<p>Ocean Cohen wanted to attend the University of Florida from the time she was an eighth-grader at Pine View School for gifted students in Osprey.</p>
<p>She thought she was a shoo-in. Her grade-point average exceeded an A. She belonged to the honors math club. She volunteered at her temple and an animal hospital. She was an all-state distance runner. She played saxophone in the school band.</p>
<p>Harvard invited her to apply. Harvard gave her an interview.</p>
<p>The University of Florida rejected her - even after she appealed the decision with seven letters of support from her high school teachers and principal.</p>
<p>"I don't know what else I could have done,'' the 18-year-old said.</p>
<p>Three years after university officials capped the size of its freshman class at about 6,600, competition at UF is at an all-time high, forcing admissions workers to choose among the brightest and leaving behind an unprecedented number of disappointed families.</p>
<p>Of those who applied to be part of this fall's incoming freshman class, an estimated 42 percent were accepted - the lowest acceptance rate in the history of the state's public schools.</p>
<p>Not only does the school boast the lowest tuition among similar-sized public schools in the nation, but compared with Florida's other state schools, it has the most rigorous admissions requirements and is ranked highest nationally.</p>
<p>Selectivity at the state's top university is expected to heighten as UF continues to work toward becoming one of the nation's Top 10 public universities - a status that depends, in part, upon turning away a large number of students.</p>
<p>In 2006, UF turned down more than half of freshman applicants for the first time. It showed in the incoming student body: The average grade-point averages exceeded an A for the first time - a first for any school in Florida, including New College, the state's honor college in Sarasota.</p>
<p>And, a record 57 percent of freshman students who were accepted actually enrolled, placing the school firmly in the realm of top picks rather than safety schools. By comparison, 37 percent of students accepted at Florida State University enrolled.</p>
<p>The driving force is Florida's fast population growth: The campus of 50,000 students, the fourth-largest in the nation, is at maximum capacity, said UF President Bernie Machen.</p>
<p>The recently approved tuition increase taking effect in 2008 will be used to pay off debt and begin a years-long process of driving down what has become one of the nation's highest student-to-teacher ratios.</p>
<p>UF's student-faculty ratio is 21-to-1, compared with 15-to-1 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and 14-to-1 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.</p>
<p>Expansion is not in the long-term plan.</p>
<p>"The city of Gainesville has a difficult time accommodating the student body we have now,'' Machen said. "If fewer want to come here and more want to go to other schools - that's the only way I can see it getting easier to get admitted.''</p>
<p>Educators predict a trickle-down effect will eventually allow the state to offer an education of similar quality through its other 10 universities.</p>
<p>But none yet garner the national prestige of UF, still the only Florida school to belong to the American Association of Universities, a group of the nation's top 62 research institutions.</p>
<p>"Long term, this is a beneficial thing for the state of Florida,'' said Terry Hartle, vice president of the American Council on Education. "Short term, there are consequences.''</p>
<p>Destination school</p>
<p>Ryan Moseley is the UF student body president and an international business graduate student. If he had to apply to UF again, he doubts he would get in.</p>
<p>Coming from a Coconut Creek prep school, he applied with a score of 30 on his ACT. But that was four years ago.</p>
<p>"My sister is a junior in high school, and she's going to have a much harder time, and we're about the same,'' Moseley said. "The younger people I know, the people I expected to get in, the 4.0s, you hear about them not getting in anymore.''</p>
<p>A student government survey showed that most UF students supported a tuition increase if the money would be used to increase the number of teachers on campus.</p>
<p>"A lot of times students complain about not being able to get into the courses they need to graduate,'' Moseley said. "There's not enough teachers for all the classes all the time, or you don't know your teacher that well because of how big your class size is.''</p>
<p>Campus chatter is a swirl of firsts. This month, the university's endowment exceeded $1 billion for the first time. Faculty produced enough inventions to finish in the nation's Top 10, behind schools like MIT and CalTech. Eight months ago, the school opened the Cancer & Genetics Research Complex, the largest research facility in the state.</p>
