Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Florida is trying to eliminate property taxes. They already have no income tax. The government budget is only $119 billion. By way of comparison California's government budget is $413 billion. Florida only owes $15 billion in debt, compared to $600 billion in debt issued by California. Florida's population is 24 million; California's is 39 million.

You can see that California invests more in its people. While Florida looks more fiscally sound, California has much less poverty, better infrastructure, fewer homeless, no drugs and much higher education achievement (except if you compare high school students, Florida scores higher there, I'll grant you that).

We need the opposite of Florida. Having little or no debt and lack of revenuesources and a small budget means they don't take government seriously in Florida. Just because Florida has better educational outcomes than California doesn't mean Florida is doing ir right.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My older son is a senior at Cornell and younger one at UF , both in engineering. Unfortunately we couldn’t pay T20 fees for the younger one - where he got in - and settled for UF which is essentially free . When they come home and discuss I see the pain in the younger one … hope we didn’t sacrifice his future for the sake of saving some money… I feel 😞

I'd be very bitter if I were your younger kid. You 100% screwed him and he will never forget it.

Oh, come on. Check in with them again in Jan when Ithaca is under 2ft of snow and Gainesville is in the 80s.

Check with them in a few years when one has a Cornell degree and the other a Florida degree.

Anonymous wrote:Florida is trying to eliminate property taxes. They already have no income tax. The government budget is only $119 billion. By way of comparison California's government budget is $413 billion. Florida only owes $15 billion in debt, compared to $600 billion in debt issued by California. Florida's population is 24 million; California's is 39 million.

You can see that California invests more in its people. While Florida looks more fiscally sound, California has much less poverty, better infrastructure, fewer homeless, no drugs and much higher education achievement (except if you compare high school students, Florida scores higher there, I'll grant you that).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My older son is a senior at Cornell and younger one at UF , both in engineering. Unfortunately we couldn’t pay T20 fees for the younger one - where he got in - and settled for UF which is essentially free . When they come home and discuss I see the pain in the younger one … hope we didn’t sacrifice his future for the sake of saving some money… I feel 😞

I'd be very bitter if I were your younger kid. You 100% screwed him and he will never forget it.

Oh, come on. Check in with them again in Jan when Ithaca is under 2ft of snow and Gainesville is in the 80s.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My older son is a senior at Cornell and younger one at UF , both in engineering. Unfortunately we couldn’t pay T20 fees for the younger one - where he got in - and settled for UF which is essentially free . When they come home and discuss I see the pain in the younger one … hope we didn’t sacrifice his future for the sake of saving some money… I feel 😞

I'd be very bitter if I were your younger kid. You 100% screwed him and he will never forget it.

Anonymous wrote:My older son is a senior at Cornell and younger one at UF , both in engineering. Unfortunately we couldn’t pay T20 fees for the younger one - where he got in - and settled for UF which is essentially free . When they come home and discuss I see the pain in the younger one … hope we didn’t sacrifice his future for the sake of saving some money… I feel 😞

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is very very hard to get in. I know of several who got into places like UVA and Chicago and Michigan and did not get into Florida. It is shocking but true.

That’s the definition of yield protection.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Florida is a curious case of having an overall US News ranking that is higher than the rankings of almost all of its majors. Sure, the two are determined using completely different formulas, but one would think that a school's overall ranking is more or less sandwiched between its highest and lowest major rankings. Not the case with UF, as very few of its majors is top 30 and almost none is top 20. And yet its overall ranking is 30.

Florida is a beneficiary of the US News current bias towards large public schools. It does a good job of providing a cheap education to lots of kids, but not a great education.

That's simplistic. University of Alabama and LSU are ranked #169 as examples. There is something about Florida that gets it to #30 vs. plenty of large public schools that rank far below it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Florida is a curious case of having an overall US News ranking that is higher than the rankings of almost all of its majors. Sure, the two are determined using completely different formulas, but one would think that a school's overall ranking is more or less sandwiched between its highest and lowest major rankings. Not the case with UF, as very few of its majors is top 30 and almost none is top 20. And yet its overall ranking is 30.

Florida is a beneficiary of the US News current bias towards large public schools. It does a good job of providing a cheap education to lots of kids, but not a great education.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Florida is a curious case of having an overall US News ranking that is higher than the rankings of almost all of its majors. Sure, the two are determined using completely different formulas, but one would think that a school's overall ranking is more or less sandwiched between its highest and lowest major rankings. Not the case with UF, as very few of its majors is top 30 and almost none is top 20. And yet its overall ranking is 30.

Florida is a beneficiary of the US News current bias towards large public schools. It does a good job of providing a cheap education to lots of kids, but not a great education.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Florida is a curious case of having an overall US News ranking that is higher than the rankings of almost all of its majors. Sure, the two are determined using completely different formulas, but one would think that a school's overall ranking is more or less sandwiched between its highest and lowest major rankings. Not the case with UF, as very few of its majors is top 30 and almost none is top 20. And yet its overall ranking is 30.

Florida is a beneficiary of the US News current bias towards large public schools. It does a good job of providing a cheap education to lots of kids, but not a great education.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Florida is a curious case of having an overall US News ranking that is higher than the rankings of almost all of its majors. Sure, the two are determined using completely different formulas, but one would think that a school's overall ranking is more or less sandwiched between its highest and lowest major rankings. Not the case with UF, as very few of its majors is top 30 and almost none is top 20. And yet its overall ranking is 30.

Florida is a beneficiary of the US News current bias towards large public schools. It does a good job of providing a cheap education to lots of kids, but not a great education.

Anonymous wrote:Florida is a curious case of having an overall US News ranking that is higher than the rankings of almost all of its majors. Sure, the two are determined using completely different formulas, but one would think that a school's overall ranking is more or less sandwiched between its highest and lowest major rankings. Not the case with UF, as very few of its majors is top 30 and almost none is top 20. And yet its overall ranking is 30.

Anonymous wrote:I have two at UF currently. Both were accepted with SAT scores in the high 1300s. They had a 4.0 UW GPA and were leaders at their school in athletics and service. UF seems to like well rounded kids.

My oldest will graduate a year early. She is a liberal arts major and has had a fantastic experience with in-person classes, caring professors, and great internship opportunities. UF is very generous with AP credits, and her entire degree will be comparable to what we would have paid in state.

My youngest is a STEM major and just started. She has very large in-person and online classes, and some of them seemed designed specifically to weed out students. It is definitely a different experience than my older one had, but probably similar to STEM at other state flagships.

In general, UF is a “work hard, play hard” school. Students take their grades seriously, but SEC football and Greek life are huge on the weekends. That said, if your student is more introverted, they will find their people. It just may take a little more work.

/quote]

This sounds like the exact profile of a girl I know who was accepted from DCPS. Only difference (maybe) is one family member was from Florida and one set of grandparents still reside in FL. Perhaps she indicated something in her application that made it more likely she would actually attend.

Even though some of these large flagships require test scores, they don't seem like they only take kids that score the highest. If a kid has a strong transcript and scored "high enough" (whatever that is), then that seems sufficient.