Calvin Coolidge. I did pay attention to where my colleagues come from. Yes, @SteyrFWB has argued above that there are studies that show NMS at UF do no better than the top third of the class. I wouldn’t worry about competition and grades. “PRESS ON! While Burnett is not top 5 nationally, it does rank very high in terms of honors colleges in the US and much higher than UF’s. Go to UF. I will be so bold to state that being a NMF is a good harbinger for acceptance to medical school, just as a top SAT score would be. Look at it this way, if you’re concerned about getting in to med school based on MCAT and GPA, why do you think you would be able to stay in med school? Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. But outside of honors classes, regular UF classes will be more challenging than regular UCF classes. You can not be serious ! It’s a good thing!! But by how much, and would that be worth dropping other opportunities? I don’t think anybody can be 99.99% sure for any career. Please note he is not Pre-med (unlike his Gator dad) at this point. Further, while it’s true that twice as many people apply to med school each year as there are openings, your score on NMF puts you in the top 1% of students who took the PSAT. No preference one over the other based on the visits. I read a study once that said those who take a little risk in life are happier and more successful in the long run. In baseball term, that is call, “A long run, for a short slide”. We all have a big stake in this education-work game. (And congrats, by the way!) He’s just plain excited to be at UCF, which is a huge part of his motivation and effort at school. Not higher, not lower, for this flagship. Has society reached the point where we can’t reconcile the concept of “better”? Nutritional sciences is one of the majors available to students accepted into the Junior Honors Medical Program or the Honors Combination BS/DMD Program Critical Tracking records each student’s progress in courses that are required for progress toward each major. I let my kids pick between uf, ucf and um. If they come from all ALL OVER, do they really care “your college ranked higher than mine college” when they are sitting in hospital cafeteria shooting the breeze? Somehow they’ve done a good good with the med school. Her first choice is U of F, and I’d be real excited if she goes there. This program is open to students who are both Florida and non-Florida residents. Only the paranoid survive. His other strong consideration was CWRU that offered him a substantial amount of merit money. program offered by the University of Florida. Email: med-admissions@ufl.edu For general questions: 352-273-7990 Peter P. Sayeski, Ph.D.Director, Medical Honors ProgramProfessor, Associate Chair, and Program DirectorDepartment of Physiology and Functional Genomics Danielle L. Thomas, M.Ed.Assistant DirectorMedical Honors ProgramOffice of Admissions Esther OlasojiProgram AssistantMedical Honors ProgramOffice of Admissions But you can be sure that there were more NMF at Harvard who didn’t get a scholarship. Both have been challenged, both have succeeded. You really do get a vibe, one way or the other, just by spending several hours walking around on campus. @oldandwise : Those numbers are not meant to be actual numbers. UF is in the process of revamping its honors offerings since it wants to attract OOS students, who can find better honors colleges elsewhere if that’s what they want, although Benacquisto+ top public university is a very attractive option depending on what students want. All of the campus visits were great and did not sway my student one way or another. Nevertheless, I will give credit to UCF for getting so many NM Scholars compared to the other major colleges in Florida. Have you spoken with some of the students in the UCF BHC and the U of F HP? (I agree with @greenpoison that something like UF’s medical honors program is far better in that you escape the stress and limitations from having to take the MCAT.) I agree the UF v. UCF comparison doesn’t make any sense if you take each university only. I don't think @SteyrFWB is insulting NMSs. I happen to believe that a great education can be achieved at any college, but I also believe that the screening process that a student goes through to get into a given college has value. It’s always good to see parents so proud of their kids, but most parents brag up, not down. While this leads to high achievement, it also tends to make some students play it safe and select the path they are sure they can succeed at instead of taking any risk. The University of Florida has a dedicated team to help guide interested students towards their chosen careers. University Honors Program Admissions. Obviously, I think that the legislature’s decision is a very wise one, especially since my family, like many of the rest of the people on this site, benefits from it. Most of our kids are capable, and will end up where OUR own education values gird them. And this is a sincere question…what is “gifted”…quantitatively? @xxyyzz00, I like your use of the decision-tree process and the application of numbers to make a decision! @xxyyzz00 This location, in direct proximity to university facilities, offers many opportunities to utilize and complement resources of the university in the educational and investigative programs of the college. Sometimes, you will even see the undergrad college, usually if it is a prestigious one. UF is a better school by many metrics. If you want something badly enough, it will all work out, no matter where you go to school. You never what tomorrow will bring. We don’t know how many total Harvard students were NMF because Harvard doesn’t sponsor scholarships like UF and UCF do. Like others have said, if you are