I’ve been luring for a while, but I finally decided to sign-up to respond to this post. I am paranoid like you. My son is a senior at one of the top public high schools in Florida. 3.98 UW GPA, 5.2 Weighted GPA because of 14 AP classes and many dual enrollment. 1490 SAT with an 800 on the Math section. Very good ECs at the state level of accomplishment. Already rejected by an Ivy for ED. Even though his Naviance says he is a UF lock, my son knows people who, in recent years, had better stats than him who were rejected by UF.
1 Like
@fladadK4Q. We are in a very similar spot. Top 6% in a top feeder school. 1460 with 770 in math. 3.94 UW, 5.0 weighted. Good EC’s. Nothing at the state level, but President of Honor Society. Had an cool internship and did a remote summer program at UF. 10 AP, 4 AICE and 3 dual enrollment. Very strong essay. We don’t have Naviance but I feel like she should be a lock. And then I hear the stories and it seems like nobody is a lock. 2/26 can’t come fast enough.
3 Likes
Exactly. No one is a lock. Naviance doesn’t help in predicting UF. All of us have anecdotal reports of those getting into places like OOS UNC or Vandy etc but not UF. UF likes community service and more recently they like working experience, too. But again, anecdotal f/b, nothing definite.
We don’t assume UF is a safety. It should be for many (high stats, strong or outstanding leadership and community service) but it’s definitely not. And Honors is impossible to predict, too.
Here’s to a happy 2/26 when hopefully, we all get good Orange and a Blue news.
2 Likes
New to the forum, but not to several of your children’s success stories! Congrats to you all for doing such a great job. Our senior daughter also anxiously awaits for the 26th! She also happens to turn 18 on that day, which even ups the emotion as you can imagine, being UF is her first choice. She has a 1460 SAT, 4.53 weighted GPA, and has been in the IB programme since freshman year. She has already been accepted into both honors colleges at UCF and USF with top merit scholarships to boot. She also has enough AP and IB credits to skip a year of college. I was wondering if anyone has any information on how IB students fare. The program’s coordinators data is a bit outdated. Thanks!
1 Like
@GulfCoastDad I have always head that UF likes IB but who knows? We have a dinner reservation that night. We will either be celebrating or eating our feelings, lol!
I have been on this board for 5-6 years and have 2 at UF now. For in state students, it is my very strongly held opinion that class rank is by far the most important factor in UF’s decisions.
UF says that they don’t use class rank per se, and I understand why; many high schools do not provide that information. But UF gets many applications from every high school in the state, they know each school very well and can tell where your student falls in the class rank. I believe that your in state students are competing with their classmates, not against students in other high schools. That is why I believe that GPA by itself when comparing applicants on this board is meaningless. Every high school is different, offers a different number of APs, IBs, allows or does not allow dual enrollment, has different levels of grade inflation, and so on.
It think it is even more so now, and in the future, as standardize tests are less available due to COVID and the cultural stigma associated with them.
Big picture numbers: 204,000 graduates in FL high schools. UF accepted 14,561 last year. Say about 15% of those are out of state, so 12,377 are in state. 12,377/204,000 = 6% of Florida high school graduates were accepted by UF. So, there is a rule of thumb of where in your class rank you should be, on average. Obviously, some high schools will get a higher % and some will get lower. And it is not always the highest class ranked students that get in as there are other considerations.
For comparison (though I don’t think that you can really compare from another high school) my 2024 Gator had 1480 SAT, 3.99UW, 12 APs, Salutatorian, lots of extracurriculars and awards, varsity athlete, etc. No different from the stats I see in this thread. He was accepted with a Presidential Scholarship from UF. Deferred by Duke ED, rejected RD. Waitlisted from UVA and NYU and rejected by Cornell.
I know the wait is terrible, hang in there!
3 Likes
I have been told the same thing about class rank. Regardless of what UF says publicly, it really matters. In the top 10% of your class with a good SAT score, things look good. Top 5% of your class with an SAT above the UF average, pretty much a lock. I have no idea if this is true. I guess we will see.
@fladadK4Q completely agree. There will be exceptions, but in general 5% is low risk, 10% has good chance, but not all in top 10% will get in.
I wonder if top 6% with a 1460 from a top feeder school makes up for not being top 5%? I hope so! I am nervous that they won’t give as much weight to test scores this year since so many weren’t able to test multiple times
New to the forum as well. I have a college freshman (sophomore due to AP classes) who was rejected from UF last year and has applied to transfer to UF from another Florida state school. We relied on our HS Naviance data his senior year in HS and were confident he would have been accepted based on his EC, strong essays, competitive GPA/SAT, double legacy, etc. Unfortunately that was not the case. Also confusing was that several classmates with lower class rankings (less impressive ECs, no leadership etc) and were listed as Cum Laude graduates on our commencement program (3.30-3.59 gpa) are in fact enrolled at UF.
