UGA Admissions Director’s Cup
David Graves September 23rd, 2020
For the last four years or so, UGA Admissions has given out an award every year to the Georgia High School whose previous year’s class has the highest GPA for their freshman year at UGA. We have a requirement that the school must have a critical mass of students in the freshman group, so the 2019-20 contenders must have at least 10 freshman who enrolled for Fall of 2019. While we celebrate all students who enroll at UGA and their high schools, we wanted to recognize the academic success of these specific students. For 2020, the UGA Director’s Cup goes to Richmond Hill High School, as their UGA Freshman had a 3.86 UGA GPA this past year. Looking back at the last 4 years, here are the winners of the Director’s Cup: 2020 – Richmond Hill High School 2019 – Winder-Barrow High School 2018 – Madison County High School 2017 – Whitewater High School In addition, here are the schools for 2019-20 that had the highest UGA Freshman GPA in the other ranges of total freshmen: 5 or more freshmen – (tie) Fannin County Comp. HS/Vidalia HS – 3.87 UGA GPA 10 or more freshmen – Richmond Hill HS – 3.86 UGA GPA 20 or more freshmen – Cherokee HS (Canton, GA) – 3.81 UGA GPA 30 or more freshmen – Johns Creek HS – 3.79 UGA GPA 40 (and 50 & 60) or more freshmen – Northview HS – 3.77 UGA GPA As you can see, there are a […]
Read More »
Tags: admissions, grades
Freshman Application FAQ
David Graves September 4th, 2020
The UGA Freshman application opened up on September 1, and in the first 4 days, thousands of students started an application. We generally have a small spike of students start the application right away, but only about 200 have actually submitted the app right now, so don’t panic if you have not started. But now that the application is open, here are a few things to think about concerning your application to UGA. Should you apply EA or RD? I have no idea, as this is really up to you. The EA and RD reviews are the same, just on a different timeline. We have an initial academic review of each applicant, and then for a number of students, we go into more detail in our holistic review process, where we look at everything. We will be reading a large number of files during the October/November EA initial process, and we will also defer a number of applicants where we want to look closer at their file holistically but we need more time to read the files (mid-October to mid-November does not give us a huge amount of time for holistic reads). The big question you should ask yourself when choosing EA vs RD is as follows: Are you comfortable with us reviewing your file on October 15, or do you need more time to work on the app, get in later test scores or fall grades? If you are good with us reviewing you somewhere around 10/15, apply EA, […]
Read More »
Tags: deadlines, decisions, file reading, freshman admission
UGA is Test Optional for Fall 2021
David Graves August 26th, 2020
Due to the continued challenges facing prospective applicants concerning access to standardized tests caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the University of Georgia has decided to make SAT or ACT test score submission optional for the Fall 2021 application process. UGA has taken this step as a part of our commitment to help reduce barriers for rising high school seniors who will be applying in the upcoming year. High school students who apply as freshmen to the University of Georgia for the Fall 2021 term will not be required to submit an SAT or ACT score as part of the application process. This change will allow the university to better serve future students by ensuring that testing limitations related to COVID-19 do not impact a student’s ability to apply to UGA. The university has been evaluating the impact on high school students based on the cancellation of ACT and SAT test dates, and we expect that future testing opportunities will be limited as a result of the continued pandemic. As such, the University of Georgia has determined that suspending the SAT/ACT test requirement for fall 2021 is necessary. This is a temporary suspension for fall 2021 admission, and we will re-assess the testing situation and how it impacts applicants for future terms. More details of the Test Optional decision can be found at the test optional FAQ page, with details concerning scholarship review, Honors, etc. Go Dawgs!
Read More »
Tags: file reading, scholarships, test scores
I don’t know
David Graves July 14th, 2020
I have always been very comfortable with telling people “I don’t know”. I am a father of two kids, so according to them I haven’t known much for a long time. Even in Admissions, I am comfortable saying I don’t know. Will I get admitted if I do X? Will I get a full season of football tickets as a freshman? Will all my classes be after 9 a.m.? Will I get a scholarship if I have X GPA and Y test scores? Will I be able to get into the first Orientation session? Will I get off the Wait List if I do X? I cannot guess about any of these things. I used to think that that these questions were the hard ones to answer, but if nothing else, the first six months of 2020 has taught me that I truly do not know the answers to a lot more important things. Here is a brief list of some of the things I don’t know at this moment: I don’t know exactly how things are going to work on college campuses in the Fall. I don’t know about college football, fans at the stadiums, tailgating, or how many games we will win. I don’t know if my socks actually match right now. I don’t know when we will be able to have tours and information sessions. I don’t know exactly how classes will run throughout the year. I don’t know the air speed velocity of an unladened […]
Read More »
Tags: admissions, file reading, timelines
What Matters
David Graves June 19th, 2020
“Everything’s been said, but it needs saying again.” Ernest Gaines Everything in college admissions seems cyclical, with each new year seeming to be an updated version of the year before (except of course when Covid-19 throws a wrench into the system!). Admissions advice always seems to use similar themes and language from year to year, with slight changes to keep the message fresh. I am certainly guilty of this, as I am going into my tenth year of writing the UGA Admissions blog, and at times my messages seem be on auto play. So, in order to say what “needs saying again” but in a different way, I will rely on words of wisdom from people who are much smarter than I am. “I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.” – Margaret Thatcher A great deal of what we look at in admissions is the end result of the hard work you have put in during your high school years. We are focused on how you have performed in the high school classroom, as this is a key indicator in how you will do in a college setting. This does not mean that we only admit straight A students, but instead we are looking for students who have worked hard and show real strength in their academic success. It is not the critic who […]