smart enough to get into a BSMD program, you’ll have no trouble getting into medical school (which you aren’t even sure you want to do). I say go where YOU feel the most comfortable. All of the schools send recruiters to the high school. I don;t know why they take so many transfer students (~2/3 of the student body). I ask this because my kids just got a feeling/instinct/intuition each time we visited a college campus. You add up all the student on that list, from all schools, that is not even 1/2 of the total student number, that means when you add up ALL schools, students are truly from ALL OVER. @SteyrFWB, you are an interesting writer opening up emotionally on CC. Using the list of NMF is both simple and objective from the state’s perspective. Peeking my head out…its very hard. I’ve had at least one child there since 2002. Medical Honors Program College of Medicine Utility Links. My son’s high school is free of geographical preference. Even though I think that UCF is an amazing school for what they have been able to do with what they have, UF is the better school for you. Please visit our application page for more information, the application link, and important dates. Perhaps she viewed UCF with the surprise or intrigue similar to finding a hidden gem. If you will look at the biographies of the medical-school MDs on the UF website, you will almost always see listed the medical school that they attended. Medical Honors Program College of Medicine Open Search Open Main Menu. In that, it is a good predictor of med school acceptance (being upper middle or upper class helps, having parents who are physicians helps even more). Too high of a risk for some umpire yelling at HER face, “You are OUT !”. @greenpoison makes an excellent point that UCF has not lowered the bar much for you to get into their medical school, even if it seems that way. But I would bet she would never tell anyone BMS was easy or not competitive…cause it’s not…it prepares you for that mcat and pushes those who want that GPA. You can be sure that it’s a much higher number. But as a parent, I am in the mode of Andy Grove. Go where YOU think YOU will fit in best. Perhaps this screening – this seal of approval – is the greatest value that a Harvard education provides. As always, greatly appreciated your inputs. My son (a freshman in the UCF Burnett Honors College, Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering) was accepted to both U of F and UCF. Burnett has a lot of resources specifically for its students, UF has a lot of resources overall. Is your son still a premed? She is the type of girl that goes, “Dad, turn on the TV. Next, at a little more than half the number of kids who go to UF, are the kids who go to FSU. http://www.parchment.com/c/college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php?compare=Harvard+University&with=University+of+Central+Florida. Thousands upon thousands call themselves premeds. The publisher of this post may rather go to UCF, be at the top, and have more fun than go to UF and be just anither student and have to work hard in her classes. @oldandwise You are very proud of your son’s school (and probably deservedly)and I am not trying to be argumentative, but I will ask this again… Further examp… I taught at Harvard Medical School. Do you like the look and feel of the school? It’s obvious that the UCF administration does an excellent job of selling themselves. Please give me five points to bolster why UF students behoove 45% acceptance rate, or 45% behooves UF students. If you are going into Wall Street business or high power law/ political arena, I can see the advantage of a relatively short term, highly rank school education. The Medical Honors Program (MHP), is an accelerated 7 Year B.S./M.D. Still worth investigating. It has a Honors Program, but it essentially boils down to living in Hume Hall and pre-registering up … From what I hear, UCF has a better honors program, and it certainly has better dorms. Unrelated to the honors colleges, I would argue that NMS is highly correlated with GPA. Be proud of your accomplishments and have faith in your abilities – you’ve already proven yourself. We know their reputations and the quality of our friends or friend’s kids who go there. She will go on to better things. None chose either USF or UCF. Letting OOS students know what some of the most informed locals do may give them a bench mark against which to judge their decision making. I was thinking myself as an open minded father. What or where can i find these state guidelines? Well, the top third of the class at UF will fall into the top few % of those that took the SAT based on the school’s 25% percentile score, and it wouldn’t surprise me that the students who score within the top few percent on the SAT will have high GPAs. When students are admitted to two schools, they can only attend one. It is giving me a headache. After viewing from other vintage points, I will give an Henry Fonda-esq percussion. I am confident that you will also get a top score on the MCAT no matter where you go to school, which will get you into a good medical school. Once again a large percentage of the students going to FSU, USF, and UCF were not accepted by UF. Also, consider if you think you attribute any value to the different colleges listed. