<p>I have been reading these message boards because my girlfriend is typically all over them, trusting the words of some of the elitists that ■■■■■ these boards. She has been trying to decide which public school to attend because she has been admitted to three large public universities in Florida: FSU, UCF, and UF. </p>
<p>First, it took me weeks to get her over her “stats”. What the heck has the world come to, when a 17-18 year old thinks the majority of their life boils down to a few numbers and meaningless “extra-curriculars”? </p>
<p>Do you know your child’s “stats”? If so, shame on you. “Stats” are for major-league baseball players, not high school graduates. With education budgets shrinking and competition for admission to big-name universities on the rise, parents and their children seem to have lost all sense of identity. </p>
<p>Having said all that … </p>
<p>I’m a college senior, having transferred last semester from a major university in Connecticut (I’m not into name-dropping). </p>
<p>I applied to several universities before choosing the one I currently attend. Some of the universities I chose to apply to were UCF, UF, and Columbia University (New York City).
I was denied admission to all but the latter (an ‘ivy-league’ school), which I had no interest in attending. </p>
<p>I decided I wanted to come to Florida, and had to choose whether to persue UF or UCF. When I was making my decision, I weighed several factors: </p>
<li> Admission Selectivity is Increasing Fastest at UCF:</li>
</ol>
<p>-> Admittance selectivity of the University of Central Florida has increased 37% in three years.</p>
<p>-> Admittance selectivity of the University of Florida has increased 32% in three years.</p>
<li><p>The middle 50% of Freshman SAT Scores at all major Florida public universities are nearly identical, or the difference is statistically negligible. </p></li>
<li><p>Campus ease of access, weather, parking, and school spirit </p></li>
</ol>
<p>There is no question that campus ease-of-access goes to UCF; it’s a new school designed in the tradition of a theme park (EPCOT, to be exact) with the idea that hundreds of thousands of people need to move in-and-out daily. </p>
<p>On the same token, weather and parking seem to be much easier in Orlando. </p>
<p>However, school spirit–or at least the amount of school merchandise–is noticeably different at each respective campus. Interestingly enough, I’m from New England and aside from Patriots and Red Sox / Yankees paraphernalia, nobody seemed quite as stubborn or as close-minded as a southerner: the true Gators fan. There’s nothing wrong with supporting your team–but when it’s overtly rowdy and you’re scared to visit another Florida university because of your license plate, it’s gone too far. </p>
<p>I was followed home and told to “Git out ‘n’ go home, Connecticut!” by a woman with a southern accent, confederate flag, and Gators decal. I won’t stereotype or generalize by saying that every Gators fan is a redneck. That’s like saying every Boston fan is Irish. It’s simply not true; this was a major deal-breaker for me. </p>
<p>I have visited Columbia, Yale, Dartmouth, UCONN, CCSU, Cambridge, Boston, Harvard, and a slew of other state universities and nowhere but in Florida did I feel intimidated by the intense (and absurd) sports rivalries between schools that hardly ever play each-other, with the exception of IM sports. </p>
<p>There is no question that the University of Florida’s disproportionately large endowment is partly due to the success of their alumni. Aside from the private schools in Florida, UF has the greatest number of successful alumni. This may be due to good curricula, or (more likely) it’s tenure as an older university. The University of Florida is therefore allowed to invest more money in its research and in its medical program. This is a big plus on the side of UF. </p>
<p>My girlfriend’s parents chose for her to attend the University of Florida, for several reasons, including some false presumptions that she got from reading this message board. As such, I just wanted to clear a few things up and share an outsiders’ opinion. </p>
<p>It’s a shame that parents are choosing universities for their children and throwing fits over which excellent public university is better than another. In Florida as in many states there should be no debate over which public school is better than the other. UCF, UF, FSU, USF, and the other state universities are ALL excellent schools with individual selling-points. The student should decide for themselves which aspects are most important to them and pick their universities accordingly. </p>
<p>Just as you may think that the “UC Davis vs. UC Berkeley” and “Berkeley vs. Stanford” questions are absolutely ridiculous, I’m here to share my opinion. No, you don’t have a better chance at making six figures if you attend FSU over UCF or UCF over USF. You may get to enjoy some better basketball games at a particularly university, but the differences fade exponentially from there. </p>
<p>And by the way, New England’s ivy-leaguers don’t appreciate the term ‘public ivy’. There’s no such thing. The “ivy league” is simply a sports division comprised of a handful northeastern colleges. </p>
<p>UF is <strong><em>NOT</em></strong> listed as “public ivy” either. </p>
<p>The original eight Public Ivies list by Moll (1985):2 </p>
<p>College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia)
Miami University (Oxford, Ohio)
University of California
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of Texas at Austin
University of Vermont (Burlington)
University of Virginia (Charlottesville)</p>
