<p>I don’t feel to bad about it. I was excited to be accepted, but I think it’s weird to be on different terms than the majority. I applied to Florida expecting a big college feel, but a smaller one is fine. No football games is a huge negative for me because the school spirit is one of the main reasons I applied here, and I love football. Nonetheless I know there are still an enormous amount of opportunities, and I don’t think I would have a problem fitting in or making the most out of my situation. For the time being, ill keep my options open and see how the rest of my decisions turn out</p>
<p>Hi Sabertooth,</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your insight on IA. My son got accepted for spring 2014 and is very excited. I noticed you said that IA students must live in Beaty East the first year…One question…Can they live off campus if they chose? the first year? Any year? My son really wants to come up for fall 2013 for the experience and take an online course so he is looking into an apartment…What do you recommend? Thanks again for your time… you have answered a lot of our questions.</p>
<p>I was accepted for the Summer B term. Does that mean I won’t be permitted to take classes in the Fall???</p>
<p>No, just the spring IA students do not take classes in the Fall on campus. They can take online in the fall is my understanding.</p>
<p>Today I believe is the dorm deadline for summer and fall. Are you not living in a dorm?</p>
<p>I checked online and there is no specified deadline for dorms? How do you know this?</p>
<p>There were various emails sent out outlining what needs to be done to secure your spot for housing.</p>
<p>Undecid3d- This from an email we received after DS was accepted:</p>
<p>Congratulations on your admission to the University of Florida! </p>
<p>"This email serves as your formal offer of campus housing for Summer B AND Fall 2013/Spring 2014. </p>
<p>Please act quickly as your due date to complete your both your Summer B AND Fall/Spring housing contract(s) are: February 26, 2013."</p>
<p>I think it was sent to everyone who had completed a housing application and paid the $25 application fee.</p>
I’m actually in this program, everyone in our program is very close with each other, and we have many special events, startups that we meet with, and things that we do with each other. The collaboration across majors is incredible, and the project ideas that we come up with have great potential. Everyone studies together and discusses different things specific to their major that are useful for people not from their major to know. We do this casually, on the daily; the camaraderie that we have is incredible, and I recommend this program to anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur, or who wants to have their creative thoughts become manifested into something real. It’s really the people that make the program what it is; your peers want to be there to collaborate and create things together, and the leadership is solid. This is great for Business and Computer Science majors, and anyone in the arts. My business friends are very good at finding ways to make an idea into a marketable commodity, and the writers and artists are very good at visually/musically/physically making it come to life. This program isn’t simply about preparing you for the workplace, it’s about preparing you to work in a competitive market, while also developing your innovative thinking to change the game in today’s world.
That being said, I’m still pretty new on campus; after talking to some of the older kids in IA, I found that one of our biggest issues is that since the summer semester is split, and we are required by our majors to take critical tracking courses during each semester, that you’re screwed during the summer semester since you’ll end up taking classes like Calculus 3 in only 6 weeks of class time. Scholarships are definitely a mess as well, no one offers Spring-Summer scholarships, and the government was reluctant to offer bright futures to IA students for the Spring and Summer. I could have potentially payed for my schooling through scholarships, but I wasn’t able to qualify for the ones that I wanted because they either required internships offered exclusively during the summer, or only payed for the traditional school year. I do have Florida prepaid, and full Bright Futures. My friends have had internships during the fall which have helped pay for and provide scholarships for their school cost. Overall, there really isn’t too much of a financial aid issue, and I doubt that we are in “the bottom 25%”. This is simply untrue, and there isn’t any partiality when considering applicants for admittance. You need to APPLY to be in IA, AFTER applying to the University of Florida. There are some issues, but they’re only temporary. Many colleges are starting innovation programs, UF is just trailblazing. I would definitely recommend this program.
Bright futures makes an exception for IA students
I heard about this from someone and we both thought it seemed a little fishy. I think that this is a good economic decision for UF to offer for its own sake, but for the students, it wouldn’t be helping them cultivate their college experience. The fall is the busiest season for students because of the opportunities to engage in organizations beginning, which is how a lot of students get established and find their friends/academic pathways. There’s also football season, which defines a lot of Gators’ pride here. I think that if students had no better option, then it could become a decent alternative. While being forced to take summer classes isn’t ideal (yes, the weather in the summer elicits at least two showers daily and lots of trips to Ginnie Springs), it can still be fun socially and would be less crowded than the fall.
I know someone who started Northeastern by going abroad from July - November of his freshman year. My daughter just toured UF Tallahassee and fell in love with it, this may be a deal breaker.
@MissAlice This is an old thread…but…
UF is in Gainesville, FSU is in Tallahassee
IA students only make up about 200 to 300 incoming freshman, while UF enrolls 6,500 to 6,800 “normal” freshman. It’s a small % of the class, and you have to be open to doing it. (FSU doesn’t have an IA program).
UF does offer incoming freshman the option of starting school in Summer B, but these students would also attend in the fall. The only impact is starting school 6 weeks earlier. It may be a bit easier to get accepted if you enroll in Summer B, vs Fall only.
How many AP classes equal 9 credit hours?
Three.
Thank you! I saw on here that UF will only consider you for fall if you have a least 9 AP credits or DE. Not sure if that’s true.
@kit4kat where do you keep hearing these rumors? There’s no chance that’s true. AP Exams aren’t even looked at with admissions decisions.
I just saw a comment on this thread that said you need at least 9 AP credits or you have to do a summer semester. Someone wrote it on page 1, I don’t know if it’s true or not.
You have to do a summer semester regardless of your AP credits. That’s a Florida thing, not unique to UF.