if you do well in first semester. Don’t lament the other schools… Go with excitement to the place that wants you!!

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I think you are an excellent student with an impressive resume - don’t beat yourself up! I think you applied to too many extremely selective schools and this leads you to think you were rejected by so many. Keep in mind that you would have been accepted to many more schools if you had expanded your choices a bit. That being said, you will do well wherever you go with these kinds of grades.