Florida State University

Florida State has three torches that represent their values - Vires, Artes, and Mores. These stand for strength, skill, and character. As this relates to the admissions process, they are looking for students with good grades (strength), a strong resume of extracurriculars (skill), and a well-rounded person (character). The number of people applying to FSU has gone up by 169% since 2016, so they recommend students to apply by their October or December deadline. I learned something very interesting. For students who might have taken the SAT and/or ACT four times, they would like you to submit all your scores, not just your highest one. This shows them how hard you have worked to keep getting your score up. They can recognize that they are looking for very high scores. Again, for the 12 public universities in Florida, the Board of Governors is who requires that scores are submitted. If you can’t get your test score to the middle 50% number, you should write a great essay showing how resilient you are, and you should have a very strong resume (common app activities list) showing your involvement. They are looking for students who are involved and don’t just go to school and come home and study. For juniors reading this, you can submit your December SAT/ACT scores; January 1 is the deadline for self-reported scores. The midrange scores are as follows for fall enrollment with summer scores in parenthesis. If you’ve been following my posts, you know that summer enrollment increases your chances of getting in. GPA (that they recalculate on a 5 point scale) of 4.3-4.6 (4.1-4.5), SAT of 1300-1430 (1210-1320), and ACT of 29-32 (26-29).

The total cost of attendance for in-state students is $20,779 while it is $35,025 for out-of-state students. U.S. News and World Report named them the #5 best value among public universities, and they are the #1 best value among Florida public schools. 87% of their students receive financial aid that is not loans, and 60% of their students graduate with no debt. Another interesting fact is that their tuition has been unchanged over the past 9 years. They just learned that it will not be raised this coming year either. They have the #1 four-year graduation rate among public universities and a 95% retention rate.