<p>University of Texas at Austin would be ranked as high as University of Wisconsin if they didn’t have to admit the Top-10% of Texas In-state students. Their graduate programs and endowment are very strong.</p>
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<p>I live in florida, nice try. Dude this topic is now stupid,employers don’t care about UF out side of Florida and its name recognition/prestige is little to none. We showed you objective data. Its acceptance rate, endowment, student: faculty ratio, average SAT scores and quality of profressors. UF does badly in all these categories. You cannot actually think that UF compares to BC or Tufts, lol get real. Me and other posters are simply bringing objectivity and reality in this discussion, so people aren’t swamped with UF boosters. For the record am I supposed to be impressed that UF rejects 13% of 1400+ scorers, UF would pay me to go, like I care. Goufgators maybe you should tell us your amazing credentials that got you accepted into such a prestigous university?</p>
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<p>xNYer already showed you how UF competes with the best public schools (the ones you call “elite”) in many categories. Go back and read his posts.</p>
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<p>NOW everything makes sense!!! hahaha</p>
<p>I think UF is not a favorite of the elitests because it is in fact located in Florida (and hense the South). If we could magically relocate the institution, the alumni base, the great athletics, the billion + endowment, the highly regarded faculty and graduate programs to say the Mid-Atlantic or the Northeast then the proper repsect would be given I guess.</p>
<p>I guess University of Miami gets a pass because it’s can be found in Coral Gables. But UM has been in the news alot lately for some seriously shady things. These kinds of things happen all the time in Miami.</p>
<p>“I live in florida, nice try. Dude this topic is now stupid,employers don’t care about UF out side of Florida and its name recognition/prestige is little to none.”</p>
<p>Good point-employers. I presented valid data showing that UF grads do just as well as Michigan and Wisconsin when it comes to salaries. If you don’t go to grad school, this is the only data that is really relevant.</p>
<p>“I guess University of Miami gets a pass because it’s can be found in Coral Gables.”</p>
<p>Gets a pass from what? It’s not even being discussed here … they’re only talking about public schools.</p>
<p>“But UM has been in the news alot lately for some seriously shady things.”</p>
<p>Like what…?</p>
<p>What a mess of a thread. As a UF alum, I should say that it’s pointless to compare UF to some of the top public schools because there is no comparison. UF might be in the top 15-20 public schools, but guess what? 35 of the top 50 schools are private, and to say there’s no difference between a top 5 and a top 20 school is a bit disingenuous because the top students will compete tooth-and-nail to be in a top 5 public school. I found some courses to be extremely high quality, though graded extremely easily, but the courses were mostly what you made of them.</p>
<p>That said, there are many, MANY people who are at the top of their class that decided on UF because of price. If you are in the top 10% of students in Florida (roughly, it’s not a hard number), you get this thing called Bright Futures which pays full tuition and $300 for books every semester for 4 years. That is EXTREMELY appealing to even upper-middle class families like the one I come from. I turned down admission offers from all the top schools I got into for this sole reason: Because it was the best school I could go to for free (they offered me board + living expenses on top of that but I digress). I’m not alone either. There are several people from my department alone (engineering) that turned down places like MIT and Caltech just so that they could relax financially and make what they wanted out of undergrad.</p>
<p>The OP’s question was whether UF has a pre health program, which they do not. People who want to go to med school are told to major in something where they cover all the prereqs. I should say though that UF has a huge medical complex (Shands) which has a TON of opportunities, and I should note also that UF sponsors about 300 $2500 stipends to do 2 semesters of research with professors which (in my experience) turned into 2 years while I completed my undergrad degree. I have no clue about medical school admit rates, however.</p>
<p>[Gators</a> No. 1 again as Florida takes top party title - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/28/top.party.schools.ap/]Gators”>http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/28/top.party.schools.ap/)</p>
<p>Number One - FOREVER !! Nothing to worry about</p>
<p>“As a UF alum, I should say that it’s pointless to compare UF to some of the top public schools because there is no comparison. UF might be in the top 15-20 public schools, but guess what?”</p>
<p>As a fellow UF alum (nearly), I say the school is underrated by a good clip.</p>
<p>“I found some courses to be extremely high quality, though graded extremely easily, but the courses were mostly what you made of them.”</p>
<p>Do you think this would be different at MIT ot Georgia Tech?</p>
<p>“That said, there are many, MANY people who are at the top of their class that decided on UF because of price. If you are in the top 10% of students in Florida (roughly, it’s not a hard number), you get this thing called Bright Futures which pays full tuition and $300 for books every semester for 4 years.”</p>
<p>Yes, this is why many people chose Harvard, Princeton Binghamton or Portland state…or whoever offers the highest financial aid package.</p>
<p>^^^^
connect the dots, please</p>
<p>I would venture to say that a university like UF should be ranked higher than a school like Georgia Tech simply because UF is a much more comprehensive educational instuition. The US News analysis seems to fail to take into account the breadth of educational offerings at a comprehensive school and unduly rewards schools with narrow opportunities.</p>
