All Florida students who graduate at or near the top of their Florida high school class & want to attend the University of Florida should be given a reasonable opportunity to do so.
Do the top 6% of Floridian highschool seniors get accepted to UF? Is this boost even necessary?
@cptofthehouse I’m going to go out on a limb and say in Palm Beach county at the A rated schools, I’m going to say 90%+ get in if they are in the top 5%…I’m talking 10 out of the 18 or so public high schools in Palm Beach County 90% ors so of the top 5% get in…
@GatorDad305 would you agree… of those A rated High schools in Dade, 90% of the top 5% get in? so if your school has 565 kids 28 kids are in top 5% and probably 25 get in. plus a handful outside the top 5% as well…
@Publisher I respectively disagree and would ask the very basic question, “why?” There aren’t unlimited resources and actually far fewer than currently needed. In need of more on campus housing, classrooms, professors, etc.
We moved here in '93. The state population was approx 12M. 26 yrs later it is 21M. Pretty massive growth without the proper planning and resource allocation for lots of things (roads, education, etc.) To accomodate growth and those that just want to be Gators, UF has created several alternative tracks including the Santa Fe engineering option (I hear it’s a solid program) , the PACE program, the Innovation program, etc. All of these allow you to graduate from UF without actually being a full time, traditional Gator for the whole four yrs (for example - PACE is an online only program, typically for two yrs, and then lets you matriculate to regular UF status only for specific majors - limited transfer options to majors not on the list). There are other CC based feeder programs.
My question is still “Why?” Why is there a need to let a good student access UF when they can likely easily access another FL based state university? Personally I think it’s sad to see so many kids join programs like PACE and have a completely online class experience (for two yrs) and limit there major selection when they could have easily attended FSU or somewhere else. I think UF would be better off if it just said “no” below a certain level, hopefully with that bar rising each yr and those that miss the mark attend other state schools bringing up their talent level. There’s only so much capacity in Gainesville. I don’t know how the other big states do it, but it seems to me UCLA and Cal only want the top top students and the rest filter to the next tier (which is also pretty darn strong - Davis, San Diego, etc.)
I wouldn’t mind if they got rid of the holistic admissions for a subset of candidates. You graduate in the top 5% of your class and score a 1400 on your SAT and do 500 hours of community service and you are in no questions asked. That would be nice.
@jhmoney I just don’t know… My gut says that if you are in the top 5% of your high school (and it’s a high school that is known to UF) that you have an excellent shot at getting in. What percentage (other than better than 50%), I have no idea.
As I have stated in the past, the senior class president of my daughter’s graduating class was a top 10% kid who was admitted to Westpoint but rejected by UF. The recruiter came to the senior awards and said Westpoint wanted him, badly!
I have already weighed in on the auto admit discussion.
@rickle1 just noticed you are back and mixing it up! Good to see you, and we are in agreement, btw.
Let’s play a game. Instead of saying “all Florida students need a reasonable opportunity to attend UF.”
Let’s say: “All Florida students need a reasonable opportunity to attend Harvard.”
Doesn’t sound all that logical now does it?
What’s “reasonable?”
For me, an application process, where there are, sadly, winners and losers, is reasonable. Is it fair? If your kid gets in, then you probably think its fair. If you are kid is on the bubble and doesn’t get in, or it was your kid’s dream school and he doesn’t get in, or if your daughter’s nemesis who used to eat paste gets in and she doesn’t. Then you probably think it is unfair.
Beat Mizzou and Go Auburn!
^ Exactly! Winners and losers. Get up, dust yourself off, and try again.
My guys have Clemson this week. They need to embrace this idea 
Looking at some of the numbers. In 2018 UF accepted 11,741 students. The state of Florida graduated a little over 180,000 students. If 75% of the available spots were filled by auto admission, that would be just under 5% of the graduating students in Florida.
^ and then there’s OOS and athletes and other hooks. Does the state want to keep all others in the 25% bucket? And what would be the standard for auto admission? GPA / Test scores? Class rank?
I’m sure they do planning at some level but it’s not obvious to the citizenry. Population growth makes it appear that they just stack on.
Other states seem to have an internal ranking system where a certain type of student would typically fit. Some are more vertical: if you want engineering go here, nursing there, etc. Of course with some overlap to accommodate those that couldn’t gain admission. For example, Chapel Hill is the flagship in NC, but if you want engineering NC State is the destination. Same in GA, VA and others.
It seems like UF is both flagship and best in class in state for engineering, business, journalism, prelaw, pre med, etc. That’s OK if they’re building a tier system. Best in everyhting comes here. But if you have a tier system, you have to be able to just say “no” to everyone who falls below the bar (which means you have to have a bar). Otherwise you lose the integrity of the tiers and you have nothing. I feel the alternative tracks to UF create that ambiguity.
@fl1234 I’m curious about the 180,000 stat. Where did you find that?
@GatorDad305 Just from a web search, found this article from Orlando paper:
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/os-ne-high-school-graduation-rate-florida-20181219-story.html
I think UF is hyperfocused on the US News college ranking and becoming a Top 5 public university. The alternative admissions programs aren’t part of the statistics and are kind of like smoke and mirrors.
It’s actually not that hard for any student in Florida to get a UF degree if all they want is that piece of paper to show an employer. You go to an accredited community college, take the required courses and meet the GPA requirement and you can get in relatively easy.
