As University of Florida acceptance rates decline, students increasingly flock to Santa Fe College for an advantage
Basketball practice ended a half hour early, but Adam Edwards would not leave school grounds. It was too close to 6 p.m. The high school senior decided he couldn’t take his chances through rush-hour Orlando traffic. He needed to be near a computer.
He couldn’t wait any longer. He had already waited over three and a half months for February 12 to arrive. The mere idea of waiting an extra 30 minutes sent his heart pulsating. Promptly at 6 p.m. in the locker-room, he logged on. Nothing loaded. He hit refresh. Again, nothing. There were too many people trying to access the same site.
Like Edwards, thousands of students across the state of Florida and beyond had waited for that day since Nov. 1 — it was the University of Florida Decision Day — or ‘D-Day’ as some call it.
Over 45 minutes later, it finally loaded. But Edwards did not see the classic orange and blue acceptance graphic he had hoped for. He did not read “Welcome to the class of 2020,” as some of his friends had. But he also did not read a letter of denial like 57.5 percent of freshman applicants had.
He quickly scanned the long letter to find two words that would change his entire planned college career: Santa Fe. Instead, it detailed his spot in a new program, where he would not become a full-time UF student for two more years.
He felt defeated. He had no idea what this would mean for him. UF was his dream school.
He felt he had no choice but to accept his offer for the program.
Edwards was one of 18,414 students who did not get accepted into UF’s mainstream freshman class. But like many of his peers, he took an alternative route to get to UF through Santa Fe.
Edwards was admitted into the Gator Engineering at Santa Fe program (GE). The invite-only program was in its third year at the time but offered 150 students the chance to start their educational career in engineering at Santa Fe College. In the collaboration between UF, the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering (HWCOE) and Santa Fe College, students gain UF admission in their first spring semester and continue at Santa Fe until the completion of their associate degree.
Edwards just completed his first semester as a full-time UF student since beginning the program in August 2016. He did not know it at the time, but this would later be what he considers to be one of the best decisions he has ever made.
“I didn’t go through the same process as other people,” Edwards says. “I wasn’t exactly a full UF student, yet I wasn’t exactly a full Santa Fe student. But through that, we got to experience both sides of the coin and reap the benefits that both schools had to offer.”
The program symbolizes the growing relationship between UF and Santa Fe as more students hoping to gain acceptance to UF, flock to the state college. The two schools also offer a joint program called, “Gator Design and Construction at Santa Fe,” for UF applicants hoping to study construction management, architecture or interior design.
As programs like these bridge the gap between the four-year university and community college more closely, the experiences collide. Many students choose Santa Fe because of amenities and activities at UF that allow Santa Fe students to enjoy. Students are allowed to serve in the Gator Band and the UF ROTC as an effort to integrate them into the University of Florida community.
Santa Fe College also offers on-campus courses to supplement UF classes for PACE (UF Online) and Innovation Academy students.
Though it is a state college, only 50 percent of enrolled students are local. The other fifty percent moved to Alachua or Bradford counties just to attend the school — an unusual occurrence for most state schools, but not for Santa Fe.
Many believe that it is the close relationship between the two schools that draws in thousands of students to Santa Fe each year. As more benefits and offerings are added to the list of amenities Santa Fe students get to experience, more students seem to make the move to Gainesville.
Though Edwards took advantage of some of the UF offerings available to Santa Fe students, like intramural flag football, his favorite aspects of the GE program are exclusive to the Santa Fe experience.
The small class sizes were what first drew him to the program. Rather than attending other schools he was fully accepted to, like other Santa Fe students, he believed that the small setting would help him thrive academically.
“In the first two years of engineering, you’re building a foundation of basics, like physics and statics. But without a strong knowledge from the beginning, you have no foundation,” says Edwards. “It was nice to have the opportunity to be a part of UF engineering without the rigor of going to UF at the beginning so that I could have the chance to build the foundation that I needed.”
But the individualized attention from teachers does not mean it would be necessarily easy, according to Edwards. “You still have to work hard at it,” Edwards says. “Many people think that because it is a state college, it’s a breeze. That’s not the case here. But it’s definitely different than going to UF for all 4 years of undergrad.”
Austin Hart, a second-year economics major at Santa Fe agrees. Hart noticed a drop in his G.PA. when he transferred to Santa Fe from South Florida State College in Sebring, Florida.
“Though the classes are harder, I feel more prepared for when I transfer to UF,” says Hart.
Hart is not the only student who feels prepared to transfer, as, since the summer semester of 2012, over 5,000 Santa Fe students have enrolled at UF.
In Gainesville, Santa Fe College is more than the average state or community college. UF accepts more students from Santa Fe than from any other school. Over 65 percent of Santa Fe students who applied to UF were accepted in 2017, according to UF at Santa Fe advisor Julie Crosby. Santa Fe Honors program students have even higher acceptance rates, with 88 percent.
But Hart believes that it’s a symbiotic relationship for the two schools rather than the natural “feeder” school in the typical state college system.
“Santa Fe offers benefits that other state colleges cannot compete with,” Hart says. “Everything aside, I think UF views Santa Fe to have more accreditation than similar schools.”
To further prepare and assist the students beyond the classroom, Santa Fe’s campus even features a building called, “UF @ Santa Fe.” At the hub for students seeking a transfer, students can request one-on-one advising sessions with advisors from the UF college of their choice and seek special advising from Crosby.
In 2015, Santa Fe was awarded the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence — a prestigious honor awarded every two years. After the $1 million award, the college hung banners all over its NW campus that read, “#1 College in America,” an honor that the college did not take lightly.
The college also recently was recognized by the Florida Department of Education as no. 1 in the State of Florida, according to Crosby.
While these prestigious awards help build the school’s reputation, Crosby says that the reputation would be nothing without the community at the college.
“Students come for our reputation, but it’s funny because our reputation was built by our students,” Crosby says. “Our proximity to UF is what initially attracts many students. But because we attract those high-achieving students, they perform well, and it feeds into this cycle.”
Crosby describes this cycle as a ‘culture of excellence.’ The state college’s reputation attracts not just students, but professors. Many professors teach at both institutions, which as a result, draws in more students. Students feel that for one-third of the price, they can receive an education similar to UF for two years at Santa Fe before transferring. The proximity to campus, however, also attributes to the growing reputation, according to Crosby.
“Being so close to the UF campus, psychologically motivates some of the students,” says Crosby. “They drive by it and always keep it in mind.”
But students agree that it’s not the school’s proximity to UF that makes the connection between the schools so unique, but the connections that students make with each other.
“It’s definitely a close-knit community,” Edwards says. “There are thousands of people from all different backgrounds, all coming together with the same aspirations and goals. Even though we are all different and went to Santa Fe for different reasons, whether it be money, location or rigor, we all chose to be there. The community stems from the connections you make along the way. Most students want to go to UF, so when one person gets in, it feels like a family. You’re ecstatic for them. Nowadays at UF, I see a lot of people I took classes with at Santa Fe and it makes me feel a special connection to them.”
As more programs are birthed for the two schools to share each year, the schools’ special relationship continues to grow.