How to Get Into Florida’s Top Universities: UF, FSU, UM

Also, do note, I’m going to be repeating myself for the next three minutes and if you’re like, “Man, this is going to get annoying real quick,” If you really want to just, you can mute me for the next three minutes. I’m not going to say anything new and then you can come back at 7:05. Still trickling, still trickling, a little bit of stabilization. But again, drop in that chat so we can get a sense. We can tailor this a little bit more to you. Any school that you are really interested in for Florida or specifically any program you really want to learn about that would be useful. And your chat says disabled. Okay, Rebekah, you’re going to need to let them do that, but maybe I can do that, too. Well, I appreciate you bringing this to our attention. That is a Rebekah thing.

Wait, I can do this. Participants, attendees, more enable Q&A. You should be able to add the Q&A. So yeah, it’s not in the chat. It’s in the Q&A is where you’re going to put it the same place where you were putting in that the chat is disabled. So, if you can do that, that would be useful. Oh, here we go. Chat box says yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, the reason why we’re doing this anonymous attendee and Theresa, thank you. This way, and it seems you have figured it out, great, is because we know you don’t know the other people in this room. You’re like, “I don’t know if I want to put my stuff out there.” So, this goes only to us; only we can see this. So that’s where all these questions are going in here. Things that I am seeing is that you’re at FSU Film.

Ooh, I love that. That’s going to come back up. Business, UF engineering, some entrepreneurs, ooh, some honors programs. Medicine is coming up. Cybersecurity. Okay. A lot of honors, a lot of UF. Good, good. You’re in the right place if that’s it. Pre-med. Okay. I’m noting a lot of pre-med, a lot of business. We can start to tailor to that. Miami comp. sci. This makes sense. Okay. You’re getting it. You’re getting it. Just as a heads-up, if you’re like, “Man, I really want an answer to that.” We are not going to get answers to those questions. I left it and it doesn’t feel it’s answered because there’s no real answer there. This is just for us but thank you for putting that. Okay, so thank you all for being here. Thank you for being on time. We are going to get started with this webinar now. So, if you have me on muted, take me off mute.

Yes. Keep the questions coming. This webinar is going to be about how to get into top schools, into Florida’s top schools, specifically FSU, UF, UMiami, but it goes beyond that. And if you’re already like, “Okay, that’s cool, I know I’m in the right place, but who are you? Why have you been talking to me for the last five minutes? How do I know if I can trust you?”—which is a key thing that will come up as a theme in this whole webinar—let me introduce myself. My name is Glen Water. I’m the Director of Learning and Development here at Prepory. What does that mean? That means that I’m responsible for making sure that everything that we do at Prepory, in terms of coaching and counseling and curriculum and resources, actually aligns to making sure that students can get into the colleges that they want to.

I’ve been doing this work for over 15 years. I got a PhD in Education Policy from the University of Wisconsin Madison, not Florida, but I’m very good at this kind of stuff. And I love to think about how we can make sure that the practices we are doing help kids to actually achieve their goals and their dreams, particularly with how they connect to the community. And this is also going to be a theme that comes through that. You might be looking at my face and being like, “Oh wow. He’s got some good natural lighting there. He’s probably not in Florida if it’s storming where we are.” That’s true. Right now, I’m in California, but I do have Florida roots. My wife graduated from Durant High School in Plant City, home of that strawberry fest. Thanks for the pagers. If anyone’s got a shout from the strawberry fest, too.

And then a number of my in-laws, they’ve attended Florida universities or even work at Florida universities as professors. So, I’m deeply familiar with the area. I’ve gotten kids accepted to Miami, to Florida, and to FSU. This is something that I’m excited to share with you all and help you to achieve those dreams. So, some of these more a little bit esoteric questions, we’ll get in the chat. Some of the bigger ones we’ll definitely get into with the conversation. So, you’ve heard about me you’re saying like, “Okay, you said you’re the Director of Prepory, but also what is Prepory? Who am I on with?” Prepory is the college counseling firm that you can trust. Now, you can trust us for a number of reasons, like all of these stats that you see at the bottom about how many kids we’ve worked with, the rates that we get accepted with.

