Next Steps for Students
David Graves March 24th, 2021
While this year in admissions and higher education has been unusual, we are slowly transitioning to some on campus admissions actions. This is a transition time as more vaccinations are occurring, and the CDC guidelines are being updated for different events and activities. As such, here are some updates, but they are prone to change. Admitted Student Events: As you can guess, large group admitted student events in the Spring will be virtual. We are still following the policies of the state and the University and will not have any large events until we are sure that the situation is safe to do so. We are setting up these events, and we will be communicating with admitted students and their families about these shortly. We know that for many accepted students, you are still making up your mind on where you want to attend college next fall, and we will try to help in this journey as best as possible. Visiting Campus: We have started opening up small group tours for admitted students and one guest, and these students should have received an email about the process of signing up for these tours. These will be walking tours only, and there will be safety precautions for the tours. I also expect that as we get closer to summer (after early May), the tour policies and options for HS juniors and below will be updated, so please monitor the Visitor Center website and the admissions website for updates. Use alternate methods […]
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Tags: ACT, campus, file reading, freshman admission, SAT, visits
2021 Freshman Admits
David Graves March 19th, 2021
We plan to make the final wave of freshman decisions available today, March 19th, in the late afternoon time frame. For those of you who have been admitted to UGA, here is a post for you and a chance to comment. Please remember that this is not a blog where you should post statistics or throw fellow students under the bus. These types of comments will be deleted. Congratulations to all of the freshman who were admitted and we look forward to you becoming part of the Bulldog Nation. The next steps for a new student can be seen in the flyer in your admission packet, so please go ahead and review what you need to do next. In addition, there will be a great deal of information you can access off of your Status page. When you have the time, please review this, as there is key information in the Next Step materials. Please remember a small number of students will be admitted to start in January 2022. You will find specific information on your Status page and in your admissions packet, and it is stated very clearly so there is no confusion. Here are some rough statistics on the Entire Freshman Admitted Class for 2021-November, February and March waves, where we admitted 15,400+ students total, which is somewhat above last year’s offers of admission (I do not have separate data on just the final group, sorry): UGA Calculated Grade Point Average mid-range/average: 4.00 – 4.27, with a 4.12 […]
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Tags: final decisions, freshman admission, GPA, rigor, test scores
2021 Freshman Wait List Decisions
David Graves March 19th, 2021
We plan to make the final wave of freshman decisions available today, March 19th, in the late afternoon timeframe. For some students, you will be offered a place on our wait list. Every year our office has to predict approximately how many students we can admit in order to enroll our freshman class, but we can never be sure how many students will enroll until after the May 1 commitment deposit deadline has passed. If the number of students who say they will be attending UGA is lower than we expect, we may need to go to our wait list group in order to get the size that we want for our freshman class. This year we have roughly 1,900 students on the wait list. We carefully monitor the deposits coming into the University to see where we are in comparison to the predicted freshman numbers. The FAQ can answer information on Wait List numbers, past year Wait List data, and other details (such as no, the Wait List is not ranked). For those of you who have been wait-listed, here is a chance for you to ask questions. Please remember that this is not a blog where you should post statistics or throw fellow classmates under the bus. These types of comments will be deleted. Before commenting/asking questions here, please review the decision letter and the FAQ, as they give a great deal of details of the Wait List process. The Wait List FAQ can answer some questions, but the most […]
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Tags: file reading, freshman admission, waitlist
2021 Denial Decisions
David Graves March 19th, 2021
We plan to make the final wave of freshman decisions available today, March 19th in the late afternoon time frame. We received almost 40,000 applicants, thus making decisions even more challenging this year. Unfortunately, we are not able to admit a number of strong applicants as we are limited in the size of our freshman class. We know that you have a number of other strong college options and suggest you focus on the other great opportunities that are ahead rather than on a denial from UGA. If your ultimate goal is to graduate from the University of Georgia, then we suggest you look at transfer opportunities down the road. For now, focus on your current college options, find one that fits you best, and have a great freshman year there. Please read our Denied Student FAQ if you have questions. If you decide to contact us next week, please understand that we will not be able to give you a specific “reason” for a denial, as in this process we have looked at everything within an applicant’s file, and the overall reason is really that the overall applicant pool is very large and very strong. Things to Remember: UGA does not use the GPA from a HS transcript, but instead we calculate our own HS GPA based on core academic courses. For our admitted freshman, roughly 88% of their core grades were A’s, and 11+% were B’s, with a majority of these strong grades being in Honors/Advanced/AP/IB/DE courses. In our holistic review, […]
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Tags: denial, file reading, freshman admission
Admissions Causation and Correlation
David Graves March 5th, 2021
Fifteen plus years ago, I did a presentation at a local library just north of Atlanta for a parent group, talking about admissions in general but also going into detail about the UGA admissions process. The room was full of eager parents waiting for a glimpse behind the curtain of admissions (not exactly my plan, but that is what it felt like). Prior to me giving my talk and taking questions, the organizer of the event introduced herself and let the audience know of her college knowledge. She stated that her son was admitted to a prestigious university (insert whichever top 20 college you wish here), and that the reason he was admitted was due to her insistence that he play the tuba in high school. The subtle message was that while other students were playing standard instruments like the saxophone or clarinet, her child was playing a unique/unusual one, and that made him jump off the page. Why do I still remember this story? Two reasons. First, I always wonder if her son really wanted to play the tuba, much less any instrument, and if he still harbors some resentment about the decision that was forced on him. Second, I always wonder what that college’s admission office would say about the assumption by the mom’s statement. When I read admissions files, it is always interesting to see an applicant try something unusual, but it does not then cause that the student’s chances of admission go up. I recently tweeted […]