FSU (honors) vs UF

SteyrFWB
Sun, 22 Dec 2013 01:17:38 +0000

As a student who attended both FSU and UF, let me interject on this subject.

I attended FSU for two years. I was the first FSU student to get accepted into UF Junior Honors Medical Program. From UF, I went on to Duke and Harvard.

I have a daughter who will be applying to college soon.

I feel supercilious talking in this forum. But I hope my opinion will make sense to my daughter as she applies to college.

I had a wonderful two years at FSU. I was not in the FSU Honors program. I had to put in all the pre-med requirement including physics/ foreign language into those two years, I considered Honors program too narrow to accommodate my curriculum. But not in Honors did not detract my general chemistry professor from choosing me over all the Honors chemistry students to receive the CRC chemistry student of the year. My physics professor wrote in his recommendation that he wished I had been a physics major. My undergraduate dean was wonderful, he allowed me to sit in his office and just talk. I had never taken a class from him, but he taught me how to write.

I have nothing but great respect for all the professors I had at FSU.

Going to UF, most of the Junior Honors students came through the rank of UF Honors program. We ,as a group, did very well in medical school amongst all UF medical students. Most of us graduate with honors from UF medical school.

I personally consider this talk of UF is superior to FSU as none sense. I think you miss the big picture if you hold that view.

The reality is BOTH FSU and UF are little research guppies once you get to the big boy
schools stage. There are tons of people at Harvard who had preparation H education. Harvard undergrad, Harvard grad, Harvard residency. Tons of people from Harvard/ MIT/ Hopkins/ Stanford at those big power schools. The “high power” UF is no more interesting than FSU at that stage. Their reaction to hearing UF education, is usually "How quaint? It must be exciting going to those football games. " UF is a good but mediocre medical schools amongst all medical school rankings.

So just my two cents, honors or no honors probably make no difference at FSU or UF. But you do have to be good. Past performance does not guarantee future success. Past failure does not impede future success. Do not let Honors get to your head, nor does lack of it a qualifier of future mediocrity.

But you do need to know your stuff though. Good professors, Honors program or not, will come to bat for you. That is the most important thing. Have good professor willing to come to bat for you.

I am most grateful for the professors I met at FSU.