But I think the reason why you should trust us most is the coaches that we have. We hire very specific candidates who not only make sure that they have deep understanding of the college admissions process but have a deep care of you and make sure that we can get your dreams achieved, particularly with how your interests can align to the needs of the world, which is something that the universities care about. And it’s nice because we’re all sort of on the same page here. The universities want to see how you’re doing these things. We want to show you and we all want to get you along that path so you can go forth and make the world a better place. And the more people that we have aligned in helping you with that, if kids, parents, teachers, your college counselor at your school, the admissions officer, we can get those all lined up, the more chances you’ll be able to achieve that.

And so that’s why I love this work. That’s why we do this work, and I think that’s why hopefully you will do that work with us. As a result, we have gotten students accepted to all of these schools, and you’ll notice there are Florida schools on there, like the ones you’ve mentioned, like Florida, FSU, but also schools outside of Florida, and that’s something that I think you should keep in mind as well, as another theme that comes up into this presentation, is that the same sort of things that you are looking for or that Florida schools are looking for are the same sort of things that schools across the country are looking for. There’s just slight twists, and so we want to make sure that for you, you know how to make those slight twists, but also that you keep your doors open. If you’re a sophomore right now, if you’re a freshman right now, even if you’re a junior right now looking into senior year, we want you to stay flexible with all the chances that you have.

GLEN: Yes, go to Florida schools, they’re some of the best in the world, but also keep your doors open to what else is out there. So how we’re going to do that today, and I will note most of these questions are going to be answered in the chat or I’ll get to them at the end, but keep asking them. We will get to them. I just won’t be able to pause this. I’ll get to a few of them. We’re going to first start with what top Florida schools look for, which is helpful just to answer some of these questions, not all of them. Then, we’re going to talk about how you can actually do the things that they’re looking for. We’re going to get into the very specific details of the Florida applications and what the process is unique for Florida. We’re going to talk about the Prepory difference, and we’re going to make sure that all these questions that we didn’t get to, we answer. And I don’t know about that thing about, “will it be shared afterwards,” but sorry, I don’t know the answer.

What Florida schools are actually looking for, what the top Florida schools are looking for. You probably know all of these names. You’ve mentioned them in the chat already. They’re brand names. They’re some of the best schools in the world, but what has shifted dramatically in the last few years is how hard or how easy it is to get into these schools. If you had looked at these rates 10 years ago, 15 years ago, even just that, not even 30 years ago or 40 years ago, these are much smaller numbers. These rankings are also much smaller numbers, but with rankings, the smaller the better in that case, and that is a dramatic shift. These schools used to be considered safety schools, likely schools. When my wife graduated from Durant, she was like, Florida’s my safety school. I got that on lock. She thinks about that now and she’s like, “Nope, not a chance would I consider that. That was a wild life choice.” It’s the number 30 school in the nation. Miami’s acceptance rate is sub 20. That means it’s a reach for everyone. Florida State, what people often thought of as “I can always get into Florida State,” that’s become a 25% acceptance rate, meaning three quarters of the people who apply to Florida State aren’t getting in anymore. It’s wild. And what’s crazy is it’s not just these top schools. Okay, that’s going to the next slide, but sorry, I got excited with myself. Let me answer first with “why is it getting so hard to get into these top schools?” I’m going to give you two facts and then I’m going to start to explain it. I told you I have a PhD, sometimes I get a little nerdy about the “why’s” here. I promise that it’ll be limited to this.

The two facts that I want you to see are on the screen here. First, UF wants 25% of its students to be from out of state. That’s just what they’ve stated. “We want 25% of our kids that we bring into our class to be out of state.” Okay, why? UMiami, 64% of the acceptances were from non-Florida students, residents, students at the same time. These are two interesting facts that I think indicate what’s going on with these acceptance rates and why it is so hard. But by understanding it, you can also know what you should be doing. The reasons here are threefold. First, it’s this issue with, or it’s just a consequence, it’s not an issue of globalization and internetization. Internetization, which is a technical term, it’s a weird term, but it basically means everybody’s online now, right? You are seeing what peoples’ TikToks and Instagrams in Washington State, in China, in Maine, in Canada, in North Dakota, everyone’s seeing these same schools.