Now, it’s not easy to get into a STEM or Business college at UF or anything where you have a great chance of landing a high paying job afterward. But if you just want that degree, there are plenty of underenrolled programs in the college of liberal arts and sciences that will take you.
Why ?
Because it promotes socio/economic diversity as well as in-state geographic diversity.
Poor & minority school districts should be able to assure their best students a place at the state’s flagship university.
Especially so as these are the most likely future leaders of their communities.
There are some Orange County Public Schools that have zero students that get into UF. Publisher answers the why, I’ll address the why not.
Some schools are simply unable to produce students that can handle a school like UF. Admit them and there attrition rate will be horrendous. They would be far better off at say FGCU or a community college.
I think that admissions people are as inclusive of a bunch as you would likely meet. They are charged however with admitting students who can succeed.
@FlaParent: Students who have earned top 5% class standing at a poorly funded and/or administered school deserve better.
If the fear is that top 5% students from some Florida high schools cannot handle the demands of the state flagship university, then require a minimum standardized test score (ACT or SAT) in addition to top 5% or 6% class rank.
Additionally, all major universities should have programs in place to assist less privileged students to make the transition from a weak high school to the demands of the state flagship university.
Sometimes something as basic as a change in environment results in healthy development and growth. It is unfair to assume failure for those with top class rank & a minimum standardized test score simply because they graduated from an underperforming high school.
UF certainly has no problem admitting black athletes when it involves generating millions in income.
Shaun Harper, executive director of the University of Southern California’s Race and Equity Center, says UF can do more. Nearly 22 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds in Florida are black. His research found that, while black men make up just 2.2 percent of UF undergraduates, they comprise 78 percent of football and basketball teams.
“It’s ridiculous,” Harper said. “The University of Florida absolutely knows how to go and find black male recruits when they want them to make millions of dollars for them in their revenue-generating sports.”
In my opinion it’s not up to the state flagship to offer remedial classes for those not qualified to attend. For example in 2018 there were 433 AP courses taken at Jones High School.
The result were 0 5’s, 10 4’s and 25 3’s for a passing rate of under 10%. Looking further into to details, 100% of theses were in a single AP Class, Studio Art. Of the 396 other AP’s the pass rate was 0%
While this issue may need to be addressed, it should be UF’s responsibility to remedy this situation. Doing so would both water down UF academics and result in an admission standard that would vary so widely from school to school that it would create far more issues than it would solve.
A little late to the discussion,…but…
It’s a horrible freaking idea…it’s the reason why UT-Austin (a school with far more resources) is behind UF in the rankings.
Poorly, Florida has a large number of public magnet HS’s who’s students would be “punished” by an X% rule.
College admissions should be based on performance and ability not feelings. IMHO it’s not fair to select a weaker student, over a more qualified student, simply due to choice of HS. Include geographical location as a factor in holistic admissions, sure, make it the only thing that matters? No
It would lower it. See below. It’s the reason why UT-Austin, which far more resources than UF, is ranked lower.
Lower it, see below.
There is a reason why high schools are going away from class rankings. Too much focus on class rankings is a very bad thing. It creates way too much gaming of the system and too much pressure on the students.
If you compare UF students performance to UT-Austin, it’s clear that UF’s students are doing better, especially when it comes to graduating. This is especially true for underrepresented minorities (URMs).
UT-Austin undergraduate students (especially URMs) perform poorly as compared to UF’s, in metrics like graduation rates, retention, etc.
For example:
UT-Austin 6 year Graduation Rates:
Overall: 83%
Asian: 88%
White: 86%
Black: 74%
Hispanic: 74%
UF’s 6 Year Graduation Rates:
Overall: 90%
Asian: 91%
White: 91%
Black: 79%
Hispanic: 89%
The Hispanics at UF have a higher graduation rate than the Asians and whites at UT-Austin and graduate at almost the same rate as whites/Asians at UF (only 1 or 2% less).
22% of UF undergraduate students are Hispanic vs 23% at UT-Austin.
5% of UF undergraduate students are Black, vs 4% at UT-Austin
Texas X% rule isn’t making UT-Austin more diverse than UF’s method, and UF"s method is much more likely to bring in the best students.
Keep in mind that Texas has a much larger population than Florida (29M to 21M). They should have a much larger pool of students to draw from.
The state of Texas X% rule has proven to be a poor method to increase diversity. It was “easy”, and easy isn’t the way to do it.
The state of Florida did it by supporting K-12, making AP classes cheap (the state pays for them, not the local counties), same with dual enrollment classes. They also supported magnet schools, IB and AICE programs (they have started to roll out IB/AICE programs to middle schools). This has lead to a large pool of qualified candidates for college. Including minority students.
Then UF holistic admissions allows UF to be more selective in how it choosing it’s students. It’s focus on “First Time in College” students, allows it to give a slight bump to low socioeconomic status students (low SES), which also helps (high performing) URMs.
UF Holistic admissions can be frustrating, but the more rigorous admission method (Holistic vs top X%) is the better method.
@Gator88NE You may be reading too much into small differences in graduation rates. UF, with its Bright Futures program, makes UF more affordable than UT. UT is notoriously stingy with financial aid (will change going forward), Austin is expensive, and finances is a significant reason for students not graduating.