Hume, in my opinion, is the best dorm on campus. I also think a students first year should be in a dorm because there is no better way to meet other students, especially your fellow freshmen. My gator is living in Hume now and he and several of his friends are going in on a large apartment off campus for next year. Having your own room in an apartment shared with friends, rather than strangers, is a much better option in an already stressful environment.
Some of the advantages of Hume:
1. Newer dorm suites with only 4 students sharing a bathroom. So much better than the one down the hall shared by 40 students with no janitorial service on weekends.
2. The AC can be controlled by each room and works flawlessly. You can make it snow in your room if you choose. No mold issues like so many other dorms.
3. The floors are relatively quiet because the students are serious about school. This is not a party dorm but, pre-Covid, there was a lot of social activity in common areas.
4. Lounges and kitchens on each floor.
5. Excellent common areas for hanging out and socializing.
6. Athletic fields directly behind the dorms which are busy with all kinds of sports.
7. Location central enough that you can get to wherever you need to go fairly quickly. Bus stops in front of dorm.
8. Honors program specific activities.
9. Near Gator Corner dining hall.
10. Chomp It market and grill across the street(open until 2 am)
11. Excellent laundry facilities.
12. Best AC
Beyond that, the classes offered exclusively by the Honors Program are unique and interesting. Once UF is back to full face to face classes, you'll be in honors classes with a small number of students (~25) while the same course outside the Honors Program could have more than 100. Best of all, being in the Honors Program means you'll be able to priority register for 10 credits a semester. That means you will be getting the classes you want, when you want them, and with the best professor available. Anyone who studied at a large university can confirm the value of this perk. Good luck to you.
I’m not a big fan of kids’ expectations for new, fancy dorm rooms. I lived in a hall built in the early 1900s with no AC (in the midwest) and we were happy as can be. However, I’m surprised how much these dorms seem really worn across the board. It seems incongruous to put in wood flooring and not do anything else? Even the grounds (ie-the pool) looks sad. I haven’t visited and I guess I didn’t expect this. Thanks for sharing!
You basically have 2 options with dorms for Freshmen (some simplification here). 1. Centrally located, but traditional dorm arrangement with 2 students sharing a room and bathroom down the hall. 2. Inconvenient location (not close to classes or dining halls), but suite style rooms.
I understand that many kids don’t want to share a room and have to use a communal bathroom with 50 other kids. I don’t sympathize with this and believe that we have spoiled our kids too much. But, that’s just me. Both of my kids lived in option #1 above and actually survived it. It’s 8 months of their lives, if they cannot deal with that adversity, I fear for their success in the real world. (you can see this is a pet peeve of mine)
Other things to consider are whether the student plans to rush a fraternity/sorority. Those are on opposite sides of campus (with a few exceptions), so planning for a dorm near frat or sorority rows may make sense. They will spend a lot of time there and typically eat most of their meals there.
Thanks. I don’t think she’d mind a traditional dorm, but location, cleanliness and function (esp A/C) are important. The historic dorms look nice, but I read somewhere they are predominantly upper classmen; I guess we need to dive in a little more. And I need to find out about whether it’s a lottery, and when/where they get their number. She did do the housing app right after she applied last fall, so maybe she’ll get a decent pick.
No, Hume won’t be an option unfortunately. However, there are other dorms that are popular with freshmen that offer decent rooms and good proximity to the main part of campus. Take a look at Cypress as it is also a suite dorm that a lot of freshman last year were able to lease. The location is excellent for a freshman. Many engineering students choose to live in East Hall. Again, this dorm has a central location and caters to engineering students who are serious about their studies. My son has friends in Graham Hall and they have liked it even though Covid made all dorms seem like prisons the first semester. Broward is popular with freshmen and is known as the most social. We have friends with students in Broward and they’ve had a great year. There is a lot of information available on the internet about specific dorms. I recommend Reddit as a source of information and for questions. If you have a high priority, there is a good chance of getting one of your top two picks. Priority is determined by when you filled out the housing request and submitted your deposit. If you did this in September or October, you should be at the top.
@Anisqoyo Thanks; I’ll check those out. D is undecided, but likely to major in business or communications. Do you know when/where the housing priority number is communicated? (we are also going through this at her other top choice–FSU, and she got her number there already).
Yes, my son was accepted to FSU last year as well and they were much clearer with how housing choices would be determined. But UF does notify you of your priority - I just can’t recall how they did it. As I remember, my student’s friends who submitted applications in September and October received the dorms they wanted. He has two friends in a suite at Cypress and they have been very happy with their choice. These kids made lots of friends because they chose to live their first year in a dorm. I wouldn’t change that in a do over. Plus, with the lockdown and lack of activities in the first semester, having friends close by was gold. Life pretty much sucked on campus first semester. Whatever you do, don’t go anywhere that has bad reviews on AC. The heat in Gainesville August - November and from late March on is brutal.
Many of the historic dorms provide an old college feel. The Murphree and Buckman areas are awesome and you're living on the corner of Main and Main. My student wanted to live there since we first visited the campus. There are single rooms and some doubles that offer your own room...sort of. Most of this area is taken by upperclassmen and is probably not best for a first year student. My son thought he wanted to live there next year until he met some residents who complained about the AC and mold. He's moving off campus to The Standard instead.
@kdzmom As I think others have said, priority is based on when the $25 housing deposit was placed. I don’t recall the exact timing, but over the next few months they will be assigned a specific day/time in the housing portal to go in and select their dorm. Some time before that they can go into the portal and link with a roommate, put in dorm preferences, etc. The selection day/time is based on the higher priority of the linked roommates. So, if she finds a roommate that put their deposit down earlier than she did, the roommates priority will be the one that matters.
Both of my kids put the $25 down when they applied, which was right at the application deadline. Neither had difficulty getting their preference, but as I stated earlier, their preferences may not have been the more difficult dorms to select.
You are correct that the historic dorms are more popular now and usually taken before Freshmen can select. It’s interesting because those were the least popular 25 years ago. Murphree was not air conditioned back then and it went to those who were last to select.
I was accepted into the PaCE program, but am still waiting on about 6 other schools.
Do the Pace apartments fill up quickly? I know that you have to sign a binding contract to reserve your spot, so will I be okay if I wait until April 1st to reserve a spot?
Interesting. My 2025 daughter did not get an invite to Honors, despite her scores being higher than the average for Honors admits. She is a well-rounded student and had a good essay. My 2023 D was admitted to honors with nearly identical stats. I’m guessing that they tried to be more “holistic,” but that resulted in many, many kids with phenomenal test scores being left out. I will admit to being a bit peeved. Fortunately, my 2025 D doesn’t seem to care.
My OOS S21 was left out of honors with a 1580 SAT and 4.0 uw. Will probably be Val or Sal. Lots of leadership in long-term ECs and hundreds of hours of community service relating to his major (engineering). Varsity athlete. Very good UF honors essay. He’s also got some very good regional awards, some research, and attended a highly selective academic summer camp.
He got into UConn Honors with a great STEM scholarship and also has acceptances from some top 10 engineering programs including UMich and Georgia Tech.
We are not sure what went wrong with UF honors but, as I said in the UF Honors thread, the lack of honors housing and priority course registration certainly makes UF far less appealing now.
They keep saying it was in the essays (quote from their instagram account) but my daughter said her UF honors essay was the last one from all of her apps that she had to write - she said she did it very quickly and it was by far the worst of her essays but she was admitted. Is it true that honors students read the essays? I hope that it’s more than just them reading if they are relying so heavily on them.