They’re seeing that same sense of connection. They know that Miami is a brand name, thus Miami and Florida are wanting those top students from all around the world. That means that you are competing against the top students from around the world. They’re all competing for each other to have those top students because of the idea of this local premier university like what Miami used to be 30 years ago, what NYU used to be 30 years ago, what USC, University of Southern California, used to be 30 years ago. It’s just not. They are much more global. They are much more national. So that means you are competing against that. That’s the first fact.

Why are they competing? Well, primarily because there is this incentive for them to make the financial means, right? Out-of-state students will have to pay more so they can make their budget better. So that’s why they’re recruiting more. There’s also this piece that we’ll come back to is this understanding of community and being able to have those different perspectives in there. But as a result, and again, as I said, this is not limited to just Miami, FSU, and Florida. These are the statistics for schools across the state of Florida. And you’ll see on that righthand column here, which you can’t see where my hand is pointing to, but it’s going on this other screen here, these rates are way lower than they were 30 years ago. Even schools like Central Florida, like Rollins, they’re much harder to get into than they once were.

And there are two other things that I want to name about this chart here about how the SAT, that number has increased dramatically. You’re looking at University of Florida, that 75% range or the 75th percentile admitted student has a 1510 and Florida State is a 1450 SAT required. It’s just harder to get into. And you might be thinking, “Yeah, well that’s 75%. Look at those 25% of students who get in with under 1340. I’m good.” Unfortunately, you can’t rely on that. A lot of those numbers below are reserved for those what are called institutional priorities. That’s a term you may have heard around. It refers to what the institution values in terms of money, most frequently. So that means athletes, and it’s not just the football team that brings it, but athletes across the board. A lot of things that happen with that and how boosters and legacy works with all of that.

And it’s just straight donors, people who have donated a lot and here’s a kid that is the son of that or daughter of that that gets in. So, you do need to be targeting that higher SAT range if you want it to be competitive at this thing. And then these other columns here, that other point I want to make is the GPA unweighted, and this is something that I want you to be certain of. It’s unweighted, not weighted, because a lot of Florida students I’ve seen that I’ve worked with are like, “Yeah, I got a 4.6, I’m good. The average GPA to get accepted is a—looks like—a 3.8. I’m good, I’m great.” But there’s a key difference between unweighted and weighted that unweighted GPA with a 4.6, the kid actually might’ve had, and I’ve seen this, a couple Cs. When we actually were to unweight that, and every school recalculates your GPA, they put it in their own system and they see those Cs, that can really hurt your chances.

And so, I just want you to name that. The number one thing you need to be concentrated on is getting these numbers because they get you in the door and we’ll come back to that. So that’s the profile. The point of me sharing all this is not to say that this is impossible, that, “Oh, it’s Florida.” The point behind all of this is to help you to see, “This is the path. It has gotten narrower, but how can I make it through this? How can I stand out of all these students that are applying?” And that I guess is the other sort of nerdy PhD thing that I’ll get at you, the main other reason why these numbers are so high is because of the demographic shifts. So many people have moved to Florida, recently, that there’s just this bubble going through, so it’s like you just have to stand out in a bigger pile. So how do you stand out? What do you do in order to make sure that you can be one of those 19% students accepted to the University of Miami?

This, you might be like, “Okay, well we clearly just sign up for Prepory, that’s the solution.” And more subtle than that. It is kind of hinting at that. Within these sorts of reviews, there are guidance about what the things are that you need to do. Yes, you need to have a supportive team. We’ve named that. Yes, making sure that you understand the essays and every part of the application process is done thoroughly. Yes, you want to make sure that you do that. But I really want to have you over to this one here on the bottom left corner here. “Thanks to them, I was able to create a cohesive story that led me to be accepted at my dream school.” This is going to be one of those central things that we want to make sure that you have. A lot of the nuances on the specifics of like—”Oh, I have this internship,” or “I have this small percentage things,” or “What is the best thing to align?”—is less important than that cohesive story. That is the thing that you really want to make sure that you are crafting and crafting it to the values that the school espouses. So, let’s get into that.

