When St. Thomas Aquinas senior Lauren Sharifi couldn't see if she had been accepted to UF on Friday because the online system was jammed, she, like many others, resorted to Facebook.
"Everyone's status was like 'Hey, I got in!' or 'Ah, it's not working!'" said Sharifi, 18.
According to UF spokesman Steve Orlando, this is often the case on the day the university informs prospective students online if they've been accepted.
"Ultimately 7,000 people are going to slam that system at 6 p.m.," Orlando said.
Sharifi was able to access the system the next day and was happy to learn she had been accepted.
"It was kind of weird because I wasn't really expecting to get in," she said.
UF received about 27,850 applicants by the November deadline, but students can still apply by March 1, according to Orlando. Those who apply by the second deadline will be informed of their application status in April.
Because all applications have not yet been received, Orlando said, it's safe to say UF will surpass the 28,000 total applications it received last year.
Orlando attributed the increase in applicants to the state of the economy. Many prospective students who would have looked out of state decided to stay in Florida, he said.
As of Friday, the official number of potential students accepted was not released, but Orlando said it won't be much different from last year's 10,600 acceptances.
The Office of Admissions doesn't release that information until a few days after acceptances have been posted because they're subject to change right up until 6 p.m., Orlando said. The target size of the freshman class is 6,400 students.
Orlando said the quality of this year's freshman class will be even better than last year's, but specific data on this year's applicants has not been released yet.
The average weighted GPA of last year's freshman class was 4.1 and the average SAT score was 1276, Orlando said. Acceptance letters will be mailed sometime this week.
Sharifi was visiting friends in Gainesville this weekend when she learned of her acceptance.
"I could have either been celebrating or like 'I hate this place,'" she said.
