I think it’s one of the best schools in the country, if not the world (especially if you are a Texan). The flagships of the big US states—think UCB/UCLA, UT Austin, UNC, UF, etc…—are all remarkable institutions that often fly under the radar. The research out and impact of these schools—rankings notwithstanding—is incredibly impressive—on par with the very best universities anywhere. Take for example the LIGO Collaboration—the collaboration which famously detected gravitational waves in 2015 (an epochal scientific feat considering we can now detect the very fabric of spacetime moving/rippling). Although originally an Caltech and MIT effort, the Collaboration later expanded and was headed by UF professor, David Reitze (also a UT Austin PhD), at the time the actual detection occurred. The algorithm that sorted out the detection and reported it, coherent WaveBurst (cWB), was apparently developed at UF. Imagine being an undergrad and having a hand in a discovery of this immense magnitude.