UF Admissions Myths explained

@fl1234 I agree with you. Like my daughters school. They have been accepting in the 40’s. Somewhere in that neighborhood. Give or take 3-5 up or down. No quota but every school produces about the same talent every year. Although my daughters school has been rising because of the tons of new construction of homes over the last 5 years. Agree 100% the kids are competing against each other in a same school. Hard to compare against other schools right off the bat…

OK, @jhmoney and @fl1234, if you believe that kids from the same school are competing against each other, why would UF so specifically state in the blog post: “you’re not competing!”? (With an exclamation point, no less.)

What goal does misrepresenting this serve?

Here’s another question. What about a kid from Montana or Alaska who is the only kid from their high school applying to UF. How do they judge that kid compared to say 15 kids from a big and well-known high school in Atlanta who are all applying to UF too?

My conclusion is that UF has a system that compares each kid without regard to their specific high school class. Many aspects of the application have nothing to do with GPA and class rank: essay, ECs, work experience, test scores and volunteer work, for example, all can be evaluated independently of grades.

So why does it appear that each year, about the same number are admitted from each school? The law of large numbers, perhaps? The system churns out consistent, if not always easily understood, results.

Again, one guy’s interpretation…

Here is an interesting fact from my own experience. If you happen to have the benefits of a Florida Pre Paid plan and you are OOS, you have to let UF know in order for them to reclassify your status to In-State Tuition. This is done during the application process. Basically you are letting them know that they will not be getting the OOS revenue assuming the applicant gets accepted and chooses to enroll. Every single owner of one of these plans from our OOS HIgh School has NOT been accepted. Kids with lesser overall stats who do not have a Florida Pre Paid plan have been accepted.

On the other side of this is FSU. They do not require the applicant to provide this information during the application process. Everyone who applies is classified as an OOS student during the process Once the student is accepted and chooses to attend, the information is provided and they will change the status. Every single one of these applicants has been accepted.

@GatorDad305 To answer why UF says you are not competing: 1. for me, it follows logically from their statement that there are no quotas. Since there are no quotas, they have flexibility in how many they can take from each school, so they can say you are not competing for a certain number of spots. 2. I think that the statement is disingenuous because even if you are not competing with your HS peers, you are most certainly competing with the other 40K+ applicants. (They can only accept so many) So, if you are competing with the wider population, and your HS peers are part of that population, you are competing with them. Everyone knows that admissions to top universities is competitive, that is why you see all of these Chance Me posts. To say that students are not competing with each other at any level is a bit insulting to our intelligence, tbh.

Regarding OOS students, that is a completely different animal that I have no experience with. My comments have always referred to in state students from high schools that UF has a history of admissions and outcome experiences.

There are certainly important factors that can be used to compare students across high schools. No doubt that they use those factors and they have bearing on the decisions. But, GPA and course rigor are two of the most important considerations, as stated by UF, and those cannot be consistently compared across high schools. So, if they are in fact truly “Very Important”, they are likely being used to compare students in the same high school.

@GatorDad305 I have talked to UF admissions twice and then sat in a session at UF not during a college tour but a specific program my daughter went through. Here is what I was told on the phone twice. I won’t say the schools but you’ll get the point. The admissions person who actually answered was the former recruiter for Broward county. He said , “ we can’t compare a child from a school like Cypress Bay to a school like X because they do not have the same resources (ie teachers) to have the same number of AP AICE classes. He said what they do it look at the profile the high school end to them. Basically all the courses they offer. They look at all the kids to determine based on their grades , classes they took advantage of to compare them. Yes at some point towards the very end they need to compare the final few that are on the fence. As far as community service EC etc and essays go. No Clue how they count that. Who’s to say someone’s is better than others etc. sAT scores are a constant so that’s easy to compare of course. I still believe that they use what ever software package with artificial intelligence to move x% to acceptance and x % to not being considered. Then there is the middle ground and I think they get more detailed. No idea how many they cut and how many they moved forward. This is my personal opinion part. I could be completely wrong but I have talked to several former admin people from other schools who say it’s Impossible to put 100% effort into 40-50k applications

@fl1234 wow I couldn’t of stated it any more perfectly. To say you aren’t competing and help your class mate you can go to college together ? Huh. I honestly wish that were true.

@fl1234 and @jhmoney Of course they are “competing” against the entirety of the applicant pool. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t be here.

I think where you rank or compare to your high school classmates carries less weight than UF’s data driven picture of each student.

It’s fun to discuss. When we go for the boy’s tour at the end of the month, I have much to ask about.

Most importantly: Beat Auburn!

