OOS accepted for Journalism but could change major. Would likely stay on humanities or social science side of things (International Studies maybe). From reading posts and learning about all these special programs and paths to UF, I get the sense that the university is understandably trying to run the school as close to capacity as possible at all times. Does this lead to overcrowding for classes? Is this isolated to certain majors/areas? Great school and great price but I’m concerned getting classes will be a problem without honors which my S did not get.
@otto4991 I can’t say your son would never have a problem getting a class but UF is not the biggest school in the state on purpose and also committed to hiring 500 new faculty to bring the teacher/student ratio down even further. The special programs are to offer admission opportunities to as many students as possible
Agree with @Melissa96. I think getting classes is a challenge almost everywhere, and in particular at public universities. UF is trying to maximize capacity with the different tracks and bridge programs. Innovations Academy students don’t take classes in the Fall and kids in the @SantaFe programs take critical tracking courses at Santa Fe College. I think these different programs are a reaction/solution to overcrowding and not a cause of it. UF is being more selective while adding faculty in an effort to improve its overall standing.
Its also important to look at the biases that are evident on this forum. I think it is dominated by high achievers and then parents with questions about the bridge programs, housing, financial aid. A small sliver of students are offered the
UF Honors program and research scholarship, and my guess is these are the real high flyers that UF wants to coax away from the Ivies, etc. The vast majority of students admitted on Friday (probably 90%) are like your son – typical incoming UF freshman.
@Melissa96 and @GatorDad305 thanks for your replies. You both make helpful points. My S is excited about UF so a proper visit will likely settle this in the end. We unfortunately could not get to every place he was interested in before apps went out. Right now, it’s UF or UW-Madison with other regular decisions yet to come. Either way won’t be boring like MD, lol.?
You and your son should visit UF and UW-Madison in February, that should be all it takes… 
I think the temp in Gainesville will reach 79 today…
Yes I know which I would choose now but I went to Syracuse back in the day so preferences change. My son loved Madison in early October and he’s been following students online to see what winter (and polar vortexes) are like. He said last night he’d need to see UF to make it a fair comparison so I think we’ll be headed there soon.
If you tour UF, see if the college your son is interested in has tours (like Engineering or Business). The college specific tour may be of more use, as compared to the standard admissions presentation/tour. Also, I know engineering usually has an accepted student day, later in the year.
Journalism?
https://www.ufjca.org/tours.html
Yes that’s it. Thanks!
@Gator88NE makes a good point about touring within the particular college of major. S did this within the business school a few yrs ago and it provided a lot more information pertinent to him. The generic tour is fine and you’ll get to see the core of the campus but that’s about it. We spent an hour or so getting a “one-on-one” tour with a B School student services lead which was awesome. Toured the facility, discussed particular majors, met with Study Abroad folks, got insight into business related clubs, etc. Put a much more intimate wrapper on everything. S decided to go elsewhere but the B school was quite impressive.
I imagine journalism will have something similar.
@otto4991 We live in Wisconsin, so UW Madison is in our decision mix also. It has been a tough winter and my husband and I would love to move to FL with our son Lol! I will echo some of the above comments. You should definitely visit both campuses and take the individual school tours. My son was surprised how much he liked the UF campus. The UW campus has more car traffic through the middle of it. And the business school tour at UF was fantastic. Much better than the general tour. The UW general tour was better, in our opinion. We stayed in the hotel in the student union at UF and that is also an option at UW I recommend. Good luck with your decision! My oldest son is a student at Madison and LOVES it. He did have a few issues with getting exactly the classes he wanted this semester, but he will move up the totem pole in credits and I don’t think it will be much of an issue. I think freshman at any large public university will have last choice for some classes. My DS19 is an NMF and I don’t see how we can turn down the Benacquisto option at UF, especially when the business school was so impressive. Both schools are winners!
@Mamareeb thanks for the pointers and congrats to your daughter. Good to know we’re not the only ones with this choice!
My daughter is also choosing between UW-Madison and UF (admitted to both as an OOS student) so I found this discussion interesting. We loved our tour of UW-Madison and will tour UF for the first time next week. Unfortunately, we did not realize how quickly the dorms fill up at UF, and did not submit our housing application until yesterday. Is there a chance she will not get a dorm room since we applied so late? We hate to pick a school based on housing, but we’re learning it’s a bit of an issue at UF.
@AtlJaybird UF will have plenty of housing available. It means you may not get your first or second choice. A few years ago, UF reduced the number of incoming freshman, by about 500 or so students and that left them with a surplus of housing. You daughter shouldn’t be put into a temporary triple or any such thing.
She will also be able to apply to one of the Living Learning Communities (LLC’s), as long as she meets whatever requirement that LLC may have (such as being an engineering student for the engineering LLC), and make that her first choice.
https://www.housing.ufl.edu/programs-services/living-learning-communities/
If she picks a roommate, before housing selection, that roommate can select the dorm (using their priority) and then “pull” your daughter into the room.
@AtlJaybird I think @Gator88NE is right. There should be plenty of freshman housing but it is definitely stressful. We were nervous about our daughter getting housing last year as a freshman but it turned out that they had plenty of capacity.
As was pointed out, if your daughter identifies a roommate with a higher priority date, then the roomie can select your daughter at her earlier date.
The recommended strategy for UF is to put down the housing deposit (which is like $30 or something) at the time of application.
@Gator88NE and @GatorDad305 - Thank you so much! That helps a lot.
I see people on this thread commented about the business school, which my daughter was accepted to but when we toured they did not offer a business school tour that day so we only took a general tour. My concern and hers about the business school is that it seems that kids don’t go to the introductory business classes and just watch the lecture online, is this how the business school works? I know it’s s big university but this seeems off to me that it’s just online classes with no interaction/discussion, can anyone comment on this?
@jakmom3 A few business courses are 100% online (the lectures), but the professors do have office hours. In most other cases (for entry level classes, which can have 100+ students), you have a choice of attending the class live (in-class section) or reviewing it online (online section). For scheduling reasons (and because some students don’t want to get out of bed before 11 am), they pick the online section.
Once you get past the “gateway” classes and start taking upper division classes, they become more more rare.
Thank you