Incoming freshmen set the bar

UCF has attracted a more scholastically strong and talented population of freshmen this year, creating opportunity for the student body's quality to grow with its quantity.

This year's freshman class consists of approximately 3,750 students, according to Gordon Chavis, executive director for undergraduate admissions. This number has increased from 3,656 freshmen last fall. The class' average SAT score was 1249, and a UCF record-breaking 74 first-year students are National Merit Scholars. Chavis said that this number should place UCF as one of the top-30 colleges and universities who enroll National Merit Scholars.

Shreyas Srinivasan, a freshman National Merit Scholar, said UCF was a clear choice for him.

"UCF has more research opportunities that will help me for med school, and as big as UCF is, the honors program gave me that small-school feel," Srinivasan said.

Srinivasan also cited financial aid as a major push for why he chose UCF, as the university offered him more funding than other state schools. UCF was named as one of Kiplinger's Personal Finance 50 "Best Value" universities, which Chavis said has attracted many bright students to the university.

Katie Arango, a freshman early childhood education major who is a National Merit Scholar under the National Hispanic Recognition Program, was also accepted to the University of Alabama, Florida State University and Florida International University, but she felt that UCF had the most to offer.

"When I came to visit the UCF campus, I noticed the great atmosphere. There are a lot of people on the campus, but it doesn't feel like everyone is packed in; and the school has good programs," Arango said.

Both Srinivasan and Arango are students in the Burnett Honors College, which admitted more freshmen into its program this year due to the strong pool of applicants. For the past five years, Burnett has consistently admitted 500 students, and that number jumped to 520 for the 2011-2012 school year. The program had more than 1,400 applicants.

"We didn't want to turn away so many good, strong students," honors admissions specialist Brandy Christman said.

Burnett admitted freshmen with an average weighted GPA of 4.2 and nine college-level courses already under their belts.

Christman said that the new students coming into the honors college represent 22 different states and collectively know 24 different languages and dialects.

"I hope this means good things and more exciting news for UCF, more scholarships to win, more research to complete," Christman said in reference to the honors college freshman class. "Who knows what they might do."

"I'm hoping that with the Honors program, I can do things with people that want to continue to learn, not just because they have to, but because it's what interests them," Arango said.

The LEAD Scholars program, a two-year leadership development program at UCF, also saw an increase in applicants and highly motivated freshmen this fall.

According to Stacey Malaret, director of student leadership development, a total of 350 first-year students were admitted into the LEAD Scholars program this year, opposed to 315 last year.

"We're seeing that our new scholars want to get involved in the community really early on, and a lot more focused and drive in terms of knowing what their majors are," said Germayne Graham, associate director for the LEAD Scholars program.

Graham said she has high hopes for how the new class of scholars will be able to give back to the community.

"I think these students are more aware of world events, and they're more aware of their privilege and things that they have," Graham said. "From our perspective, these students are really engaged in social change and getting involved in the community a lot more than previous years."

Graham attributed this increase in community interest to the number of catastrophic events that have occurred in the world over the past couple of years.

New programs, such as the Learning Environment and Academic Research Network, are being coordinated to accommodate the academic excellence of the fresh class of first-year students.