Good luck on the tour… I have a few questions if you can ask

  1. last time we went for a special program my daughter participated in they had a UF admissions person speak… here is what she said - we read every single essay twice… with out a name with out a gender with out any info on the person… they have 2 readers grade it and if both grades are similar they then attach it to the application… if the 2 graders are far apart they have a 3rd reader grade it… anyway, once they read them and grade them blindly they attached to the students profile… this way there is no biased on gender, grades geographical location etc… Ask them if they do it this way… this was from the director of admissions…

  2. ask if there is a difference between a general admitted student and a Pace student… I asked if the PACE student was the next layer down of accepted students… they said there is no difference between a kids admitted in the fall and a kid who gets pace… they all had the same gpa’s test scores and EC’s. they just didn’t have enough room for them all… Versus what I believed to be PACE kids are slightly below the fall and summer admitted pool

  3. knowing that half the kids parents or a paid person writes the essay for them why is that so important… (not an actual stat, just a poll from kids in south Florida speaking to them and their parents)… my daughter wrote a beautiful essay herself… seems commonly known that a lot of the kids have someone else write if for them?

ok thats it… good luck to you on your sons tour…

@jhmoney - I don’t normally wade into the freshman threads like this - but to your first point - yes every essay is read at least twice without specifically knowing gender just the way it was explained. Essay is shorthand for the entirety of the holistic portion of the application. Starting early October until we are done, reading takes up most of our time (including holidays). When I give my presentations I always say - For goodness sake, Please, I beg you, do not write a 5 paragraph essay. The SSAR and test scores are not due until December so we wouldn’t have GPA/test scores for lots of apps when we are doing the holistic read.

For the rest - we are a selective admissions school not a competitive admissions school - we go through all the applications and select who is going to be admitted where.

Our good friends at Georgia Tech had a great post earlier this month which you may? find helpful https://pwp.gatech.edu/admission-blog/2019/09/05/thats-not-how-it-works-part-3/

@Melissa96 thank you for clarifying. Appreciate the details. I guess I totally forgot about the SSAR and test scores being far behind the application deadline. Seems like a lot of work for you guys. I guess this is the busy time like tax season for you guys. Good luck with the process. I couldn’t imagine the amount of work you guys put into this process. I guess in the blink of an eye it will all be over. If I don’t have a coronary prior. ?

@Gator88NE Does UF publish a similar geographic enrollment map for OOS acceptances?

@4Family4 Yes, it’s the same map. Change your view from By Florida County to By State.

Correction: that’s by enrollment and not by acceptances, let me see if I can find anything…

@4Family4 Ok, you can use the enrollment map to determine enrollment by state (pick undergraduates, if that’s what you want to look at).

You can use the Admissions reports to get OOS acceptance rates (by year). Select type “First time in college” and select residency : out of state.

The top 10 Feeder states (from the Annual Admissions Report):

Florida: 27,212
NY: 1,210
NJ: 1,189
Ga: 823
Maryland: 701
Penn: 603
Illinois: 538
Texas: 477
California: 462
Virginia: 430

Overall OOS:
Applicants: 9,442
Admits: 4,250
Enrolled: 935

When I went to school in the 80’s, UF was doing “well” with those same states…especially NY and NJ.

@Melissa96 Quick question, can you clarify what you mean by: “When I give my presentations I always say - For goodness sake, Please, I beg you, do not write a 5 paragraph essay.”
Sorry if I’m slow. Do you mean too long or short? or too rote?

@Melissa96 is there a report that highlights the amount of applicants by high school and acceptance per high school. I saw Georgia tech had that which was kind of cool and neat to see?

That “North Avenue Trade School” is not our friend. The SOB’s are blocking us from our rightful place as a top 5 Public University! We must CRUSH THEM!

Wait a minute…I forgot, this is Auburn hate week, not GT…

Carry on…

@jhmoney HA! Found it (for 2017),

http://content.orlandosentinel.com/table/2017-Florida-campus-admissions/index.html#nt=instory-link

Enter the name of the HS and it will give you the number of applicants and admits by Florida state University (all 12).

Definitely crush Auburn (my brother went there). I say don’t write a 5 paragraph essay because it leads to bad, rote admissions essays that lead a student down a road that shouldn’t be followed. Admissions essays are not something to turn in for English class. My favorite page that talks about essays is here.

https://www.mhrd.org/cms/lib/NJ01000236/Centricity/Domain/407/McEssay_Article_WORD.pdf

@Melissa96 thanks

@Gator88NE thanks for the link… unfortunately that is 3 years old… its a great link but its dated and I believe its based on only fall admissions? unless reading it wrong… appreciate the link… I have to believe there is something more current. :(.