DeanHeupel, congrats for your son’s achievements!!! Do you mind sharing your son’s scores and activities? Thanks.
I’ll try off the top of my head- I know he had a 1490 sat, 14 APs, 4.4 weighted/3.86 unweighted. I guess thats all I can remember. He only had 1 extra curricular- debate president/captain of competition team. His essay was strong according to his speech teacher who used to be an Admissions officer at Ohio State.
I like to claim that it is in his genes, but he is way smarter and committed to school than I. We wait for UF decision this friday. He is having a tough time choosing between UF and UCF. He did not apply to fsu. He was accepted to Miami, but he cooled on them after a while. (my wallet didnt mind that!)
Good luck with UF! With his scores and grades, I’d certainly expect him to be accepted.
Choosing between UF and UCF is not a bad choice to have to make – no way to lose there. I’d take time to let the pressure release and then decide – maybe even tour both schools before deciding…or tour again if you’ve already been once.
UM is also a great school; not “Sun-Tan U” like it used to be! But the costs are high there. My wife graduated UM on a full ride, but it wasn’t so crazy expensive back then. We live just a few miles away.
Do you have to complete the FAFSA if only looking for merit aid at UCF?
@1Lotus From the UCF website:
Yes, UCF must receive the completed results of the FAFSA from scholarship recipients. Although our awards are strictly merit-based, UCF must account for all funds we release to students, and the FAFSA is used for that purpose. You do not risk losing an admissions scholarship if you do not demonstrate financial need.
@jeneric …can you answer the question about waitlist? Several people wondering on another thread.
When someone is moved from deferred to waitlist, what does that mean?
Since it’s rolling admission, waitlist seems to work a little differently than other schools- other schools typically pull from their waitlist on May 1, when they don’t reach their enrollment numbers. In the past people have reported being taken off UCF waitlist in April.
I find it odd that they are waitlisting prior to UF acceptance. Isn’t that Friday?
Last year they let in 511 off the waitlist. Other years it has been much lower.
It’s been a few years, so I can’t remember- was there a decline button or just an accept button with UCF?
He knows UCF very well. His mom and I are alumni. We have been football season ticket holders for 14 years. The two of us have never missed a home game. As a family we have taken trips to campus to ride our bikes around. His turmoil between the two is that he loves UCF and everything about the school, but he and his friends are so competitive, they all want to go to the hardest place to get in right now. We’ll see. I told him to pick whatever feels the best to him. I’m kinda hoping he gets accepted to UF but chooses UCF. Like I said, I really don’t care as long as he is happy.
We had both an accept and decline button on our screen. UCF is the only school my daughter was accepted to that did, actually.
UCF could manage their enrollment numbers a lot better if they could announce financial aid before March/April like other schools somehow manage. It’s the only thing a lot of OOS students are waiting for in order to accept/decline.
For comparison’s sake, of the nine acceptances my son has in hand, we have the full financial aid package for seven of them and have had most for a while (EA and Rolling).
When schools like UCF hold up the information, it delays the college decision and accept/decline process for all of the other schools on a student’s list as well.
@jeneric Thank you…any idea on what kind of stats this year were eligible for scholarships to make cost of oos the same/better than instate coa? I know every year it is different but just wanting to get an idea of whether my daughter 32ACT, 4.0 gpa (could go down to 3.9) 8 AP/rigor, possible dual enrollment would be likely or if she would need better stats to be competitive for those awards or honors college. Since it is the largest university in the US, the size seems intimidating without honors college-looks like you have a lot of insight.
@1Lotus I assume your daughter is a junior this year? With those stats, I’d think she’d be eligible for the Pegasus merit scholarship, just make sure she applies in Sept. The scholarships are given first come first serve and they are mostly given out by Dec 1. For OOS, I think the Pegasus ranges from $30-42k over 4 years which amounts to about 1/3-1/2 off OOS tuition. I also think Honors and specific departments have other scholarships to offer.
Hmmm, well…
Yes, UCF has 69,000 students, but you have to look beyond that big number.
First of all, they have three Orlando campuses – main, Medical, and Rosen (the hospitality school campus).
There are about 59,000 undergraduate students. Of those, about 6,000 are online students, some are at the 11 UCF Connect satellite campuses, and almost 3,000 are at the Rosen campus.
I don’t know what the actual on-campus undergraduate population is, but there are only about 11,000 students living in on-campus or affiliated off-campus housing. Obviously, there are numerous non-affiliated apartment complexes, but a large percentage of UCF undergraduates are commuter-students who live in the Orlando area.
So what I’m saying is that UCF doesn’t actually seem that large when you are there. It’s a fairly compact, very walkable campus, and you don’t get a sense of being crowded.
In addition to dorm life, there are literally hundreds of clubs and interest groups, so there are multiple levels of options to “find your niche.”
Thank you @JimDadinmia that helps a lot. UCF is more now appealing with that info. I will continue to research this one for my D.
Thank you @vannevka. Do you think honors college would be within her reach with those stats?
A couple of comments.
That’s obviously a GREAT ACT if it is the score from a single test. If it is a super-scored grade though, UCF does NOT super-score ACT. They use the highest composite ACT score.
They do super-score SAT, but not ACT…not sure why.
GPA – if the GPA is weighted, UCF recalculates weighted GPAs using only core courses required by Florida for high school graduation. So electives will not be considered at all.
Regardless, she sounds like a strong candidate to me!
I agree with the other posters- I think she would get merit. If UCF keeps it’s own application- do that one, not the common app and apply when it opens in late July/August. The common app can slow things down. Try to get in transcript and ACT by Sept. 1. They start admitting people early in September. This could be tricky as the ACT will be super-scoring itself in September- I’m hoping Sept. 1.
Not sure about honors- it is very competitive. There are honors threads from previous years that you can look at. My D18 doesn’t have honors for her major, so it wasn’t something I paid attention to.
I agree with @JimDadinmia the campus doesn’t feel big. It is very well laid out, with all of the classroom buildings in the center. So from any dorm it’s about a 15 minute walk. Of all the campuses I have seen in my lifetime- it is probably the one that makes the most sense- probably because it is newer and they had land to plan.
A couple of things to keep in mind for OOS- UCF is very generous with AP credit- see what she would get for it. You pay by the credit hour, so every credit she can bring in saves you money. Be careful with Dual Enrollment, make sure UCF would take it since it is not from FL. D18 took a CLEP for her math as she already had other math credits, but not the right ones- best $70 I ever spent. You don’t need to buy the meal plan- that can save a lot of money. Depending on where you live, once you start adding things up you will find the cost comes close. Room and board at our public universities is $11,000- we pay less than $6000 for the dorm and she doesn’t spend anywhere near what the meal plan costs in food.
I was going to ask you about both dorm and food – you must be psychic!
We are in Towers, which is about $10,000 for three semesters including Summer 2021, primarily for the private bedroom It is possible we might switch before she actually goes on campus in Fall 2020. I don’t know if we’ll move off-campus after the freshman year, but we have time to research that.
Does your daughter just eat on-campus at the different food venues and pay with a credit card? Not sure how that works without a meal plan.
I mispoke there.
The correct price was $9,082 – $3440 each for Fall and Winter, but only $2022 for the full summer semester. Those are the 2020-2021 prices for the Towers. The 2020-2021 prices had not been set for other dorms when we did the tour.
@JimDadinmia and @jeneric Thank you for taking the time to comment on my D and all the great information. The 32 is her only ACT score-she also had a 32 on the pre-ACT and will take ACT again in April with writing for school. I think not superscoring may work to her advantage since 32. 4.0 is her unweighted gpa currently. This is becoming a strong candidate.