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. It is not attained from just a one day test; that is only the first step. And if you compare Oos decisions wrt Florida universities, are the results that clear cut? Most of the kids get accepted to FSU, USF, and UCF if they apply, so their choice between those schools is entirely up to them. While UCF is a fine school, UF is far better. Someone else’s kid will go on to tier-1 school, and go on to better things. I graduated from the University of Virginia (Gov’t & Foreign Affairs Honors Program) and UVa Law School. Quite frankly, if undergrad premed knocks you out, this wasn’t your gig because med school would kill you. I would bet you handsomely that you will be hard pressed to find more than 10% of med school class who were NMS in high school. That doesn’t mean you can’t do well with a UCF degree and it also doesn’t mean being a Gator assures success. Office of Educational Affairs; Physical Address 1104 Newell Dr. Gainesville, FL 32601 Phone ... UF Health is a collaboration of the University of Florida Health Science Center, Shands hospitals and other health care entities. Anyway, to reply to your post about the % of UF students that apply to medical school who also get accepted, you used the statistic fairly to compare UF’s medical-school acceptable rate fairly as a comparison to the national average of the same number. Skol!!! Seeing 7 UCF people matched into dermatology this year, she is embolden to become one. I was trying to get numbers so that they produce the same overall value. Let’s not beat around the bushes. of U of F – because he just felt that UCF was the right fit for him. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." I should have applied to various combined BSMD programs, but didn’t even know they existed till I stumbled upon UCF BMS. Good luck. Instead of talking about school averages, this post has been about a NMF and her chance of getting into medical school if she gets a 3.75 GPA and a 512 on the MCAT. degree. Alas, I went to the business school — probably not smart enough to be a doctor! Thinking UF isn’t better than UCF is like saying UVA isn’t better than UF, is like saying Carnegie Mellon isn’t better than UVA, is like saying Harvard isn’t better than CM. Do you like the campus? notice where Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, MIT are on that list. Could you see yourself thriving in this environment? A winner of the "Rhodes of China," Matthew Barocas ’21 will study for a Master’s degree in Global Affairs at Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University. These kids have worked hard their entire academic life, and achieving National Merit status is an H-O-N-O-R! Although I have no experience with Med School admissions, I would go to the best school you can go to. Students do come from all over. Gaining Healthcare Experience – For those in Gainesville, here is a link to Shands’ site listing available volunteer opportunities… Compare colleges to find out. A big load of premeds. They may read the published rankings and a few posts here on CC, and they will talk to a dozen or so people on a campus tour. So far, this has borne out (4.0 GPA in Fall, has made lots of friends, loves the BHC, loves the campus). Overview of the Program. Which college offers advanced elective classes you’d be interested in taking There are ways to make yourself known to a professor in a huge clas but you have to try consistently and click with the professor (if the professor teaches a lab or a discussion section, use your priority registration for that). The honors program offers four broad types of courses each semester. Assuming that being in the top 1% of driven students who took the PSAT also puts you in the top 1% of the 2.2 million college freshmen, you will be in the top 22,000 college applicants this year. The list of colleges that the 190 students from Florida’s top public school will attend is out. His brother went to FSU, so we’ve been through all of this before. The UF Honors Program is structured in two parts: the Freshman Honors Program (FHP) for first-year students and the University Honors Program (UHP) for upper-division students. Then, at maybe half that number, are the kids who go to UCF and USF. My daughter is finishing her third year BMS. They would do this as both a point of pride and also as an effort to elevate themselves above the majority of UCF students who wouldn’t have been accepted to UF. Being a NMF, you are well above the typical student at a public college. But, because you have achieved great things, perhaps you no longer concern yourself with achievements of what others think about you. If you are quite sure that the college a student attends doesn’t matter, you are going to turn the college world upside down. The UF pre-health advisement team is available to partner with you on the best way to reach those goals. Look carefully into the benefits of honors at both universities, at re first year program. Nor do I. Your teaching at HMS is probably the pinnacle of the medical profession. Therefore, almost 70% of the total NMF attending either school chose UF. Yes, there may be specific items that balance the scale, but in general and by using lots of criteria (quality of students, selectivity, quality of professors, resources, alumni, recruiting, national / global recognition, etc.) UF Honors Program vs UCF Burnett Honors College and Medical Scholar. Your kid will go to UF and go on to better things. Learn more about lateral admission here. So what? Have you spent hours discovering the campuses…the library, the student union, the green spaces, the dorm areas, the bookstore, the dining halls, the just off campus establishments, etc? After weighing the merits of the four schools, the decisions by NMFs broke heavily toward UF. While most of the school’s graduates go out of state, of those who stay in-state, the plurality go to UF. You’ve already proven your scholastic ability. That is primarily up to the student and what they do with the available resources. The comparison isn’t UF to UCF however, but honors program to honors college - honors colleges have their own rankings, separate from their university’s, and linked to honors-students-only