I attended UF in the late 90’s when admission standards were not strict like it is now. You didn’t have to do a whole laundry list of EC’s volunteer hours, professional type essays. There was a formula. If you had a certain GPA/SAT score, you were in. I was an average student 3.3 but did really well on the SAT (1400+) and got in. I didn’t even bother to write an essay it was optional back then.
Reading these boards now and thinking about my son is scary but I’ll tell you what I told him. The first 2 years at a monster college like UF with 50,000 students is a series of impersonal classes taught by teacher assistants in 500 person auditoriums. Thinking back, I would have preferred to sleep in and take these monster classes online. In FACT, since I was a business major, many of the introductory classes even back then were on TV. I had an old style VCR and set the timer to record the shows on the UF channel. Then blow off the class for weeks and binge watch before a test. The whole class consisted of 3 multiple choice tests. It was kind of ridiculous. The whole atmosphere of my classes were very impersonal. You were a number. I didn’t like it.
I probably would have received a better education at Santa Fe College with smaller classes (not on TV!) and more personalized attention.The other thing is the job market. Having UF on your resume is great but employers want work experience and internships FIRST. I did not get a job at UF’s career fair or resource expos and my school did not play a major role in getting my first job. Only a very small percentage of kids get jobs at the UF Career Fair. The companies recruiting are recruiting all over the country. They might interview 200 kids, 20 of which are from UF and 1 or 2 from UF may get an eventual job offer. Who I knew and my connections mattered much more. It was all about internships and work experience and connections. Period. And no employer cares where you went the first 2 years. They only care about where you graduated and your work experience.
I met my girlfriend at a party (later my wife) in my apartment complex. She went to Santa Fe. The UF/Santa Fe students mix interchangeably. It’s all good. Sometimes the road less traveled still gets you to the same destination…