Denied at UF & FSU: The New Reality for Florida’s Brightest Students

 

Denied at UF & FSU: The New Reality for Florida’s Brightest Students

Keber and Brayer’s stories aren’t outliers. Florida’s two premier state universities—UF and Florida State University (FSU)—have never been more popular or harder to get into. Meanwhile, the ripple effect of well-qualified students getting denied at these schools has enhanced the applicant pools at other state schools like USF and the University of Central Florida (UCF)—once considered commuter schools and “safety schools” for Florida’s top students.

FSU received more than 85,900 applications this year, an 8% increase over last year and a 182% increase compared to a decade ago. 

This year, FSU admitted 38% of in-state students and 19% of out-of-state applicants to the Class of 2029. The average SAT for this year’s freshman class at UF is 1432. The middle 50% of students admitted to FSU’s Class of 2029 had an average SAT score of 1395.  At UCF, the state’s largest university by enrollment, the middle 50% had an average SAT score of 1360.

Beth Partington is an independent college consultant in Pensacola and the owner of Next Level College Consulting. Having started advising students in 2015, Partington says she’s witnessed dramatic changes in admissions standards at Florida’s state schools. “It’s night and day compared to ten years ago,” she says. “When a student wants to get into UF and FSU, I’m more stressed because I know with (those schools), you have to meet the numbers. High performing students used to consider those schools safety schools, but they aren’t anymore.” 

Ten years ago, UF had an acceptance rate of 48% while FSU accepted 56%. Twenty-five years ago, the acceptance rate at UF was 63% and 54% at FSU. The share of out-of-state students at both universities has also risen in the last decade, from 8% to 15% at UF and 11% to 20% at FSU (these figures do not include international students). State law mandates that systemwide enrollment cannot exceed 10% for out-of-state students across Florida’s twelve state schools. But the less selective schools in the state have shares well below 10%, so UF and FSU can exceed that figure without violating state law. Why are so many top students in the state being shut out of Florida’s top state schools and what are parents doing to help their kids to get into the state’s two premier public universities?

 In its 2025 Best College rankings, Niche rated UF the 33rd best college in the country and FSU was  No. 51 on their list.

Members of Generation Z appear to appreciate the value of quality state schools and are apparently into balmy weather and the football school culture that thrives in the South. 

“It’s become one of those big fun Southern football schools that everyone wants to go to.” Indeed, it is—Niche also rates FSU the No. 2 party school in the nation. With both FSU and UF boasting first-year retention rates above 95%, it seems that most UF and FSU students are happy and are spreading the word about the good vibes on campus.

Without accounting for room and board, out-of-state tuition for the 2025-26 academic year costs $29,000 at UF and just under $19,000 at FSU. Compare those prices to the roughly $60,000 out-of-state tuition at the University of Virginia, $45,000 at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, $43,000 at the University of Texas–Austin, $61,000 at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor, and $53,000 at the University of California-Berkeley. 

For example, FSU may offer a student admission to its main Tallahassee campus through its Seminole Pathways Program. Students accepted to the program are asked to complete their first fall semester of classes at nearby Tallahassee State College, FSU Panama City, or by studying abroad at one of the university’s international campuses. The students can then return to study at the main campus in the spring or for their sophomore year.

At FSU, the demographic makeup of the 2027 and 2028 classes were almost identical before and after the Supreme Court ruling: the percentage of Black students slightly increased from 6.0% to 6.4% while Asian students stayed consistent (4.6% to 4.7%).  The  Hispanic student enrollment rate just ticked up from 23.0% to 24.1%. UF hasn’t published demographic data on the Class of 2028 yet, but their 2027 class demographics were similar to FSU for Black and Hispanic students. However, the share of Asian students in the freshman class was considerably higher at 14.8%. (According to census data, 3.2% of Floridians identify as solely Asian, 16.9% identify as solely Black and 27.4% as solely Hispanic).