Overview
The University of Florida was founded in 1853, and has been recognized as a "Public Ivy" UF is currently ranked 49th overall among national universities in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings. UF is also well recognized because its' researchers developed the famous sports drink Gatorade
Getting In
As the acceptance rate at the University of Florida has trended downward, the application process has become increasingly competitive. The university has a freshmen retention rate of 93%. For the first-year students that enrolled at UF in 2008, the median SAT score is 1240 - 1410, and the Median GPA was 4.1 - 4.4. UF's class of 2007 yield rate was at 57%, and looks to be very selective for coming years.
Football
The Gators' home stadium is Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at Florida Field, one of the largest and loudest football stadiums in the country. Florida Field was opened in 1930 and has been expanded seve
ral times to now hold over 90,000. The stadium is popularly known as "The Swamp", and was given the nickname by Steve Spurrier in the early 1990s, who quipped that "only the Gators get out alive." The Sporting News named Florida as the top college crowd in the nation and gave Florida Field the honor of the nation's loudest stadium. In 2007, Sports Illustrated ranked Ben Hill Griffin Stadium as the third best college venue in the nation, and was the first overall for college football.
Celebrating 100 years of Florida football, the Gators finished the 2006 regular season with a record of 13-1, capturing the SEC Championship with a 38-28 victory over Arkansas at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia. Florida moved to second place in the Bowl Championship Series rankings and convincingly defeated the #1 ranked Ohio State University Buckeyes 41-14 for the BCS National Championship on January 8, 2007, in Glendale, Arizona. Starting quarterback Chris Leak was named the game's Most Valuable Player. It was the Gators' second consensus national championship, and made UF the first school ever to hold the Division I men's basketball title and the BCS football title at the same time. content via wikipedia