<p>Jeb Bush [& crew] don't care about Florida's students.</p>
<p>what about Flagler College in St. Augustine? I've heard that it is really a ''hidden gem"</p>
<p>I have been doing a similar search for decent schools since getting out of the military in August of 04. For best value - few schools can top University of Florida. They rank in the top 10 best deals in america. As for best education period - its a toss up between UF and UM...</p>
<p>UF is about 3 thousand times better than Miami.</p>
<p>Gator bias maybe. But really how dumb is it to be called the hurricanes in Florida? Promoting death is just not cool.</p>
<p>The previous poster is obviously a gator - I just got accepted to UF as a transfer student myself - So I would tend to agree. Its more difficult to get into UF, but maybe thats just because more people want to go to a public university (at least in Florida). I have known some pretty awesome students from both schools - </p>
<p>so what was the point of this post... umm... none I guess - go to UF - you wont regret it...</p>
<p>Depends what you want to study. Miami is very expensive and limited. Florida U is huge, but not all aspects are good, some are excellent. The dorms are supposedly poor. Classes on tape. FSU has some of the best programs in certain areas of all the universities of Florida and is competitive outside the southeast for that matter. Dorms almost all renovated. </p>
<p>Nutshell:</p>
<p>FSU: fine arts, pure sciences, meterology, criminology, film, writing, infomation sciences
NCF: niche liberal studies
UF: engineering, animal sciences, agriculture, journalism, building sciences
UM: international finance, banking
USF: accounting, education</p>
<p>As a Floridian I can say that none of the Florida schools are "prestigious" as this site uses the term. In terms of ranking UF is the top school by far, but it is by no means prestigious. (If your a super liberal you might attend New College, which is generally considered below UF by Floridians) People who get rejected by UF, and have decent stats usually go to FSU or Miami. People who are rejected to those schools go to UCF or Rollins. People who can't get into those schools go the FAU, FIU, UNF, USF, Nova, or community college. There are of course exceptions to this ranking, but this guide is pretty accurate from my experiences at a Florida high school. Kids might also pick a lower ranked school based on the football team they grew up liking, or where most of there friends are going.</p>
<p>I don't really think prestigious when i think florida schools, I tend to think more of party schools, but maybe thats just me. . .
in regards to anonamous's post- take a look at THE U website, you can buy DVDs about colleges in the US by region and they give you a really honest and good idea about what the schools are really like!</p>
<p>As a hiring manager for a major company that recruits across the US, and even internationally, I can tell you that the best graduates coming out of Florida's best program are as good as those coming out of any program... anywhere. Florida, perhaps, does not have any "top 10" schools...but that is true of most states (obviously). And that certainly should not be interpreted to mean that, on an individual basis, students can't compete with those coming out of "high-prestige" programs...because they can without question.</p>
<p>Side note: I'm an MIT grad and my son is an engineering/math major at UF. I have no issues whatsoever with the quality of his education versus the one I received...in some ways it's even better.</p>
<p>
<p>Side note: I'm an MIT grad and my son is an engineering/math major at UF. I have no issues whatsoever with the quality of his education versus the one I received...in some ways it's even better.
</p>
<p>I think it's because of a stigma attached to "state schools", that the students are somewhat less talented/inferior than those who went to more "prestigious" private universities.</p>
<p>Right, USF Really Sucks. It's the 16th largest school in the country and is a university on the rise. They have a medical school, engineering school, physical therapy school, and even a cancer research center on campus. Plus, they just joined the Big East Sports conference and have thousands of students living on campus. The fact is that schools don't start to be recognized as prestigious until the've been around for a long time and USF is a young school. look at the company it keeps:</p>
<p>"USF ranked No. 130 among the 3,000-plus institutions that received NIH funding in 2003, down 14 spots from its 2002 ranking. USF was passed up in the rankings by California Institute of Technology, University of Nebraska Medical Center and Michigan State University, among others, all of which increased their NIH funding in 2003.</p>
<p>USF President Judy Genshaft has repeatedly said that one of her top goals is boosting the university's standing as a research institution.</p>
<p>While NIH awards are considered the "gold standard" among research funds, Priscilla Pope, USF's associate vice president of research, said she was not concerned about the drop in rankings.</p>
<p>"Growth is the major factor affecting each university's ranking," Pope said. "We would have had to increase NIH funding by at least $7 million over last year in order to maintain our position of No. 116."</p>
<p>USF has posted significant gains in NIH funding for at least the past three years, Pope said. Funding was up 37 percent in 2000, 24 percent in 2001 and 20 percent in 2002.</p>
<p>"After a while you can only grow so fast. Then you level out for a period of time," she said. "You can't maintain that continuous growth unless you increase infrastructure and number of faculty and other things."</p>
<p>USF currently is focusing on those efforts, she said.</p>
<p>"If you walk this campus, you'll see construction everywhere -- the medical school, a new school of nursing, the new interdisciplinary research building," Pope said. "All of that will promote growth."</p>
<p>Another key source of research funding, the National Science Foundation, handed out more awards but fewer dollars to USF in 2003 compared to the previous year. USF received $9.8 million for 64 awards from NSF in 2003, compared to $11.5 million for 47 awards in 2002."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.usf.edu/ataglance.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.usf.edu/ataglance.html</a></p>
<p>Well thats just kind of self-evident. Its one of Peano axioms, if I remember correctly thanks to my great Florida vacation, er... education. lol</p>
<p>Don't forget to mention Al-arian!</p>
<p>Florida is not the state for college...</p>
<p>Al-arian should have been fired and sent to prison/executed, I agree. But, do you think Harvard would have fired him? For chrissake, Yale just enrolled an alkida member and were happy to do it. That says nothing about the educational quality of the school, so you have a valid point, although it is spin. By the way, you can get a bad education anywhere, I would think that if you didn't learn in school thateither you were not capable of learning or that you did not try. Most schools use the same 4 or 5 text books, therefore reguardless of the school attended, the exposure to the material is the same. Don't blame the school for you not studying hard enough.</p>
<p>If you people think that the University of Florida has no prestige, then you have set the standard WAAAAAAAAAAAAy too high. Check out the MBS rankings:</p>
<p>Which MBA? (The Economist) 2005
UF's Overall ranking</p>
<ul>
<li>#80 Worldwide</li>
<li>#30 Overall in the U.S.</li>
<li>#17 Among Publics in the U.S.</li>
</ul>
<p>Forbes Best Business Schools 2005
* #50 Overall
* #21 Among Publics</p>
<p>U.S.News & World Report Best Graduate Programs 2007
* #41 Overall
* #20 Among Publics</p>
<p>I think the point of "prestige" is that the standard is high.</p>
<p>The University of Florida and the University of Miami are clearly the two best schools in the state of Florida.</p>
<p>University of Florida is ranked 50th overall with UM being being right behind it at 55. This might be the year that the two are ranked equal or Miami surpasses UF.</p>
<p>UF is much cheaper and is the typical college experience in the college town of Gainesville. U. of Miami is more cosmopolitan and is awesome for those looking for a college experience that has a city atmosphere to it. </p>
<p>If your in-state UF is the way to go. If your out of state, it's a toss up between UF and UM.</p>
<p>I disagree with your UF or Miami only assessment. </p>
<p>You ignore FSU, which has many programs better than either of the other two schools. In such large schools like UF or Florida State, you must assess the individual program otherwise you paint with too broad a brush, and those who dig no further than your US News undergraduate rankings could miss considerable opportunity at a very fine state school.</p>