<p>In April, UF accomplished an unprecedented athletic three-peat, winning men's basketball, football and another men's basketball championships consecutively - a series of titles some speculate will attract even more applicants to the school.</p>
<p>UF ranks 13th among public universities by U.S. News and World Report. Ten years ago, it was not in the Top 50.</p>
<p>Last fall, almost half of students admitted to the freshman class scored above 1,300 on the SAT's verbal and math sections combined. Ten percent of freshmen admitted in 1994 scored that high.</p>
<p>The jump has impressed professors of even the most competitive programs.</p>
<p>"We always joke with each other: Could we get into our own programs nowadays?'' said Dr. Frank Bova, who teaches neurosurgery at UF.</p>
<p>The rise of the University of Florida is partly the result of an effort to raise money for research and recruit star faculty to boost its reputation.</p>
<p>But it is also a pronounced example of what has been happening at public universities around the nation since the 1990s. As more students elect to attend college, and college costs continue to outpace family incomes, public universities become attractive bargains.</p>
<p>Nowhere is that more evident than at UF, which has the lowest tuition for in-state students among major public universities around the country, according to a survey by USA Today.</p>
<p>More than 95 percent of freshmen at UF receive the state's free tuition Bright Futures scholarship.</p>
<p>The scholarship clinched the deal for Allen and Camille Hawkins of Panama City, whose daughter Lauren will attend UF this fall. Lauren was in the top 10 of her high school class, danced with a troupe and volunteered at her church.</p>
<p>"If we sent her anywhere else, it would have been at least $15,000,'' said Allen Hawkins.</p>
<p>The family does not expect their younger daughter to attend UF. Her grade average is an A-minus.</p>
<p>Machen said the admissions bottleneck is out of the school's hands; they simply cannot take more students.</p>
<p>"It really is unfortunate when you can't let more kids in because you top out,'' Machen said. "We had 4,000 to 5,000 kids this year who could have done well at the university, but we just didn't have room for them.''</p>
<p>The tension is probably most prevalent among alumni.</p>
<p>Paul Robell, vice president for development and student affairs, said the admissions crunch "is all I hear about.''</p>
<p>"Even if every spot in the class was devoted to legacies, we would have to say no to over half of them,'' Robell said. "A lot of alumni remember how it was, and it ain't that way anymore, and they have trouble accepting it.''</p>
<p>Trickle-down effect</p>
<p>When Pine View's Cohen called UF, she said she was told she was turned down because her extracurricular activities were not diverse enough, and because of her essay - even though her honors English teacher had critiqued the essay twice and combed it for grammatical errors.</p>
<p>"Obviously, if you have a kid who is a weak student and has soft board scores, maybe it's justified,'' said Florette Ames, a science teacher at Pine View who tutors students applying to college. "But this is terribly unfortunate. I think it's an injustice. There is a girl who has not only worked hard in the classroom, but really intensely outside the classroom, and she's turned away.''</p>
<p>UF Provost Janie Fouke said parents have accused the school of being "elitist,'' but because so many want to go to UF, the school has no choice but to place a heavy emphasis on grades and scores.</p>
<p>"We're going: What do you want us to do?'' Fouke said. "Once you get this excellent group of people, you don't want us to throw darts. You do want us to use their grades in high school and their SATs. You want us to use their essay.''</p>
<p>This fall, Cohen will attend the University of Central Florida - which has more than doubled in size and is also becoming more competitive.</p>
<p>Ames said other students rejected from UF are going out of state or attending the University of Miami, a private school that has increasingly selective admissions and offers scholarships for National Merit students.</p>
<p>But budget cuts could strap other state schools and prevent them from taking the UF overflow. The Board of Governors recently announced plans to freeze freshman enrollment at all 11 schools this year because of state budget cuts.</p>
<p>Cohen said she wanted to attend UF so badly because it has the only veterinary school in the state and she wants to be a veterinarian like her father. At UCF she plans to study biology. She plans to reapply to UF for graduate school.</p>
<p>She said not getting in was "the most frustrating thing I've ever had happen in my life.</p>
<p>"I sat in my bedroom for a week,'' Cohen said. "I did extremely well, I thought. It's just frustrating when you do everything you can, and it's not good enough, and you don't know why. This is what I worked for.''</p>