UF Honors Program vs UCF Burnett Honors College and Medical Scholar. Please help!!!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Central Florida
1

I’ve been accepted to University of Florida (UF) and University of Central Florida (UCF).
Both offer free-ride (full cost of attendance) due to National Merit Scholarship. So, same zero cost for both.
I am absolutely torn between these great options. Please help!!! Any suggestion/info/pointer is greatly appreciated.

I am planning of majoring in biology (premed track). As far as I can tell I like medicine, but Idk much about it. So, it is possible that I may change my major. Nevertheless, at this time, I am pursing premed.

University of Florida is Florida’s flagship college, with USNWR of 42. It has a Honors Program, but it essentially boils down to living in Hume Hall and pre-registering up to 10 credit hours for the first two years. At UF, I have to take the weed-out classes (except Chemistry 2) in the regular section, with 100s of people.

UCF is a regional university (with USNWR ranking of 171) but it is considered up and coming. UCF’s Burnett College is a full-fledged Honors College. Almost all premed prerequisites/general education classes are offered in the Honors College, and they are capped around 25 students. Burnett has much better advising and a lot of activities arranged for NMFs.

Most importantly, I am a Burnett Medical Scholar, which means I will automatically be accepted to UCF College of Medicine upon graduation if I can get 3.75 GPA and 512 MCAT score.

In summary,
Solid education, reputable school, so-so honors program at UF
VERSUS
Not so-reputable school, a lot of transfer students, but great Honors College, capped weed-out classes in the honors section, guaranteed seat at the medical school, full support for NMFs at UCF.

Which one would you choose and why?

2

Oddly enough I’m in this exact same situation and I’m leaning towards UCF honors because of the smaller class sizes and the ability to work with professors & have a close relationship with them. I visited both campuses and I just like UCF’s a lot better. I think at this point you need to choose what college you see yourself going to for four years. For me, the only thing I liked about UF was it’s reputation… and I didn’t like anything else. In my personal opinion I think you should choose UCF, but it’s about where you see yourself and where you think you’d fit.

3

Don’t sell ucf short. I sincerely don’t mean to diss uf. You say ucf is not so reputable but many believe uf is over-hyped. Not in premed, but both my kids opted for ucf over uf and have never looked back.
Congrats on BMS…that isn’t easy to get and it’s a tough program. If you haven’t already done this, you could ask Burnett to put you in touch with some other bms students do they can give you a true understanding of every day life in this program.

You didn’t mention if you oos or local and if you plan to live on campus.

4

I am OOS (Northeast). I plan to live in tower 3 at least as a freshman.
I said it is not reputable because I hadn’t heard about UCF before my college search. I knew UF. This does not mean it is not a good university. It just means that it does not have the same name recognition as UF.
I am passing up a top university (too expensive) and UF, and likely go to UCF. I hope I won’t regret it.

5

I don’t know!

6

@FSUdad93: If I were to pursue engineering like your son, I most likely would have chosen UF. The tipping point is BMS, which, for engineering, means nothing.

7

Getting into BMS is big.
Towers is a great dorm and Burnett will give you lots of advantages.
Welcome
Go Knights and charge on!!!

8

My son also is choosing UCF Burnett Honors and their MEDD program (dual degree for biomedical sciences and engineering of your choice) . He’s choosing Computer engineering due to the awesome reputation the computer department at UCF has. Internship opportunities seem greater in Orlando too. CHARGE ON!