<p>I was recently accepted for Fall 2013. I was wondering what the good and bad of the university is. I'm 99% sure I will be attending. Thanks!</p>
<p>Well, just to start the thread for you -</p>
<p>UCF is the biggest university in FL. It has a good 60k students. Idk if this is a good thing or bad thing to you, so you have to decide for yourself. </p>
<p>Also, UCF is in orlando (which you obviously know if you applied there). Being that it’s in such a big city, that gives you EXCELLENT opportunities for internships.</p>
<p>Since the world is ending today, let me toss out the bad-
UCF is more of a commuter school vs. UFL / FSU.
Most of the buildings at UCF are new and don’t have that college feel about them, more of a concrete jungle feel.
Excluding the Orlando area, UCF is not nationally recognizable.
On some weekends, the school is a ghost town.
The number of tenured professors are minimal.
There are many “part-time” students @ UCF that have been attending for many years.
The four year graduation rate is lower.
UCF is primarily an undergraduate school with relatively few graduate students.
UCF has several “average” professional graduate schools.
UCF is rather large and parking can be a nightmare. Driving in the Orlando area can also be nasty.
If not for the theme parks, Orlando is not that very nice and Orlando is not a college town.
Too many “trouble making” immigrants in the Orlando area and crime is high near the theme parks.</p>
<p>To the OP-
If you are 99% CERTAIN on attending UCF, then no matter what is said here, go for it and Good Luck !</p>
<p>Ive lived in the Orlando area my whole life so I know how bad the traffic can be. It doesn’t have the classic college feel, I’ve heard but as long as I get a decent Mechanical Engineering degree, I will be happy.</p>
<p>If you can’t find parking at UCF, you clearly don’t know where to look.</p>
<p>The bad, if you consider it bad, is the fact that UCF is primarily a commuter’s university.</p>
<p>What is that?</p>
<p>A university that manyyy kids in Orlando just go (COMMUTE) to since its near home. It’s been shaking off it’s commuter school qualities by raising its bar for admissions and because many people are coming from outside of Orlando though. The thing with commuter schools is that their schools are basically empty on weekends cuz everyone is at home but that won’t be the case at UCF because of the amount of people that now actually live in the dorms.</p>
<p>@nonamestang a non-commuter school would be a place like FSU where almost everybody lives in the dorms cuz they’re coming from all over the state or country. It has that college town feeling cuz the university is the center of life in the city.</p>
<p>I’m excited that UCF is so huge. It seems like it will have more to offer because of it. Of course, this is coming from someone who grew up in a small town, so you all might see it a completely different way. I didn’t know it was much of a commuter school, though. That’s a little lame.</p>
<p>A commuter school is lame…?</p>
<p>I have to make a few corrections made above. First, yes, UCF is nationally recognized. If anyone located in Florida tells you otherwise, it’s not very valid, because it’s just that-they live in Florida. I’m out of state, and EVERYONE here knows where UCF is, and all my relatives (Everywhere from New York to Indiana) knows the school, as well. Also, I do not get a commuter feel from this school at all. I know a very many of kids here out of state, as well as a big handful of international students-London, Virgin Islands, etc. Parking is not that bad, people make a huge deal out of it. You just have to be smart about it. The only bad things I’ve found out about UCF is they can be disorganized, there’s a lot of students (I don’t consider that bad, though) and the traffic around town can be bad. That’s literally it-you’ll get very opinion based answers to your question.</p>
<p>Well, I’m going to definitely have to disagree with the above post. I think it’s only fair to correct some things for those trying to make one of the most important decisions in their lives. My cousin attends UCF, and I am from New York. Not one person knows of UCF up here. Saying that UCF is nationally recognized is a bold statement that is far from true. I’ve worn a UCF shirt and not one person knew what it was, and I constantly got questions about it. For the FEW who may know of UCF, they are probably people who are/were researching colleges specifically in Florida. Also, I’ve stayed at UCF multiple times with my cousin, and the commuter reputation does hold true. At night it seems as if campus is empty, as well as on weekends. I’m not trying to hate on UCF in any way, I’m just being fair on facts.</p>
<p>As reply to the post above-if we’re going to try to look at this in a ‘fact’ point of view, we’ll get no where. The questions he asked can not possibly be answered with facts, only with opinions. While you may have experianced no one in New York knowing where UCF was, I have the opposite experiance, of people congratulating me on gaining acceptance, because it’s a great school. UCF is also VERY well known here in Chicago. We actually have more pride here for UCF then we do FSU. People up here have never heard of USF, UNF, FIU, FGCU, any of those schools. I didn’t know of those schools until I got down here. I kind of wonder what weekend you’re up, because I can be walking around campus at three in the morning on a weekend, and there’s plenty of people around. Thanksgiving break was a different story, though-understandably a ghost down. I just think it’s fair to say, to the OP, none of the answers you get here will be fact. That’s not correct at all. Asking, ‘What’s the average ACT score for those accepted?’ would give you a ‘fact’. These are, however, opinions. Everyone will give you different ones, based on how they feel.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the help. I’ve paid my payment and will be attending in Fall 2013. Everybody has different experiences but it’s overall I have recieved a positive one. There’s no need for anyone to get into an argument over the national recognition. To anyone who already attends the university, I’ll see you in Fall!</p>
<p>First off, do not even try to compare people’s respect for FSU v.s. respect for UCF. Even I attend UF, and I will say that. I don’t know who you think you are kidding even starting to talk about that. And just because UCF is your school, obviously you’re very biased. Even people here know of FGCU, FAU, and USF, but not UCF. There’s no use trying to change a very obviously-biased person’s perspective. No need to put down other universities when we were solely discussing UCF. Reading your story, you should even be lucky you got in there so enough talking about FSU and the others. So here I will stop, and say OP-- visit the school and actually stay with someone who goes there if you can. If having a school that is well recognized, this may not be the best choice.</p>
<p>Well that escalated quickly. Firstly, I did not once put down FSU. You may want to read back on my previous post, just so you don’t start throwing out false words. I said that, were I am located, the people here have more respect for UCF then FSU. You can’t say it’s not true, because do you live where I live? No, you don’t, therefore what you said is invalid. I did not once put down those others schools, also. I simply stated that no one up here, WHERE I AM (That’s not to say every other state) are familiar with those schools. That people in your area know of those schools. However, that’s relative. People in my area DON’T KNOW those schools. It’s that simple, no need to try and correct, because you can’t. I am lucky that I got in, yes. But the fact that I achieved a 3.7 GPA my first semester of college proves that I deserved my acceptance. No need to bring my personal story into a post that is NOT about me, but about a simple question the OP asked. Now that that’s settled, I hope you have a good day. </p>
<p>OP-I feel as though the biggest downside would be the amount of students. While it’s great to be surrounded by diversity, this directly links to the amount of students you may have in some of your classes. You can have 30 in your English class, but 500 in your Human Species class. So while getting to know your professor may not be very realistic in some classes, it’s not impossible.</p>