I’ve named earlier that grades are the first thing. You’ve got to focus on the grades. The grades are what get your profile looked at by the AOs. The first thing they do is they recalculate. They see what the GPA is, they see what the SAT, they’re like, “Does this kid even have the academic ability to be able to handle at my school?” Because what they don’t want to see is their numbers of graduation rates going down. That’s how they sink in the rankings. They want to make sure that your academic ability is there. Cool. Baseline, but that’s necessary. It’s not sufficient. Because when they get in, they’re like, “Okay, this kid’s interesting.” They will start to debate that. You get past that initial round of readers. It’s in the debate process where they are looking at your profile and they’re trying to understand how you’re going to show up on campus. How do you fit?

As the former admissions officer from Miami that’s on our team says, “This process is both a science and an art. They’re really analyzing what you’re doing and then seeing how the pieces fit together to make that decision, and you want to make sure that you’re really clear “—well, this is a weird analogy—” but strong and evident paint that they can be like, “’okay, this is how this is going to fit into this mosaic.’” The way that you do that is through your profile and your essay so that it’s a clear narrative here.

The profile, and we’ll dive into all of these pieces in the coming slides, needs to show these three key things. The first is your intellectual curiosity. This one question was something about rollercoaster engineering here. Cool. Regardless of whether or not it has the very specifics of that, if you want to design roller coasters, that is an interesting narrative. What sort of engineering things have you done and why do you want to do that specifically? That is what they were looking for and that narrative, and then you can talk about all the different things that fit to it. The community contribution. How have you made an impact on the world around you—particularly your community? And we’ll come back to this specifically with the public schools, the Florida community, and then this third word dynamism. How do you stand out? What’s your personality? What do you do for the sake of joy or creativity that makes you, you? They are looking for this authenticity that is like their watchword of 2025. They want to see that you’re actually you, that you have a personality, that you fit on campus, and they do that through the activities. But then those activities form the basis of your essays, and that is where the majority of your work will lie, at least in senior year, is making sure that you have these really quality essays that show that depth about the roller coasters, that show “the why,” that show that you’ve actually done the sort of research and experience within mechanical engineering, within industrial design, to see how that experience is maximized within it.

They want to see your core values and your authenticity. Who are you? Why are you the way that you are? Which is ultimately this blend of IQ and EQ, or emotional quotient? How do you understand the world? How do you understand yourself? And how do you understand the connection between those two things? That is a very difficult process to write. It is a very difficult thing to understand as a 40-year-old, much less as a 17-year-old, but that is what we are trying to get you to do, to see those steps, to see how you would fit in because that is what they are looking for and honestly, that’s what a good life looks like. And that’s what everyone here is invested in—is making sure that the students on this call have that flourishing life. So, let’s get into some of the more specifics here of that academics and that intellectual curiosity.

So, the best way that you can stand out is to have these things, right? If you can just check those off. If you can get above a 1500 SAT, that’s often the scores like, “Oh, what should I be aiming for?” Is to have that. You want to have as close to a 4.0 unweighted GPA as possible. That’s what you should be aiming at. You want to make sure, especially with Florida schools, that you’re in that top 5% of your graduating class. That is going to help you to really stand out. The thing though that is less noted is that your coursework exceeds the grade level. If you’re looking at comp. sci. or AI, which several of you were, if I’m you, I’m trying to make sure that I’m in multivariable calculus by the time I’m in senior year. That’s the aim. That’s how you can have the most competitive profile.

If you can’t do that, you’re a little behind. It does make it harder, but it’s not impossible, and that is where these other things are really going to need to shine with this intellectual curiosity or this intellectual vitality, is another word that some colleges and AOs use, that is shown in the research, that is shown in the research opportunities that you’re doing. If you’re actually analyzing like a rollercoaster, the internships that you’re having and the projects that you’re doing there, and that’s the key thing that you’re actually doing something here because those are going to then be the basis which displays this intellectualism, your understanding of the core concepts in your area. I’ve seen too many essays like, “Oh, I really love CS because I love programming.” Okay, that is the most basic level. I need to see that you actually know beyond just machine learning, but sentiment analysis.

What is that next level and then what are you going to do with it and why do you like it? Those are the things that you’re really going to need to show in your essays that are going to make it the most competitive, and that is way more important than any sort of percentage-hunching on a major, is that cohesive story that shows your interests. So, the other piece of this community contribution and leadership. It was that second thing that I named. This is just your demonstrated success of leading others to make significant changes on an issue or topic that you care about and it doesn’t matter the issue. Those conversations about how you should steer away from the most controversial, but honestly, that’s not even the most important thing. The thing is that they need to see that you can do stuff about something that you care about regardless of your political spectrum and that you can do so with meaningful impact and reflection because these are the things that’ll make you successful in life, right?