In my opinion and based on several conversations with other parents, UF admits with less than stellar stats had selected Innovation Academy or applied to less selective majors such as those that are available in Pace (General Business and Gender Studies are two that we know of). Mine had applied for Finance and we recently learned that other Summa Cum Laude/high achieving graduates from our HS who were rejected had applied to Finance or Political Science.
Unfortunately, I didn’t find much discussion on these message boards last year about choice of major significantly affecting applicants’ chances. I’m wondering if others have heard similar stories. I have a HS sophomore so we are still going through this.
UF says that they don’t consider major for acceptance, but checking the box for innovation or choosing a major that is available for Pace or a Gator Santa Fe program does allow for additional acceptances that aren’t traditional fall/spring. Other than that, major shouldn’t matter, that is why you can go to preview and change your major before you even start school.
I was also just reading that UF calculates admission GPA differently than the weighted on my daughters transcripts, which is what was entered on the SSAR form. Is there a program or link or any info with how we can figure this out for ourselves?
Welcome to CC!!
What you wrote about (Pace and innovative programs etc) is similar to what I’ve heard. But UF always says otherwise. I do think there are inconsistencies (i.e. kids getting accepted with lower states than some other kids). Everyone tries to figure out the reasoning but we are only guessing.
Bottom line: be as competitive an applicant in as many areas as you can (GPA scores, rank, rigorous curriculum, community service, leadership, great essays if applying to honors).
I personally think this year will be slightly easier to get in with scores lower than previous years given that many kids couldn’t take the test multiple times.
Good luck!! 
@GulfCoastDad use this calculator
Rules are: add .5 for honors in core subjects or foreign language only. Add 1.0 for all AP/IB/AICE. Add 1.0 for core dual enrollment (not electives)
Enter semester grades once and if the grade is just one grade for full year, enter it twice.
1 Like
I think TO has caused deferrals. Schools have so many applicants that they are unsure how things will work yield wise. If kids used to apply to 6 but now 8 schools on average…well u can see how the # of applicants can spiral out of control for all.
The other issue is students asking for a gap year was way up last year. How many of those kids come back. That’s another factor.
The best statisticians will have it rough this year.
Your son is a lock
Thanks for the feedback and I agree, however it may have mattered for my son more than we expected. He applied to finance thinking he would most likely get in (again, based on the data we saw). He didn’t get an opportunity to switch at Preview because he was rejected. There’s also some scant information on-line about certain “limited access majors”. He is now applying as a transfer to the CLAS Economics program. People might argue that he should pick the major he wants, period. The difference in his case is that he was 18 years old and on the fence about Econ and Finance, and prefers UF Econ or even general business to any other Florida state school finance (for his own reasons).
Knowing what we know now about choice of major affecting his chances of admission, he said he would have done things differently. I realize hindsight is 20/20 and no one could have predicted the pandemic which essentially put PACE and IA on rather equal footing with regular admission for this class, but hearing others’ stories on this board is a fantastic way to learn about the nuanced twists and turns.
Good luck everyone!
Your son sounds amazing! Make sure UofF knows he really has a passion for that school and wants to be there. I think it’s a great school but a lot of high stat kids use it for a safety and frankly, I think they’re tired of being a safety. So my guess is that is why your son was rejected the first time. They thought he would be aiming for a higher ranked school. So good luck. I think he’ll get it this time just let them know it’s his dream school!
1 Like
@FlaCollegeQuandary if you suspect that UF is not being honest about the intended major being a consideration in your son not being accepted, maybe for your sophomore, don’t include a major in the application?
UF’s website addressing ‘admission myths’ says that you don’t have to include it:
10. “If I choose a certain major on my application, I’ll have a better chance for admission.”
Nope! UF does not consider the major a student chooses when making decisions. In fact, students are not required to choose a major until their sophomore year. So put whatever you think you want to study on your application, or don’t put a major at all.
1 Like
My son is currently an OOS Marketing major at UF. I can not say choice of major was an issue for acceptance. He was initially accepted for the Summer B but he later requested for the Fall semester and he was granted the request. The school is very competitive for OOS applicants but I am not so sure is any more competitive for Florida applicants. He loves UF, but for those of you applying to the Business school or any other major, I find the school to be of very little help when it comes to guidance. There is a lot of thruth about what we heard about hand holding or the lack of it. My son basically navigates with the guidance of his friends or word of mouth when it comes to class scheduling. A lof of the freshmen classes have always been online. The pandemic has made it a little easier to level the playing field when compared to other large schools when it comes to online classes. Everyone is in the same boat. But compared to my dauhthers other school, in order to succeed at UF, you have to be resourceful and you have to be able to find the way around.