This posted on the UF Admissions blog last week. Looks like they review grades and test scores separate from ECs and essay, then they match them up and start to make a decision. Interesting.
http://www.admissions.ufl.edu/blog/2018/01/26/building-the-freshman-class.html
Thanks for the link - that was interesting!
Wow, thank you!
hmm this is interesting. I wish they described more about territory rosters. We live in NJ and my daughter has her heart set on UF. But looking at the GPAs… ugh. She has great grades. But her school doesn’t allow any AP classes for freshmen, and only 2 for sophomores. So after her three years even if she got As in every class and took the highest level of everything that she could her max GPA would still only be 4.665. Right now she is tracking for a 4.335 after juniior year, out of a possible 4.665. I am hoping these territory rosters take things like that into account… I see people with 4.7, and that’s not even a possibility at her school.
Rumors last year, when fewer FL kids accepted than prior years, was that part of moving up in National reputation may mean OOS kids have a better chance, all else equal. They can describe it a goal to increase geographical diversity. It also may mean more OOS tuition dollars. Tough on FL Prepaid kids that may find they can’t get in even thou may have better grades, test scores, EC, etc. FL Prepaid kids that 2 years ago would get into UF may find themselves at FSU/UCF driving up their acceptance GPA/ACT stats. Presumably some of these kids may have gone OOS had their parents not bought FL Prepaid.
The acceptance rates for OOS students is about the same as in-state students.
There are some positives for being an OOS student, such as UF’s goal to increase the % of OOS students, but there are also some negatives being OOS (UF still gives a slight preference to in-state students, state residency is “considered”).
At the end of the day, it all equals out and the acceptance rates are about the same.
The UF AO’s will say that being OOS doesn’t matter. That’s very different from some other Public Universities, but UF hasn’t become (yet) a popular OOS choice, like Georgia Tech, UV or UNC.
Who knows, I really know nothing, but a drive to increase the % of OOS students sort of implies a decreased % of Florida residents. Acceptance rates can be the same for OOS and in state and still imply part of the holistic factors may involve territory rosters.
Oversimplified example, using only GPA, say 100 students from FL apply all with GPA 4.0 and 40 are accepted. Say 10 OOS students apply, all with a GPA of 3.9, and 4 students are accepted. Acceptance rates the same (40%) but 4 Florida kids had better stats.
I’m not saying there is anything wrong with trying to get more OOS kids. They will be very careful about how they approach and what they say about it b/c FL Prepaid parents have often speculated that one day, with cuts to university funding, there may be a financial incentive to take an OOS student over instate.
Many of the kids with UF dreams that just missed it will end up at FSU or UCF and improve their freshman stats.
there have already been rumors and innuendo over the past few years that having FL prepaid decreases your chances of being accepted to UF
I don’t even remember being asked if we had Florida prepaid. More students are choosing not to use prepaid for undergrad because Bright Futures is paying a bigger percentage of tuition that they save FPP for grad school. If UF is using having FPP as a criteria, I think it will backfire on them.
We moved to FL when my kids were in high school so it was all new to me. I was surprised that UF wasn’t the first choice for many kids. At our high school the top students were split pretty evenly between UF, UCF, and FSU, and quite a few went to the others too like FIU, FAU, North Florida, and USF. I was surprised because there is nothing about UCF that I find attractive (not an Orlando fan) but one of my daughter’s friends LOVES it there. She could have gone to any school she wanted to because money wasn’t an issue, her awards were numerous in both academics and talent (music, theater, art). She LOVES UCF, she was lead in a musical as a freshman, she has several majors and minors and really became a big fish in an enormous pond very quickly.
My nephew was a transplant to the Tampa area in middle school and wanted nothing to do with FSU but chose UF over UCF. There really is no way to tell which school is going to be popular at a certain high school.
I really don’t think UF considers Florida Prepaid in admissions. Lots of kids have it at UF, including both of mine.
I think you’re giving UF too much credit. 
If you have purchased FPP before 2007 or so, then UF can’t charge the Tuition Differential fee, which is about $44.17 a credit hour.That differential fee issue is likely how the rumor got started.
That differential fee is also why it’s a good idea to use Pre-Paid now for your undergraduate fee’s, and then pocket the extra Bright Future funds. If you use it now, it’s the Pre-Paid value + Differential fee (avoidance) that’s being paid, if you use it for grad school, it’s just the Pre-paid value. Graduate level courses don’t charge the differential fee.
Do they post the average GPAs of accepted students by state? That is what I would really like to see.
@gold523 I would be surprised if they offered such breakdowns. What I’m learning from researching the admissions process at UF (and likely other top schools) is that it is very complicated. You made an excellent point. What if your kid goes to a school where a 4.5 is nearly impossible because the rigor is not available? I looked at my daughter’s grades and she has a bunch of APs but even if she would had earned all As, she still would have only been within the middle 50%. (She hasn’t by the way but she has great extracurriculars, so we are hoping that puts her over the top.) I have no idea what we will find out next week.
Some schools are much easier to get an A in than others, even in AP classes. I think that’s a good reason to consider testing scores to at least validated GPA, as well as class rank; at least for that 50% academic side of things.
@OldLady21 I agree that your position makes sense but then if you look at the UF common data set at https://ir.aa.ufl.edu/media/iraaufledu/common-data-set/Main_cds2016-2017.pdf you will see that test scores are viewed as “important” while rigor, GPA, essay, extracurriculars, character and volunteer work are “very important.” Class rank is only “considered.” I think its three dimensional chess.