You’re like “Okay. I was trying to do this thing. I handled these conflicts. This person didn’t see eye to eye to me. Great. I handled this conflict. Here’s how I was able to be successful.” Wow, what do you know? That’s a great personal statement in there. They want to see that you’re committed to something over time because, guess what? College is long. It’s four years. They want to see that you can actually handle the commitment to stick through something and you’re not just going to be bouncing between majors and then your graduation rate becomes eight years and they’re like, “This hurts our numbers.” And they want to see the connection to Florida. They want to see that particularly in this public schools because this is written into the founding sort of documents and ethos of these universities, how are you going to contribute back to the state?

Your state tax dollars are funding this. They are doing that because they want to see how you are going to reinvest back into the state. So, how are you going to contribute? This is the mission of public schools. Show how you’re doing that. And this one, innovation is particularly key. Florida schools love this. You’ll see this with UF shortly, how much they want to see not just doing the same old, same old, but what’s your new take on it? These are research institutions. They want to see a new edge, a new way of doing something that is built in what has been done before. That is the key that you can use within these essays. Here’s what’s done. Here’s what’s worked. Here’s why I built this next brick, this next step in this process of solving hunger.

So, to get tangibly with this on your activities list, and you see those three different parts on the right here, you’re trying to fill these buckets because these buckets will be what they were looking at. They’ll be what they’re analyzing. They’ll be how they hold you up to the other AOs and fight for you to be accepted to Miami or Florida. They want to see at least with the intellectual curiosity, it’s got to be like your most important bucket. If you’re a senior and you have nothing connected to your major that you are interested in studying about medicine, that has got to be the first thing that you are doing, is filling up that bucket with things connected to your major. You should have aimed to have at least four activities that we can say like, “Oh, yeah, look, there’s a demonstrated interest in that.” Ideally, it’s late for the seniors, but for underclassmen, you’re aiming to do some sort of research project or some sort of passion project. By the end of this, sorry, summer of senior year, what you should be doing right now, you should also have one to two activities connected to the issue that you care about. That’s the community impact there. That is something that you will want to have a demonstrated interest in there.

And then that third bucket is the dynamism. This is the one we haven’t talked about. This should be something that is separate from the other two buckets, and it often will form this third essay, but it’s something that can help you to stand out to be a little bit more unique, a little bit more dynamic. The root of that word, and the thing that I want to really stress on this—is that the things that we see the most common of doing “Well, I’m doing piano, I have a job, I do chess and I have this sport because I heard those studies about how piano shows that you’re smart and smart people play chess,” or even, “I love chess, I love the competitiveness of it, and I have these four things. Also, I’ve heard a job helps with AOs.” Doing all four of these, or even three of these things, is too much.

If you really love chess, it’s a little cliche, but it could be the thing. We’re going to need to know why you particularly love it and what is specific for your interests and your connection, what’s your story with it? But to have multiple of these, will take away time to do the other buckets, and that’s the key thing you want to have. That doesn’t mean give up your sport right now, especially a school like Miami, they’re very sporty. Florida, they love sports. They want to see that you can appreciate Florida. They’re all like it’s a sports card state. Just don’t have it take over your lives and get in the way of the other things, as well. It’s about balance between these buckets. So, that’s on the activities list.

These all will then show up the real depth of it in the essays. It’s with your personal statement and your supplemental essays where you can really paint that for the AO to be like, “Oh man, I got to let this person in. I got to let Christie in,” Right? “This is the one that I got to let in.” So how do they do that? Because they feel like you’re authentic. They feel like there’s a story that you want to tell, and they want to believe in you, and this is what AOs talk about so much is how much they want their kids to be successful. They want to let their kids in. They just need the story by which they can fight for you. In order to get that story though, you have to be able to tell it and telling it is honestly, it’s a process of discovery. The takeaways that you have at the beginning should not be the same that you have at the end. You will go through multiple drafts, you will go through multiple iterations of “why”, multiple rounds where you’re like, “My coach keeps asking me why I believe this or why did this cause me to grow and shift in this way?”

