<p>Totally anecdotal, but a co-worker was telling me yesterday her daughter is graduating with an undergrad degree in materials engineering (for which UF is highly rated), and she has 9 job offers from around the country. I was pretty amazed at that.</p>
<p>well I’m from the Boston area, and many people think of UF as a top public university. UMass, up here, is regarded among students as a safety because it is cheap and easy to get into.</p>
<p>I have two at UF. That said, other than engineering and a few other previously stated colleges, I would not dream to put it in the same category of recognition as UVA, UNC, UMI…all almost Ivies, or regional such as UWI, UMN. </p>
<p>I do know Silicon Valley and other high tech companies actively recruit from UF’s engineering dept. These are kids w/o graduate degrees. Son of a friend graduated last year (turned down Ivies and others as he wanted to be with his friends), no debt, and now making @$150K. Four others…same.</p>
<p>UF Law LLM Tax program…#2 in the country after NYU.</p>
<p>The University of Florida is a member (invited about 1985) of the American
Association of Universities. This elite club has 60 or so members-- a mixture of
private and public universities. In short, UF is highly regarded.</p>
<p>.02 David</p>
<p>uf is…well who can really adequately sum up an institution w/ > 40,000 undergrads?</p>
<p>easy to get into, compared to ivies, top lacs, top research u’s.
hard to get into, compared to other florida universities.</p>
<p>cheap, for in-state students.</p>
<p>lots of huge classes; in the most popular majors you might never be in a class in which your professor knows your name.</p>
<p>quite a bit of pressure to take some of your classes on-line.</p>
<p>great recruiting in some fields.</p>
<p>excellent name-recognition and reputation in florida.
some name-recognition and reputation in southeast, overall.
not much of an academic reputation beyond. (with exception for some specific majors.)</p>
<p>How much is it worth? Depends on your resources, your priorities, your options and your intended field of study.</p>
<p>Also, UF is definitely not considered as prestigious as:
UC-B, UCLA, UVa, UofM, UNC, UT. Probably not as prestigious as UIUC. </p>
<p>But what difference does that make to the average high-school senior and her parents? Very few kids have the option of being in-state for more than one of these schools, and the value of attending depends enormously on cost. So if you are in-state for UF, then it matters whether your non-state school choices are a better/worse deal than UF. Doesn’t really matter whether UF is more/less prestigious than U-Podunk.</p>