The University of Florida has always been my dream school, but I’m scared I won’t get in.
I’m a rising senior and currently in Early College so I will be getting my AA degree when I graduate high school. I have a 3.8 Unweighted GPA and a 4.6 Weighted GPA but my ACT composite is a 21 (I KNOW ITS LOW!). I am planning to retake the ACT.
Extra Curriculars/Involvement include:
-National Honor Society (2 years, currently hold an officer position as the Early College Vice-President and just got the President position for the 2018-2019 school year!!)
-GreenState Environmental Club (2 years, hold an officer position as the Vice-President and planning to run for VP again)
-Fierce Young Educated (FYE) Early College Club at Florida State College
-Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society at Florida State College
-Volunteered at UF Health and did the Summer Teen Volunteer Program
-Volunteering at UF Health again as an adult volunteer in the Emergency Department
-Part of the Vietnamese Association of Jacksonville
I also have a job on top of school and extracurriculars!
You will get a better response if you offer more information, calculating your “UF” GPA is a good start. UF only looks at Academic classes and APs and weighs APs and Honors differently than many high schools.
Unweighted GPA:
Weighted GPA:
UF GPA (If you calculated it):
SAT:
ACT:
State Of Residence:
Male / Female:
Class rank:
AP’s:
Extra Curriculars:
Unweighted GPA: 3.8
Weighted GPA: 4.6
UF GPA (If you calculated it): idk
SAT: Never took it
ACT: 21 (plan on retaking)
State Of Residence: Florida
Male / Female: Male
Class rank: 10
AP’s: No AP classes but dual enrollment, I currently have 48 college credits.
Extra Curriculars:
-National Honor Society (2 years, currently hold an officer position as the Early College Vice-President and just got the President position for the 2018-2019 school year!!)
-GreenState Environmental Club (2 years, hold an officer position as the Vice-President and planning to run for VP again)
-Fierce Young Educated (FYE) Early College Club at Florida State College
-Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society at Florida State College
-Volunteered at UF Health and did the Summer Teen Volunteer Program
-Volunteering at UF Health again as an adult volunteer in the Emergency Department
-Part of the Vietnamese Association of Jacksonville
I also have a job on top of school and extracurriculars!
The UF GPA is not hard to calculate. For AICE, IB classes A=5 B=4. Non Aice classes are regular 4,3. Only calculate your GPA for 5 core classes - Math, English, Science, Social Studies, Foreign Language. Middle 50% of students getting accepted have 4.4 weighted UF GPA. My son got in with a 4.2 sooo it isn’t everything as 25% get in with less than that. I’m guessing you will be okay in that case. My other advice. Practice for the ACT by doing timed tests. It is a pain but worth it. Read College Panda blogs for good advice on ACT test taking. You need to bring that up. Then as you submit your application - show a consistent commitment and passion through your ECs. You have time to keep building your EC over the summer. I think you got that. Creative, stand out essay.
Your big concern is the test score. The average ACT score of those admitted to the class of 2022 was 30. You need to improve your score significantly. You may want to also try the SAT as some kids do better on one vs. the other. My daughter did better on the SAT than the ACT. She also took an SAT prep class and I think her math aptitude came through more on the SAT. ACT has a science reasoning section that is different from the SAT. You should consider a prep course or some other means to improve your ACT score.
If your UF GPA is somewhere in the middle of your weighted/unweighted than you are in the lane. Reminder, UF will only look at your first 3 years of high school, so your GPA is what it is. UF also looks at your overall rigor, including your senior year schedule, so be sure to take as many academic classes your senior year as you can.
Lastly, with holistic admissions, UF looks at the whole student. Consider more volunteer work and try to get some additional leadership roles.
Pros: GPA looks like it is in the lane. Rigor is good with the college credits/DE, a nice list of school related positions and good community service.
Cons: Test score, no big-time leadership, no known awards.
Upside, you can raise your score, you can add some additional ECs/volunteer work this summer, and you can write a great essay.
With a better test score, you have an excellent chance.
If you earn your AA (while in High School), then admissions can be a bit different.
First, they will consider you as a normal freshman applicant. All of the rules, discussed above would apply. Including the case where UF doesn’t consider your choice of major.
If you’re NOT accepted as a freshman applicant, UF will consider you again as a TRANSFER student. In this case, your choice of major does matter!
As the others have stated, work on the ACT! Also, I would highly recommend that you do finish out your AA, so you can also be considered as a transfer student.
Im going to be very blunt because I wish people were more blunt with me. I am in the honors college with a 29 act. With that said I have the lowest ACT of anyone I have ever met at UF. No one has lower than a 27 at the very least. I think standardized testing is stupid and isn’t a true measure for intelligence, but for some reason colleges do. So unless you get your score up ALOT you may want to apply to some back ups just in case.
25% of all enrolled freshman (who submitted ACT scores) had a Composite score less than 29. Of course, that’s not the case in the honors college.
For enrolled freshman students in the fall of 2017, below are the ACT tests score ranges. The 25th percentile (the score that 25 percent of the freshman population scored at or below) and the 75th percentile score (the score that 25 percent scored at or above):
ACT Composite 28 32
ACT Math 26 31
ACT English 27 34
As you can see, 25% of all enrolled freshman had a 28 or lower composite score, 25% had a 26 or less score in Math, and a 27 score in English.
On the other hand, only 4% had a composite score of 23 or less. Hopefully the poster was able to improve their ACT score.
Data is available in section C9 of the common data set.