stats, support, and outcomes. However, as you know, the outcome of the decision tree is dependent upon the accuracy of your numbers. Yrs later you’ll kick yourself if you don’t. While it is certainly not unusual for a UCF student to have also been accepted to UF, you can be sure that the initial assumption that many of us have when someone says that they attend a public college in Florida other than UF is that they didn’t get accepted to UF. Please go with UF… the UCF name holds no weight outside of Florida. Regardless, this average has nothing to do with any individual’s chance of getting accepted into medical school. Better is better. @GreenPoison , I would agree with you that if the attrition rate is above 20%, the risk is too much. At every level of the program, we provide tailored advising, opportunities for community-building and interdisciplinary engagement. After viewing your lamentation posts in past make me hold off my acerbic graffiti. Biology with lab – 8 semester hours (12 quarter hours) 2. It wasn’t until a few days later, my wife told me " Did you know your daughter cried very hard at night by herself going through this?". A final word on reputation: it goes only so far. @SteyrFWB - For some reason, you keep insulting National Merit Scholars. If you believe that NMF fade into the background, do you believe the same about Harvard undergrads? We are all here for our own kids; we just vaguely guised as saintly elderly state man for other kids. Students in the program choose to engage in academics at the university at the highest level. ^ but this is 1) because in Florida UF has an outsize reputation whereas OOS most people confuse it with FSU (informed people place that repuation in between these two perceptions: neither UVA nor FSU, somewhere around PSU or UWash) - top students at that one school are all in a UF mindset to start with but just because they’re Floridians doesn’t mean they’re objective (just like people confusing UF and other Florida universities arent objective either) and 2) because OP’s situation is different from a generic situation. Perhaps next year’s students will find the program more attractive. I think this would be a gross misreading of his/her intentions. Please help!!! The experience will be different at both but both are valid choices for OOS students. Freshmen Honors Program ... is open to incoming freshmen at the University of Florida. Can’t imagine why someone who has been so successful to this point would be consumed with not being successful at UF. It doesn’t tell me how qualified the applicants were. NMS does not mean squat, it is that four letter word, W-O-R-K. Have you actually visited both the UF and the UCF campus? But now, like the writer of Ecclesiastes, we might find that many of our dreams were hollow. Life is full of "what if " type of tinge regrets. Organic Chemistry with lab – 8 semester hours (12 quarter hours) 4. additional 3000 (or higher) level science course (MCB 3023/L, PCB 3023, AGR 3303, etc). NMS recognition was perhaps bigger back then. Don’t assume anything. @xxyyzz00 Also last year, 25 went to FSU, 22 to UM, and 15 to USF. Where is it located geographically in the state. Medical Honors Program – Seven year BS/MD program. He looked into ocean horizon, looked back, and said, “Yea, but NO doubt though.”. Their match list seems to be on par UF and UM. NMS does not mean squat, it is that four letter word, W-O-R-K. *. Prestige and rankings are nice, but they can’t buy contentment or motivation. The students are highly informed about the education offered at UF, FSU, USF, and UCF and their various honors programs, and their choices for college may be meaningful to an OOS who has a hard time getting a feel for the relative merits of Florida’s top public colleges. Thanks, Interesting data regarding actual choices between those admitted to both institutions on parchment site: http://www.parchment.com/c/college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php?compare=University+of+Florida&with=University+of+Central+Florida, Harvard University vs University of Central Florida. And of course, look at 3/4th year classes: are they smaller? I agree that Junior Honors @UF is much much better, but getting into the program is too difficult and uncertain. But, that’s a far cry from the knowledge that local students have given their better access to the colleges and their having watched previous classes make their decisions. It is the state flagship and home to the many of the best students in the state (who chose to stay in state). BTW, he was also accepted to UCF’s Burnett Honors College, but in all honesty never really considered this very seriously. Eric Liddel was asked of whether he had any regret for not running the 200m on Sunday. I lack any information to prove it, but I would bet that students who do well on standardized tests do very well on the MCAT, which is one of the key factors for getting into medical school. If the state gave the scholarship money to the universities as a block grant for them to disperse as they saw fit, the universities may allocate it differently. Etc. I’ll bet the chance off success for a NMF like yourself is much higher than what may be a success factor for all students at UF. Our kids are still conscious of their social status and creating peer envy just like we were, and they feel a need to go out and prove themselves. Just curious…at your son’s public school, how many are in each graduating class and where is it located geographically in the state. I think the deciding factor was selecting a program that offered the most opportunities overall in case of a change of major. I am highly doubtful that being an NMS correlate highly with high GPA and/or determination and/or high-quality/conviction ECs etc.