And you’re like walking around your room, which is good because walking is how your mind actually processes. That is where the revelations happen, that depth happens, that IQ and EQ happens, and it ultimately becomes more unique to you. This is why the ChatGPT essays, they’ll give you the form, but they won’t give you the authenticity or they won’t give you that sort of uniqueness to yourself, right? Because that’s what ChatGPT is. It’s pulling from everyone and giving you the aggregate of it. This is the mean of all that data and here’s you. But if you’re doing this right, it’s a process of discovery, which should be kind of cool. “I got to figure out who I am. That’s fun.” That’s why we do this work. The downside of it is it does take a long time, right? Like this thing here you’re doing this personal statement, which is multiple times honestly, so that should be more, right?

Three rounds of reviews on all of these things, and I will stress the most competitive ones. The schools like if you’re interested in BS/MD programs, you notice Florida Atlantic was on that list because of how competitive that BS/MD program is and its much lower acceptance rate than what that overall FAU’s acceptance is. That’s a lot of essays. That’s a lot of rounds that it takes. It would take honestly eight to nine, maybe even 10 before they get really good. And that’s work, but that’s why it’s important to have somebody to help you to manage that, to navigate that, because there are lots of competing thoughts and it’s just helpful to have somebody who can be that coach, that guidance, that cheerleader for you along the process. Because with these things, these supplementals, we’ve talked about there being key narratives, key stories that you need to share, but as I mentioned earlier, they need to get adapted to the specific values of the school, and let’s look at that.

Let’s look at these particular schools because they show that in these supplementals. And these are from last year. They don’t change in what they are looking for because the values of the university don’t change, but the questions will sometimes tweak because they’re looking to get more precise with what they are looking for. Their measurement tool is different. They’re trying to get more precise with that, and that is again, an indication that they’re not looking for the real quality of the writing. They’re not judging on you. “Oh, is this a great writer?” They’re looking for coherence, they’re looking for the content of it, not the flourishing touches, and that’s an important thing that you need to keep in your mind as you’re doing this process. Yes, it needs to be well-written obviously, because then it can’t be well-read, but we’re not looking for creative writing in these things.

GLEN: But anyways, let’s get into the very specifics of the University of Florida here. “Please provide,” this is their supplement question from last year, “Please provide more details on your most meaningful commitment outside of the classroom while in high school and explain why it was meaningful.” See, I told you, this stuff doesn’t come from anywhere. They’re literally asking for me. This could be related to extracurricular activity, work, volunteering, an academic activity, family responsibility or any non-classroom activity, so that academic activity, again, can’t be something that is in the classroom. What they’re looking for here is below, they’re looking for you to be more than just academics. This isn’t just a way for you to go to more school. They’re looking for how you are going to contribute beyond that, how you are going to have that community contribution to show up in other ways beyond the classroom because that learning at a school like Florida, they want it to be applied to making an impact in the lives of others.

The one thing that they’re really looking for at Florida, what they really pride themselves on, is this leadership and innovation. That is something that they, across their disciplines, they are looking to see how, and that’s explaining the commitment, the most meaningful commitment. How did you innovate within that? How did you demonstrate leadership? How did you impact those around you and how did you grow from that? So, it’s community contribution with others with this slight twist of innovation and leadership. Now, that is a community contribution essay.

Miami’s community contribution essay is a little bit different, and it reflects the slightly different values. “Reflect on a community that has influenced you—be it your school neighborhood club team, ethnic group, or any other group that has played a role in shaping who you are.” See it’s similar, but slightly different wording. “What significance did that community hold for you?” Okay, a little bit reflecting on them onto you, not just you onto them, but in what ways did you contribute to it? So that same sort of piece about impact. “How will you bring those experiences, values, and insights enrich the campus’ community at University of Miami?” Cool. The key thing here is that Miami really cares. It’s their first value that they put on their direct values here: diversity. That’s not going to change. They’re always wanting to have multiple perspectives coming in across political spectrums, across ethnic perspectives, but they’re really trying to have different ideas come together. This is because of their hemispheric mission here where they see themselves as the bridge between the United States and all of Latin America or all of South America and Central America. That is how they identify. And so, you being able to talk about how you are going to be able to cross cultural, ethnic, national political divides, how you understand your own and be able to operate in those spaces, will ultimately help you because this is also that intercultural is highly connected to interdisciplinary.

