can anyone tell me what the pros and cons may be between these two schools Honors program?
My daughter was accepted to both but i feel UCF is a better environment for her although UF is better ranked academically.
I definitely don’t have all the answers as my daughter is only a junior. While she hopes to go OOS, finances may very will dictate a Florida school - and we will likely face the same dilemma. I am very impressed with UCF’s honor’s college - I’ve consistently heard positive things about it, and I particularly like the fact that they have honors sections of core math and science classes - honors org chem, for instance. The classes are capped at 25 and are taught by some of the school’s top profs.
UF doesn’t really have a true honor’s college, but rather an honor’s program. While it does offer some benefits, I think UCF Burnett is definitely a stronger, more robust offering.
In many ways UCF is a better option for my daughter as well - as an undecided major, her first year will be critical in helping shape her college path, particularly since she’ll have so many gen ed credits from AP/IB. I want her to have at least a few great professors and small classes from the start - I am not convinced that having weed-out courses with hundreds of students taught by a TA compares to the experience she’ll have in Burnett. You may want to check out the responses I received when asking about UCF’s honor’s college: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-central-florida/2124181-quality-of-ucf-honors-courses-college.html#latest
Anecdotally, we also have a friend whose niece reluctantly enrolled at UCF (Honors) - she had her heart set on an Ivy but it was financially impossible for her parents. While she still wishes she had attended an elite school, she did spend the summer after her freshman year at MIT and will be going to Cornell this summer, conducting research in her chosen field as an underclassman. I was thrilled to hear that she was able to have these types of experiences, because it’s exactly what I want for my daughter.
I do worry a bit about UCF’s rankings compared to UF’s, and my daughter may be swayed by the “prestige”’ factor in the end. In my opinion, though, UF seems somewhat complacent and self-satisfied, while UCF seems far more enthusiastic in catering to their top students. The honors college also seems to mitigate some common concerns about UCF, particularly in term of size and difficulty getting courses. We also loved the campus layout and the overall energy of the school.
What is your daughter interested in? UCF does compete well with UF in a number of majors, such as CS.
I’m also curious why you think the UCF environment is a better fit?
If you both feel it’s the right place for her, I wouldn’t be overly-swayed by rankings. It’s easy to doubt your choices when “everyone” thinks UF is the obvious choice, but it needs to be the right choice for your daughter. I’m sure she’ll do brilliantly at either school, but let us know what she decides! (And I’d love to hear about her freshmen experience - it will be here before you know it.)
Good luck!
I’m going to copy this from a recent posting I did in the UF forum:
I would recommend checking out the other responses in this thread.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-florida/2129695-my-son-was-denied-into-uf-honors-program.html#latest
UCF is the 87th ranked Public University in the country, UF is the 8th. UCF’s honor’s college doesn’t magically make that gap go away…
UF has far more resources, facilities, and faculty.
One metric that most clearly shows this is Instructional Expenditures / FTE, a metric that’s reported to the government (IPEDS).
Instructional Expenditures / FTE:
UF: $16,438
GT: $14,665 (who’s tied with UF at #8)
FSU: $10,915
University of Alabama: $10,761
UCF: $7,066
UF’s student to faculty ratio is 19 to 1, it’s a horrible 29.9 to 1 at UCF. UF is in the middle of hiring 500 additional faculty, with the goal of getting the ratio down to 17 to 1 or better (to complete with the UVa’s and UNC’s and become a top 5 program). For comparison, that would raise UF’s total full time faculty count to about twice UCF’s.
The honor colleges/programs will allow you to enroll in smaller classes, but once you’re done with your intro classes, you will be taking most of your classes with the rest of the students. UCF (and UF) simply don’t have the resources to provide a large number of “Honor” upper division classes.
UF does far more research, has far more undergraduate research opportunities, offers more design teams, is far better recruited nationally, etc.
I recommend you use LinkedIn and look up each school. Select the Alumni tab, then select the any area of study. You can view where alumni are living and who are their employers.
Compare Computer Science (one of UCF’s strengths). Even though UCF has more alumni in CS (7,800 to 7,600), UF has more working for companies like Google, Microsoft, etc. For example, UCF has 284 CS folks living in greater San Francisco (Google, Facebook, Apple, etc.), and 220 in the greater Seattle area (Amazon, Microsoft, etc). UF has 796 in SF and 546 in Seattle. UF CS is better recruited nationally. Outside of CS, the numbers are far more lopsided toward UF.
From UCF"s 2015-2016 Graduation Survey
UF provides far more data from it’s graduation survey. 69% of UF grads stay in state (as compared to 90% for UCF). Of course choice of major would have a strong impact on this percentage. For UF CS majors, it’s only 38%. I recommend you take a look at UF’s data. It’s very informative.
https://career.ufl.edu/student-outcomes/
For salary/bonus info, you can also use some of UF’s data as a proxy for UCF for several majors, including engineering and CS. I wouldn’t expect much of a pay difference. The UCF CS grad working at Google was offered about the same amount as the UF grad.
You shouldn’t if we are talking about the 8th ranked Public University vs the 20th ranked school. However, there is a reason for a close to EIGHTY (public) school gap exist between UF and UCF. You do need to consider it, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a deciding factor.
Think of UCF’s honor’s college as a way to help mitigate some of UCF"s faults. However, it doesn’t eliminate them. Burnett Honor College is not a peer university to UF.
There is nothing wrong with choosing UCF over UF. Every student is different, and there are significant differences between the two schools. UCF tends to offer more and larger merit scholarships to in-state students (I know my bank account lobbied hard for UCF!). UCF is in Orlando, and some folks far prefer a more urban environment to a college town (Gainevsille). A dozen different factors, including the honor’s college, could make a strong case for some students.
If you’ve considered all of these factors, and choose UCF, you’ve made the right decision. Don’t worry about what anyone else has to say (especially weird UF alumni on internet forums!), they don’t understand all of the factors that come into play and this is a very personal decision.
Good Luck!