<p>So I'm very happy that I got into Florida State University. It made me feel good when I saw the acceptance notification online today.</p>
<p>I would like to showcase how FSU is stacking it up with the other Universities.
The following is a letter sent to my school counselor from the Director of Admissions at FSU:</p>
<p>Dear Dennis,
Just a reminder that tomorrow (February 20) is our second notification day and that students will be able to access their decisions at 12:01 a.m. Over 10,000 applicants will receive a decision and, unfortunately, for over 2/3's of them, it will not be the news they were hoping for. Because of budget reductions and overenrollment, the University is reducing the size of this year's freshman class to 5,300 students. This means that for our last two notification dates, standards will be increasing significantly. You will definitely notice this difference when you receive your status reports... many of the students admitted in November would not have been admissible for these last two notifications. The middle 50% of students who are being offered admission tomorrow have a core grade point average of 3.8-4.3, SAT scores of 1220-1350, and ACT scores of 26-30.</p>
<p>We will ultimately turn down some very good students; however, the University is overenrolled by approximately 1,500 "unfunded" undergraduate students and has no choice but to reduce that student population. For more information on why this is happening, please refer to FSU's homepage at Florida</a> State University and link to "Florida's Financial Crisis - An Unnatural Disaster".</p>
<p>We expect the phones to be ringing off the hooks tomorrow. In the meantime, don't forget your tissues, and that for those students who really want to be here, we will try to provide options.
janice
P.S. CARE is also at capacity and has a waitlist.</p>
<p>Janice Finney
Director of Admissions
Florida State University</p>
<p>^^^^^From my experience, quite a few people. I was actually all set to enroll at UF, but had a last second change of heart after visiting FSU. Nothing against UF, which it's a fine institution, but FSU and Tallahassee felt more like "home".</p>
<p>I have to concede that this is a brilliant move on FSU's part. They may or may not truly be unfunded (note the quotes used in Ms.Finney's statement), but cutting 1000 students off the bottom has suddenly elevated them to a respectable level in terms of stats.</p>
<p>So what's UF's strategy? Answer: Cast GPA and SAT/ACT scores overboard and base admissions mainly on racial diversity goals that mach population demographics. If you think about this, they are now essentially striving towards mediocrity. Prospective students and alumni will only tolerate this for so long. Conclusion: Zina Evans MUST go!</p>
<p>UF is still ahead, but the gap has substantially narrowed.</p>
<p>Mid-points:
FSU 1285
UF 1325</p>
<p>When this gets out, it will affect decisions. Students will realize they have two fine public university options in Florida. If FSU can fix the Engineering program (and they are working on this) the numbers will narrow even further.</p>
<p>UF could easily distance themselves from all other FL universities, FSU included. But Machen and Evans seem more focused on political correctness than attending to the business of building a high-quality institution. Don't get me wrong: diversity per se is just fine. Discrimination based on race, religion, etc. must not be tolerated. But that notion is entirely different from affirmative action, which is essentially what UF practices, altough the Supreme Court has banned this. </p>
<p>I suspect it was a huge mistake slotting in an African American (AM) into the position of Admissions Director for UF. Had that not been done, I believe the quality of the freshman class at UF would be head and shoulders above FSU, rather than by just a slim margin. My guess is that UF’s mode of operation is now to admit as man many AMs as possible to just keep UF's stats static or perhaps just slightly better year over year. FYI, UF enrolled more AM freshmen in 2007 than in 2006. However, there was a reduction in Caucasians in that same period. Look for this trend to continue.</p>
<p>Perhaps it will take a lawsuit to show that UF's admissions practices are unconstitutional.</p>
<p>yeah I think we need to get over this whole race/religion/gender thing. We are all treated as equals now. I'm not sure why we keep giving them brownie points on something that they haven't even been affected by, and can't control. Students entering colleges now haven't been affected by laws and policies that were abolished 40+ years ago. Why do schools have to be balanced? The people who deserve to be admitted can attend, and who cares if the school is 2% black or 98% black?</p>
<p>Bad Pr for the short term only. Look, what p isses me off is that UF raised it's SAT of accepted applicants to 1325. They COULD have narrowed the gap on </p>
<p>UC Berkeley at 1360 (2007)
Michigan at 1380 (2007)</p>
<p>By matching or surpasing schools like these, this would GREATLY affect the "peer assessmant" in the rankings. Raising the quality of students is someting UF is in a great position to do, other schools would LOVE to have the opportunity to be able to increase student quality and not lose applicants. They're squandering this chance and putting up a smoke and mirrors show about needing only to improve the student/faculty ratio to improve the rankings. Ugh, Frustrating.</p>
<p>The hard part about a law suit is that you need to find a lawyer who will be willing to do this as a class action, or a person with a lot of money and time to be able to fignt the good fight. I really hope for this.....I want UF to be seen with the likes of Virginia and Michigan SOON!</p>
<p>^ Speaking of University of Michigan, they did what you are proposing back in 2002. Now they have to judge students based on their stats. Their selectivity is gonna go thru the roof.</p>