If you can understand somebody who’s different than you, you can probably also understand different perspectives on, “Oh, this is someone whose biology. I’m curious in that even though I’m a mechanical engineer, but I can understand how they intersect, and we can build something better with that.” So that is that you could be a similar sort of story, but it has to be adapted to the specific values of that university and that is what requires an understanding of what they’re linking at, but ultimately an understanding of who you are and what you want to do with that. It’s not just like you can’t write about, “Yeah, I love diversity,” right? Okay, but what about you? They need to see you. You need to have them be the main character in that story. You need to have that main character energy, not just the University of Miami.

GLEN: Now, getting into some more specific Florida details. Then, we’ll have a little bit about how we can help and then we’ll definitely circle through any of these questions that I can answer in this chat that haven’t already been answered. So, the one thing that you might be curious about is Bright Futures. How does this play? Honestly, I would just take a screenshot of this if you need to. This is how you can get your tuition paid for the FAS, the Florida Academic Scholars that’ll pay for a hundred percent of your tuition while the medallion scholars, this lower one will pay for 75%, if you meet this. This you should be trying to do. It does cover your tuition costs at Florida schools. One thing I will flag for you that I want to make sure that you are aware of, because my family went through this, is “Great, it covers tuition.” It doesn’t cover room, board, or anything else. So those are costs that you should be aware of and make sure that you are calculating in with your understanding of what is the best choice for us and our finances because it doesn’t cover everything. And that’s just something you should be aware of and not get blindsided by when you get your bills and you’re like, “Oh shoot, I thought this would be free because I’m Bright Scholars and it’s not.” I also want to flag that because there are a number of other scholarships that can give you even more than Bright Scholars. These are some of the most prestigious, some of the most useful scholarships, that there are available here.

With that, the key thing that I want you to note is the dates by which you apply for them. Most of the money that is available to students for Merit scholarships like this premier scholarships here, which gives you tons of money, potential, it goes early. So, if you are worried about financial aid and want to have access to Merit scholarships, the key thing that you need to know is that your application dates August, September, or October are within three months. So, all those essays that I was talking about, all that profile that you were needing to do and making sure those descriptions, all the crossing of the T’s dotting of the I’s, that you should be aiming to have done in about three months. Because the early acceptances are where the money is at and it’s not just necessarily the money. If you’re like, “We’re, good. Don’t worry, my dad worked hard, we don’t have to worry about that.” It’s also to get earlier acceptances.

These are the dates right here. This Early Action deadline, Early Action Deadline versus the Rolling deadlines, the acceptance rates for in-state students are dramatically higher in Early Action than they are in Regular Action or Rolling. If you want to maximize your chances of getting accepted, you should be applying for the Early Action, even if you’re not worried about financial aid. It’s got that extra benefit as well, but your deadlines are earlier, you need to be on the ball with this. That is how you can maximize your chances of getting in. Once you have that cohesive narrative, and that’d be the one caveat, if you don’t have a cohesive narrative and you’re like, “I don’t know what I’m doing,” it wouldn’t work.

No to the last question, it can be either of them. So, that is all to say. There is a timeline. It is coming up. I can’t believe it’s August already. Personally, myself, the students that I’m working with, our personal statements are needing to be done now because we need to start getting worried on those supplemental essays like fall is coming as we say here, but how can we help you to navigate all of this process? How can we help you get admitted? I alluded to some of this in the beginning. Let me come back to it now. I can say that I have seen this work because A, I helped to design it, but also because it’s aligned to what is best for the students’ ability to understand and get those cohesive narratives. So, we do have one-on-one sessions where it’s important that it’s an hour long with the student because half of what we’re doing there beyond just helping them to make sure they’re managed and have all these deadlines, it’s a lot of reflection. It’s a lot of like, “Okay, so what’s the why here?” “Oh, have you thought about this as the ‘why’?” “Have you thought about this thing for the ‘why’?” “Could this be a narrative?” “How does that sound to you?” “How would we make it stronger?” “What are we missing here?”

How Prepory supports Florida applicants

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