High School Counselor FAQ
We appreciate what you do as an educational professional to counsel students through their college search and application process. We want to ensure you have the resources you need to be successful in discussing UGA with your students. Below, we have provided a list of FAQs for high school counselors.
Our deadlines are consistent from year-to-year.
You can find information about last year’s accepted students on our First-Year Student Profile page.
All First-Year applicants must have a school evaluation submitted on their behalf. All First-Year students applying may submit an optional teacher recommendation.
While a secondary school report providing an evaluation of each applicant’s rigor of coursework is required, a narrative letter is not required. A narrative recommendation is always helpful, however, applicants are not disadvantaged if a narrative letter is not provided. A narrative letter may also take the place of a secondary school report.
To submit formal transcripts, the majority of high schools use the Common App, Parchment, Naviance, or GAFutures.org (for Georgia high schools). If your high school does not participate with these programs, you may submit a PDF version of the transcript to us via the Counselor Portal or mail it in.
We have a student FAQ detailing the process to self-report grades. Students should try their best to accurately report the number of letter grades they have earned, but ultimately our evaluators are using this as a starting point to evaluate transcripts. Self-reported grades are always cross-referenced with official transcript grades and corrected as necessary.
Both AP/IB as well as dual enrollment courses are forms of rigor. However, we hope that a student will first maximize their high school experience before moving to dual enrollment.
The state-mandated Required High School Curriculum (RHSC) requires that incoming First-Year students have a minimum of 17 courses in the following academic areas:
- 4 English courses
- 4 Mathematics courses
- 4 Science courses*
- 3 Social science courses
- 2 Foreign Language courses in the same language
Academic Electives: UGA suggests that students pursue the most rigorous curriculum appropriate to their ability levels, core GPA and curriculum difficulty are the two most important factors in First-Year admission decisions.
*UGA respects that other states have different graduation requirements. Although the majority of our students will have 4 science courses, we realize some out-of-state students will not. We are flexible with students in this situation and there are a number of courses that satisfy this requirement, as seen on the USG Staying on Course document.
High school counselors may review a student’s application through the Counselor Portal.
| Early Action | Regular Decision |
| Application | Application |
| Short Essays | Short Essays |
| Application Fee or Fee Waiver | Application Fee or Fee Waiver |
| Official High School Transcript | Official High School Transcript |
| Official SAT/ACT Report, received electronically from the testing agency | Official SAT/ACT Report, received electronically from the testing agency |
| High School Evaluation Form | High School Evaluation Form |
| Optional Teacher Recommendation* | Optional Teacher Recommendation* |
*We ask that the recommendation be provided by a teacher who taught the student in the junior or senior year in a core academic course.
UGA Admissions Officers have assigned geographical territories in order to best serve students and schools. Refer to the Meet the Staff page to find your representative.
UGA guarantees admission to students graduating as the valedictorian or salutatorian of any SACS accredited Georgia high school, if these applicants meet Board of Regents requirements and submit an admission application with supporting documents by the deadline. We must have documented proof of the student’s rank from the student’s high school.
The Georgia Certificate of Merit Program recognizes the top 5% or students in the junior class. Nominations and submission instructions will be available in January.
For a small number of highly qualified applicants, the opportunity to be a Dual Enrollment student is a viable option. Prospective students living in the Athens area have the opportunity to take classes part-time at UGA while still enrolled in high school. Please visit our Dual Enrollment page for more information