University of Florida

In brief

The University of Florida (UF), in Gainesville, traces its roots to the East Florida Seminary, founded in Ocala in 1853 as the state’s first publicly supported institution of higher learning. In 1905 the state merged its public colleges into a single university, which opened in Gainesville in 1906 and took its present name in 1909. By our measure of academic influence, it ranks #50 in the United States and #137 in the world. It admitted 24.2% of applicants for fall 2024; admitted students had a median SAT score of 1400 and a median ACT score of 31.

UF is the flagship of Florida’s state university system, with 16 academic colleges, more than 150 research centers and institutes, and more than 56,000 students, including online students.

Where UF’s influence is strongest

UF’s influence is broad, led by biology, medicine, history, and nursing. Its strongest broad fields, by US rank in our data, are:

• Biology: #24 in the US (#61 in the world)
• Medicine and history: #26 each
• Nursing: #27
• Chemistry: #29

Within those fields, UF is a national leader in several specialties:

• #1 in the US: systematics
• #2 in the US: nephrology (only Harvard ranks higher)
• #3 in the US: entomology (behind Harvard and Cornell)
• #4: analytical chemistry
• #6: forensic science

By comparison, UF sits further back in sociology (#77), psychology (#84), and religious studies (#104).

How we measure influence: these ranks come from the citations and recognition earned by a school’s faculty and alumni in each discipline, not from surveys or admissions statistics. See our methodology.

Notable people

UF-connected figures include the Fields Medalist John G. Thompson, the Nobel laureate chemist Robert Grubbs, the geneticist Marshall Nirenberg, the computing pioneer John Vincent Atanasoff, the novelists Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Michael Connelly, the musician Stephen Stills, and the actor Faye Dunaway. Our full lists of UF’s most influential alumni and faculty appear below.

Frequently asked questions

Is UF hard to get into? Moderately. It admitted 24.2% of applicants for fall 2024; the middle half of admitted students scored 660–730 on the SAT reading section and 660–750 on math.

What does UF cost after financial aid? Tuition is $6,381 for Florida residents and $30,886 for out-of-state students in 2025–26. The average net price for aided students with family incomes of $48,000–$75,000 was $5,221 in 2024–25; it ranged from about $1,809 for incomes of $30,000–$48,000 to $16,609 for incomes above $110,000.

How do UF graduates do? 92.1% of students who started in 2019 graduated within six years, and 98% of first-year students return for a second year. Ten years after starting college, former students had median earnings of $78,456.

What is UF best known for academically? By our influence data: biology, medicine, history, and nursing, plus systematics, where it ranks first in the country.