The UF Office of Admissions has been working around the clock for the past few days determining the future of nearly 28,000 Gators hopefuls, and only about one-third of them will receive an invitation Friday.
UF received about 1,000 more applications than last year, which UF Provost Janie Fouke said is likely due in part to UF's recent athletic successes, namely the football and basketball teams' championship titles.
In addition, the academic competitiveness in Florida is steadily increasing, Fouke said.
UF spokesman Steve Orlando said the target size of the 2008-2009 freshmen class size is slightly more than 10,000, but about 6,600 are expected to come to UF.
Orlando said the swell in freshmen applications might have to do with the elimination of the early decision process.
This is the first year UF didn't accept early decision applications, which contractually bound students to attend UF if accepted. Early decision applicants received a response from UF months before students who applied by the regular deadline.
There is one more deadline, March 1, for students who missed the original November deadline, Orlando said. Those students will be notified about their admissions status by April.
UF's reasoning for ditching early decision was that students from low-income families could have been discouraged from applying before they knew how much financial aid they would receive.
Fouke said she thought getting rid of the early decision process simplified the entire application system.
"It was sort of like leveling the playing field for everybody," she said.
Still, she said, UF doesn't have room to accept everyone, which forces the admissions office to turn away many qualified applicants.
"I think people equate whether or not they get in somehow with their competency, and that's just not true at all," Fouke said. "There's just not enough room."
Leading up up today, some high school students weighed their chances about getting in.
Sistine Gurrey, a St. Thomas Aquinas High School senior in Fort Lauderdale, said her nerves were on edge while she waited for "judgment day."
Gurrey said she applied to several other universities, including Syracuse University, the University of Central Florida and the University of North Carolina, but she has her heart set on UF.
Clay Green, a high school senior at Fort Myers High School, said UF is his top choice because his father is a UF alumnus.
He said he worried that UF favored International Baccalaureate students, which he's not, but said his above-average GPA and test scores should help him out.
"I just always wanted to go there since I was a little kid," Green said.
