David Graves      March 15th, 2024 in Blog


We plan to make the final wave of freshman decisions available today, March 15th, at 4 PM ET. 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 Next Steps portal on their status page or 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 2025.  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 2024 – November and March waves, where we have admitted roughly 15,900+ students total, which is somewhat above last year’s offers of admission (I do not have separate data on just the final March group, sorry):

Total Applicants:  Approximately 15,900+ Accepted for Fall out of roughly 43,090+ total applicants.

  • UGA is the flagship institution for the state of Georgia, and as such our goal is to enroll a class that is roughly 80% Georgians. This is an enrollment number, not an admission offer number, but it does mean that our admission offers are more heavily Georgian than non-Georgian. Please remember that admitted student information is different from enrolled student information, and we know that a much larger percentage of Georgians will accept our offer than non-Georgians due to cost, distance, etc.
  • I will not break down the academic data into GA/non-GA accepted students, because overall the academic information is very similar, with the only difference of note being that test scores are generally somewhat higher for non-GA accepted students.

Core Academic Information:  In looking at the academic data for our accepted applicants, approximately 91% of their core grades are A’s, and 8+% are B’s. In other words, our admitted students did extremely well in their core course grades.

  • The mid 50% UGA GPA is 4.05 – 4.33, with a 4.19 average. Please remember this is not the GPA students see on their high school transcript, but rather the GPA that UGA recalculates for everyone based on the core academic courses taken in high school and looking at the actual grades posted on the transcripts. 

Overall Core Course Rigor: In looking at the academic course data for our accepted applicants, a majority took the most rigorous coursework possible at their school, and almost all students took classes that were either very demanding or most demanding in their course selection. We determine academic rigor based on all core classes a student has taken (CP, Honors, Advanced, AP, IB, DE, etc.) as compared to what is offered in the school/community. This is not based simply on the number of AP/IB/DE courses, but instead we look at the overall coursework over four years in the core areas and the progression of rigor over the years.

  • AP/IB/Dual Enrollment course mid-50% – 8-13 courses, average of 10+. The AP/IB/DE information is the most specific data I can give on it, but the numbers do not cover all of our curriculum review.

SAT Total mid-range for students: 1280-1470

  • This data is based on admitted students where the SAT was the strongest score if both SAT and ACT were submitted or if the SAT was the only test taken and sent.

ACT Composite mid-range for students:  29-34

  • Remember, UGA focuses on ACT E and M. For reporting purposes, we give out the best score overall ACT score, but the ACT E and M are very similar to the overall score.
  • This data is based on admitted students where the ACT was the strongest score if both SAT and ACT were submitted or if the ACT was the only test taken and sent.

For the 2024 class, the biggest academic factors were still a student’s grades and course rigor, as these are the best indicators of future success in the UGA classroom.

For the small group of Spring 2025 admits, this decision is final. We are not able to change students to Fall and we are not able to consider them as Wait List students. An email will go out explaining the Spring offer in more detail.

The Housing and myID pages may need a few business days before your information will be available.  Please be patient with these sites. I am guessing you will not be able to sign up for Housing until at least Monday. In addition, the Office of Student Financial Aid is still working with the Education Department on the new FAFSA documents, and when they will be able to start importing and working on student financial aid.

A majority of our scholarships will also go out today, and we will anticipate finishing the scholarship awarding process in early April. When we are done with our scholarship awarding, we will communicate by email that the process is done. During our final scholarship reviews and awards, we will be offering scholarships to a wide range of students who have been admitted during any of our decision dates (November, December or March). In addition, the Honors College is releasing their final decisions today as well.

Due to the challenges with the FAFSA submission and review timeline, we will be extending the deposit deadline for GA Residents to May 15, while our Out-of-State and International deposit deadline will stay at May 1.  UGA wants to make sure we work with our accepted students who might need more time to receive and review their need-based awards and make an informed decision about their college choice, and this impacts In-State students the most in our process. More details about the Commitment deadline extension can be found in the UGA article explaining the situation.

We hope the next stage of the admission process is a little less nerve wracking than the decision process.  As you celebrate, make sure to be considerate of others in your school who may not have been admitted.

Good luck in the next stage of the college admissions process.  Go Dawgs!