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, […]

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Admissions Urban Legends and Conspiracy Theories-the 2020 version

  David Graves      March 4th, 2020

For some reason, people love an urban legend or conspiracy theory. Are there really aliens being kept at Area 51? Do Bigfoot and the Lock Ness Monster really exist? Was there really a second shooter on the grassy knoll? When there is the unknown, some individuals look for any explanation, no matter the proximity to […]

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Emergency Codes

  David Graves      July 9th, 2019

Last week, I volunteered for my 23rd year as a cabin counselor at Camp Sunshine, a camp for children with cancer. The campers during my week range from 7-12 years of age, and there is a wide range of situations with the campers, from ones who have been off treatment for years and having no […]

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Freshman Denies – A Post Mortem

  David Graves      April 9th, 2018

My wife loves Grey’s Anatomy. She is a nurse, and can handle seeing blood spurt out, people impaled on poles, and limbs sticking out at seriously wrong angles. Me, I can’t even handle the site of the scalpel cutting into a body. But some of the most interesting scenes for me are when they do […]

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The Holistic Review Process-Beyond the Numbers

  David Graves      December 12th, 2017

It is December, which means our holistic file reading process will begin soon. Instead of giving you a nice “slice of life” story which then transitions into our reason for reading files, I will just go straight into the process (except for the Rudy clip). For a large group of our applicants (ones who are […]

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The Importance of Depth

  David Graves      January 31st, 2017

For the last fifteen years or so, my family has made an intentional decision to try and have birthday events and gifts be focused on an activity. We have planned scavenger hunts, rafter down several Tennessee rivers, hit the ski slopes in West Virginia, and gone cave spelunking in Kentucky. I vividly remember a trip […]

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File Reading Part I – Activities, Writing and Creativity

  David Graves      December 1st, 2014

From January through mid-March, the admissions staff will hide out in our offices and read files during our holistic file reading process. And when I say read files, I mean lots of files (I am guessing I will read over 1,200 files this year alone). As such, we want you to know what we are […]

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Freshman Application Changes Part III

  David Graves      May 26th, 2010

In reviewing the UGA admissions process and the information that we ask for on the application, we started looking at Part I and Part II of the application more closely. While the separation into two parts has worked well for UGA (and for the applicants), we want to make sure we have enough information from […]

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File Reading, Part I

  David Graves      February 1st, 2010

Last week, I said I would write about file reading, and I will break it up into six areas. The first thing we generally see during the review of the files is how a student spends their time outside of the classroom. As such, lets talk a little bit about how we look at an […]

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Volunteering and Admissions

  David Graves      September 8th, 2009

Well, the votes are in (at least about what readers want more information on), and you have stated that you would like to learn more about what things play a factor in admissions.Today, I would like to focus on how we look at students giving back to their community. And for student’s who are looking […]

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