As Gainesville High School seniors begin the college application process, a report released this month suggested preference — not prestige — is the main factor in choosing a school.
Parchment, a transcript-processing company, compiled the report using data from the 28,000 applicants that used its service throughout the last academic year.
UF receives approximately 30,000 applications each November, and about 12,000 students are accepted, said UF spokesman Steve Orlando.
But what factors were taken into account when accepted applicants chose UF?
For computer science major Cameron Willey, it was legacy.
“It was more of a family tradition,” Willey said. “I have a brother and a sister here.”
Another factor is cost, which the study did not take into account.
The price of undergraduate attendance at UF this year is about $20,550, according to the Student Financial Affairs website.
Linda Lewis, a mental health counselor at UF’s Counseling & Wellness Center, said students consider many factors when choosing a school, like money, where they can get in and family pressures.
From her experience, UF was the only place some students wanted to go.
But Lewis said situations can change once students get to campus.
“Good decisions do not guarantee good outcomes,” Lewis said. “We hope that students have considered many aspects about prospective schools and don’t judge only by one or two aspects.”
The cost of attendance is even higher for graduate students, but that does not stop them from making UF their No. 1 pick.
Georges Akiki, a graduate student at UF, decided to go to the university because he received funding through a program by a world-renowned professor here.
“I chose the professor more than the school,” Akiki said.
[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 9/10/2014 under the headline "Study: Preference main factor in students choosing universities"]
