The halls of Plant are filled with students stressing out about their future. With universities becoming harder and harder to get into each year, students face the challenge of being prefect just to get into an average-rated state school.
Since 2015, the University of Florida (UF) acceptance rate, according to College Tuition Compare, has dropped from 47% down to 24% in 2025. Historically, it has dropped an average of 4% per year, making it increasingly difficult for students to get into these schools. This trend isn’t only specific to UF, however. Other public schools in Florida, like Florida State University (FSU), have also dropped, according to the same source, from 52% in 2015 to 25% in 2025.
Some students feel like they are pressured to perform extremely well and take the hardest classes possible in order to just be able to get to college, focusing their entire high school life on college. Putting life-determining pressure on high schoolers at such a young age is damaging and unfair, according to the American Psychological Association. Over 30% of high schoolers feel they have no time to relax due to the difficulty of classes.
“I feel like I don’t even have a choice in what classes I take,” Ivy Ni (10) says. “Whenever I think about senior year, I can’t even look forward to it; all I’m dreading are these admissions. I’m taking so many AP Classes this year and next year, and I’m struggling with them, but I know that we can’t go into any good college nowadays without perfect achievements.”
While acceptance rates are dropping, the average scores of these universities are increasing, with many of Florida’s state public universities ranked among the best public universities in the nation, and at times UF scores higher than some Ivies. This, along with more accessibility for students given by the Bright Futures program, allows more applicants to apply. There is a correlation between how many more students apply each year and the acceptance rate.
As time goes on, more and more people are applying to universities, especially with the further development of forms of financial aid, people are getting in that would have never gotten in before. The more applicants there are, the lower the percentage that will get accepted, as schools have a finite amount of space, which is not typically expanded upon. This creates more competition and makes it much more difficult to get in for typical students, limiting them.
“I’m so scared for admissions in 2 years, I mean the SAT already is pretty stressful just thinking about it, but the actual thing is even scarier because I don’t know if there is going to be a spot for me in any of these colleges,” Elizabeth Welch (10) says. “It’s like they all only accept people who are valedictorians or something. My friend couldn’t go into UF even though she was president of a bunch of clubs and had a 4.5 GPA. It’s crazy how hard it is nowadays.”
Top Public Universities in Florida by caporcelli