<p>I hope I don't regret my decision to transfer to FSU. </p>
<p>I've heard FSU's Meteorology Department is one of the best in the nation.</p>
<p>I don't think you will. </p>
<p>The Met department is excellent and is the best in the southeast and one of the best in the US. My brother's a graduate and he's an MIC with the NOAA - NWS. The director of the NOAA NWS Hurricane Center is also an FSU grad (Max Mayfield). </p>
<p>One just does not get much better than that in this field.</p>
<p>See: <a href="http://www.met.fsu.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://www.met.fsu.edu/</a></p>
<p>and: <a href="http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/%5B/url%5D">http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/</a></p>
<p>Reference Max Mayfield: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Mayfield%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Mayfield</a> and: <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/m_mayfield-bio.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/m_mayfield-bio.html</a></p>
<p>I would suggest, before making blanket statements that FSU (or UF, for that matter) aren't excellent - nationally, you define the area you're talking about.</p>
<p>Because each has areas where they can compete with any US University.</p>
<p>Per Admissions, the 3.8 GPA is weighted.</p>
<p>Regular classes count as A - 4.0, B - 3.0, C - 2.0, D - 1.0.
If you have a C or better in an honors, dual enrollment, AP or IB class they weight it.
If you have an A in an AP or IB class it would count as 5.0.
If you have an A in an honors or dual enrollment class it would count as 4.5.
They only count your academic courses.
I believe they will recalculate all of your letter grades to come up with your FSU admissions GPA.
If you have been taking honors courses and getting decent grades, you should be fine.<br>
If you only took regular courses, then yes you would have to have near perfect grades to get a 3.8 GPA.</p>
<p>Correct, cybermom...FSU wants the student to take the more challenging courses. </p>
<p>Good grades aren't good enough; they want you to take a solid college preparatory set of courses. They would prefer you take AP Calculus AB + BC and get a 'C' as opposed to basic math with an 'A', for example.</p>
<p>There appears to be a sliding relationship between the SAT/ACT and grades as well. Higher grades in quality courses allow a slightly lower test score. I would not press this to find the limits, though...they received some 30,000+ applications and accepted about 6,000 last year. They told me they rejected many kids in the Top 20% of their hs class.</p>
<p>They also warned those of us who are Florida State alumni that merely being tied to FSU was not sufficient to get your child admitted if the other areas fall short.</p>
<p>The most recent freshman statistics are not yet available.</p>
<p>From FSU website:
Statistics for freshmen who applied to FSU for fall 2005</p>
<p>Applied/Admitted/Enrolled</p>
<p>Number of Applicants ............................................19,055
Number Admitted ..................................................11,355
Number Enrolled .....................................................4,381
Standardized Testing</p>
<p>US News has these statistics for FSU 2005-2006 in their 2007 edition.</p>
<p>22,450 applied
14,016 accepted </p>
<p>I'm not sure how accurate these statistics are.</p>
<p>I suspect that's for the fall semester - only. Frankly, I don't know how they calculate these stats. I suspect there are different ways, some more flattering than others.</p>
<p>I've long accused the UF folks of putting lipstick on a pig, for example, with their admissions stats. I would guess it's more accurate than not. State schools are likely much more truthful than private schools, however. With UMiami, for example, it's anyone's guess.</p>
<p>For supposedly authoritative data I go to the Common Data Sets of the various universities.</p>
<p>As a current UF freshman, I can only talk about my experiences in a Florida high school about the way people saw different colleges.</p>
<p>In general, the spectacular all As all 4 years, graduate in the top 5, stop at nothing (even - or is it especially? cheating) to get ahead people looked to the standard Ivy league, Stanford, MIT type places.</p>
<p>After that, it was the upper portion of the class all looking to UF, and then everyone else who was looking to stay in Florida either looked at UCF/USF/FSU. Almost everyone applied to UF, so it wasn't by choice that they did that. I can say with definite security that only 3 people (out of a class of 138) chose one of the other state schools over UF. All 3 were music/drama majors.</p>
<p>It'd be nice if a school could catch up to at least near where UF is right now (UF isn't a top 25 or top 10 school, but it is definitely up there with UNC/Penn State, so I'm talking about a decently high nationally ranked school) because quite frankly there are more than 6000 very bright graduating seniors in Florida each year. As an unbiased observer, and yes I am that - school sports rivalries have nothing to do with academics, it looks like UCF is doing more than FSU right now to boost themselves higher. Even USF is doing a lot to boost their research departements.</p>
<p>"As an unbiased observer, and yes I am that - school sports rivalries have nothing to do with academics, it looks like UCF is doing more than FSU right now to boost themselves higher. Even USF is doing a lot to boost their research departements."</p>
<p>Let's also not forget that UCF is about to get a brand new medical school, and USF is now a Tier 3 university.</p>
<p>It's my understanding that if the Florida Legislature funds the two proposed med schools they will be funded behind the UF, USF and FSU med schools. That supposedly is the agreement reached. Personally, I think a UCF and an FIU med school are a waste of taxpayer money.</p>
<p>If they took that ~$400 million it will take to start these new med programs and invested it into the existing schools, they'd probably get a faster return on the investment. It is political pork, pure and simple.</p>
<p>Not sure what you mean when you say FSU's not doing anything...the undergrad College of Business rose three spots to #25 nationally in all Public Universities; the Law School has shown considerable elevation in national rankings for years and is close to UF's in rank. The research dollars have reached a new record, in 2000 they received the first allopathic med school in the U.S. in 20 years...plus lots more. The latest freshman class has higher stats than ever before, FSU has more nationally ranked grad programs than ANY other school in Florida, including U Miami, except UF. FSU's emphasis programs rank with the best in the U.S., with several Top 10 programs, exceeding UF's rank in those areas, if they apply. What's UCF's Business program? #144 or something like that? FSU also hosts the National High Magnetic Field Lab plus lured away from UWisconsin-Madison the super lab they hosted. Plus, FSU is now ranked 51st (up from 54th in 2005) natioanlly of all public research universities - higher than all in Florida but UF.</p>
<p>How can you say they've done nothing? You've got to remember that UF claims the IFAS program - the state agricultural research program - there is no other, in it's dollars appointed to research. They're lucky, this is a gift, it make it seem they spend more per student than they actually do.</p>
<p>FSU >>> UCF, USF, and FIU for the foreseeable future</p>
<p>end of story...</p>
<p>UCF just fell to Tier 4.</p>
<p>=( </p>
<p>/////</p>