<p>This position would be no slight to either school, but would indicate how imperfect the US News ratings are. I recall that US News is actually in the business to sell magazine subscriptions and magazines. They increase sales by generating controversy and interest every year. There also is an indicator of some gullibility on our part, as we breathlessly await the new list.</p>
<p>Seems in this thread alone the worth of a major university has been reduced to whether or not the students drink enough beer. Well, the WWII generation made freshmen wear beanies and ties. Our crop lives and dies by the commercial dole of opinion sold as fact.</p>
<p>Beanies were a better idea and more fun, too. :)</p>
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<p>For undergrad (which is of course the topic of this thread) I am inclined to agree. I have many friends who went to Tech and when it came time for 50% of them to realize they can’t hack it in engineering they had to switch to majors the school probably isn’t even in the top 100 for. It’s a stellar school provided you are damned good at engineering.</p>
<p>UF on the other hand is even in nearly everything because of the way they get most of their admits (decent Florida students looking for a cheap education). No matter which major you pick, it will be in the top 25-50 which makes it better all around, so I agree.</p>
<p>This same concept applies to my alma mater - Florida State, which is strongly liberal arts oriented. It kills me to see some ag or engineering specialty school rated higher, because I know US News glosses over broad areas of excellence which are greatly and historically valued by society.</p>
<p>I seriously would not get my knickers in a knot over magazine ratings, yet I know university administrators pander for high scores.</p>
<p>“As UF starts its fall semester (2008) today, UF President Bernie Machen has labeled the freshmen class as the university’s most talented crop ever. UF’s entering class earned an average high school GPA of 4.18 and SAT score of 1293, both record-high levels.”</p>
<p>Consider this, the average SAT and GPA of the current freshman crop alone is more than enough to justify a cogent argument that UF is under ranked by 10-15 spots. The student body is absolutely top 25 in quality and the top 25% are just as academically and intellectually qualified as most of the top 10 schools.</p>
<p>The UF SAT scores are higher than UCSB, UC Irvine, Penn State, U-Texas, U-Washington, UC Davis, Wisconsin and Illinois- all schools ranked higher than UF per US News. I’m sorry, but a major flaw (in my opinion) with the US News methodology is undervaluing the intellectual quality of the student body.</p>
<p>On the topics of:
- Being premed. Many top tier colleges do not have a “Pre-Health” program per se. That is, you can major in whatever you want, and use counselors as resources to make sure you complete course requirements that med schools require for admission. Furthermore, med schools are aware of the difference between having a 3.5 at UF and a 3.5 at HYP, and value the latter much more.
- Looking for an intellectual environment. I have an acquaintance who has accomplished a lot in the competitive environment of JHU in fields as wide as the hard sciences and performing arts. It certainly is not a “small” campus–after all, how many of the 50,000 at UF do you plan on meeting? The important thing is that JHU has the resources to provide you with every opportunity you desire. You just don’t have the same density of highly intellectual people at a state school that you do where the tuition is jacked up.
And lastly, I think you should consider footing the large bill (read: debt) at JHU–have you ever heard of a poor doctor? They all leave grad school with multiple tens or hundreds of Ks of school bills and end up living in gorgeous houses because the pay is so good.
You only get one shot at this–live without regret, and good luck with the search =)</p>
<p>“Furthermore, med schools are aware of the difference between having a 3.5 at UF and a 3.5 at HYP,” </p>
<p>Proof? I will bet you $1,000 that with “equal MCAT” scores, and equal GPA’s UF and Yale have about the same acceptance rate to Med school. Any difference in acceptance rate variation between undergraduate schools at a given GPA is due to MCAT score differences. Yale students scored higher (on average) on the SAT therefore will score higher in the MCAT. Don’t forget that it is easier to get good grades at Yale than UF, too.</p>
<p>The acceptance rate of school is over 30 percentage points higher than the national average, yet the GPA average (both overall and BCPM) of accepted students from this school is .10 lower than the corresponding national GPAs of accepted. At the same time, MCAT scores are only 2pts higher on average. I guess you can take from that what you will.</p>
<p>^^^^^
Not a valid comparison, as the standard deviation on the MCAT is 2. Of course a group of students who score a standard deviation above another group will have higher acceptance rate.</p>
<p>To put this into perspective, the combined math and verbal standard deviation for the SAT is 180 points. The difference in 2 points on the MCAT from average to +1 standard deviation (8 to 10) is equivalent to the difference in SAT scores of 1020 (average) and 1200 (+1 Standard deviation). </p>
<p>The fact is that with equal MCAT and GPA, a student from JHU, Florida, Penn State, U-Texas, Michigan, Berkeley or Duke will have about an equal shot of interviewing for med school.</p>
<p>Florida students who pull the grades and MCAt are at no disadvantage in the med school application process. Period.</p>
<p>lol, What is UFlorida’s med school acceptance rate. Its tough to pull up those grades at a party school that never studies.</p>
<p>^^^^
I guess when the entering freshman class has an 1300 SAT and 4.0 GPA, you can get away with partying a lot, studying a little and still doing well. It is very myopic to put others down because they are talented enough to have a lot of fun and still achieve their goals.</p>