South Florida students dominate University of Florida

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of Florida
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<p>By Nathan Crabbe
Staff writer</p>

<p>When the University of Florida plays for the national title this week in Miami, the team will have a homefield advantage that extends through the region.</p>

<p>Nearly a quarter of the UF student body hails from Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, according to UF's most recent statistics. More than 12,000 students originate from those counties, a 50 percent increase from a decade earlier.</p>

<p>"South Florida is a huge draw for us," UF President Bernie Machen said.</p>

<p>The increase is reflected in the growth of UF Alumni Association-affiliated Gator Clubs in the region. Each of the clubs in the three South Florida counties boasts more than 1,500 members, said Pamela Cortes, president of the Gator Club of Miami.</p>

<p>"It's the largest concentration of Gators outside of Gainesville," she said.</p>

<p>At the university, South Florida's influence is seen in the large populations of Hispanic and Jewish students. UF has the largest number of Jewish students of any university outside Israel and the biggest Hispanic heritage celebration in the U.S., according to members of those communities.</p>

<p>"There's always been a strong Jewish community here, but I think it's gotten even stronger," said Keith Dvorchik, director of UF Hillel.</p>

<p>While the university doesn't track the number of Jewish students, Dvorchik estimates there are as many as 10,000. He said the number has grown from about 5,000 or 6,000 in the decade-plus he's been with Hillel.</p>

<p>Dvorchik attributes the increase to wider trends involving the Bright Futures scholarship and Florida Prepaid tuition programs. More Florida students are using the programs to fund their undergraduate educations, he said, saving money for graduate school.</p>

<p>"Going to school in the state of Florida, particularly at UF, has become such an unbelievable deal that it's hard to turn it down," he said.</p>

<p>The increase in students from southeast Florida has correlated with an overall rise in the number of Florida-born students at UF. But South Florida has fueled the surge, with Broward overtaking Alachua in 2003 as the county producing the most UF students. Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties are next on the list.</p>

<p>Click link for rest of article:</p>

<p>S</a>. Florida is big draw for Gators | Gainesville.com | The Gainesville Sun | Gainesville, FL</p>

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<p>Honestly, the South Florida students realize that the University of Miami is overpriced, has inferior athletics, and weaker academics. FIU, FAU, and Nova University lack any sort of clout whatsoever.</p>

<p>Broward County has the best highschool students in the state.</p>

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<p>Why would you say Broward has the best high school students in the state? Not so fast my friend. I’m sure there are plenty of bright students in Broward but there are also lots of dummies in that county that pull it down. Look at the counties FCAT results and see for yourself.</p>

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<p>^ FCAT means nothing to the overall importance of who gets into UF. Fact Broward County is a treasure trove in terms of the quality of students who are willing to pull the trigger on accepting their offer to attend the University of Florida. I have no doubt that their are alot of rocks, but in the same sense I am very happy we have this pipeline (Had a ton of friends from Coral Springs btw).</p>

<p>Yes, Miami & West Palm have pockets of amazingly intelligent students - but they end up attending Ivies & Top-25 institutions.</p>

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<p>If would bet money that Broward students SAT-ACT scores are not in the top 5 in the state. Also, all students take the FCAT so I’d say that is the best way to figure out who has the best students.</p>

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<p>I guess I should quantify my original statement:</p>

<p>Broward County has the best highschool students in the state for filling the freshmen classes at the University of Florida (mind you this statement is backed by statistics in the article).</p>

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<p>You are right. When I was growing up in Broward it seemed all the kids wanted to go to Florida.</p>

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<p>This is thanks in part to the UF Hillel. I’m protestant and I still went to the place to watch football games with my friends. They also serve some good food.</p>

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<p>Glad the National Championship was in Miami. This could help bring in more South Florida students.</p>

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<p>Uh… how is this news? South Florida is the most populated area of the state, so it would make sense that a lot of students come from there. It’s not like most of the students come from the panhandle. It says that about 1/4 of the student body comes from South Florida. Well… nearly a third of the population of Florida lives in the Miami metropolitan area… so that’s not really a surprise.</p>

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<p>^ Maybe not to you, but you have to remember the audience of the article. Old Florida alumni primarily came from North & Central Florida.</p>

<p>The demographic shift really didn’t start taking effect until the 1970’s. Historically the student population did not come from Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties.</p>

<p>I think it’s great that this shift has occured.</p>

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<p>I’ve met some students from UF but I don’t how they are better than the students are FIU , UM ,etc. To me they seem to be the same , but I’m talking about engineering majors not any other majors. The students who went to UF from my HS (dual enrollment HS) are exceptional but none of the others I’ve met so far.</p>

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<p>^^^^
I can explain this to you. The students at Miami are accademically close to those at Florida, but you shouldn’t compare those students to the ones at FIU. UF students are smarter with higher GPAs, higher SATs and with more advanced coures taken in high school.</p>

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<p>Advanced courses being dual enrollment and AP I guess. I’m going to FIU anyway since it’s closer to me and I’ve done some of the hardest classes I could fit in my schedule ( Calc 3 , intro to ODEs) (I was suppose to do undergrad complex analysis and adv differential equations at FIU this year but they didn’t offer it at the time I could take it). People look at me weird when I say the only college I applied to is FIU. Are the engineering /math /physics students at FIU that bad? I guess I’ll see when I go there next year.</p>

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<p>Please don’t put FIU into the same category as UM and UF.</p>

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<p>Ummm why not? I can understand if you said don’t put FIU with MIT / Cambridge/ Harvard / etc but UF and UM???
Why does FIU have such a perceived bad name?</p>

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<p>cuz it sucks, and Florida and Miami don’t</p>

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<p>How so? Just because it doesn’t have the same high level of funding? I’m looking for objective reasons why people choose UF because the kids I know from UF don’t stand out to me based on actual college work. Well I’m being biased since I only know engineering students from UF. So, I would like to see an accurate view of the students of UF.<br>
[UF</a> ranked No. 1 party school | Gainesville.com | The Gainesville Sun | Gainesville, FL](<a href=“http://www.gainesville.com/article/20080728/NEWS/836522707]UF”>http://www.gainesville.com/article/20080728/NEWS/836522707)
Does that have anything to do with UF’s popularity?</p>

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<p>no but this does:</p>

<p>[Sloppy</a>, choppy game leaves Florida as BCS champion - Yahoo! News](<a href=“Yahoo News: Latest and Breaking News, Headlines, Live Updates, and More”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090109/ap_on_sp_co_ga_su/fbc_t25_bcs_championship)</p>

<p>objectively, prestige and program rankings factor in</p>

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<p>First and foremost FIU is a commuter school. It has a lousy endowment, weak academic progams, and has a terrible athletic program. In addition FIU has very few notable alumni, and the faculty are alittle better that most Community Colleges.</p>

<p>Take alook at UF’s famous alumni:</p>

<p>[List</a> of University of Florida people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Florida_alumni]List”>List of University of Florida alumni - Wikipedia)</p>