Tag: deadlines

Admission Traffic Lights

  David Graves      September 25th, 2019

I am not sure what this says about me, but I think traffic lights are awesome. Maybe I just played Red Light/Green Light a little too much as a kid. But traffic lights bring order to what could be chaos, give people subtle and not so subtle alerts about what to do, and overall they help everyone get to where they want to go. To truly appreciate traffic lights, all you have to do is drive up to one that is not working. Nothing is worse that having to deal with the flashing red light, and the fear that comes from not knowing if everyone else actually understands what to do in this situation. Because of my love of traffic signals, here are a few Admission related traffic light suggestions to help survive the admission process without any crashes, blaring of horns or polite/impolite hand gestures.   Green Light  Apply Earlier than the listed Deadline – If you are going to the airport, you always want to leave early enough to get you to the gate an hour before the plan departs. You want to leave plenty of time to deal with traffic (and malfunctioning lights), finding a parking space, a long line at security, or any other possible problem. I suggest you set a date a week prior to the actual application deadline as your unofficial deadline for submitting your application. If you are applying to UGA Early Action (deadline of 10/15), a personal deadline of 10/6 to submit […]

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So The Application Is Open, Now What

  David Graves      September 5th, 2019

The UGA Freshman application opened up on September 1, and in the first 4 days, roughly 7,000 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 doing more holistic reviews 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, later test scores or fall grades? If you are good with us reviewing you somewhere around 10/15, apply EA, but if you need […]

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Summer/Fall 2019 Transfer Application

  David Graves      January 22nd, 2019

The Summer/Fall transfer application will open today, January 22. While the application opens today, please take your time completing it. Make sure you are applying for the correct program, the correct campus, the correct term, etc. Here are a few suggestions and updates for transfer applicants.  We project we will begin reviewing transfer files in early February, and we will start releasing decisions in early March. Once we begin releasing decisions, we will do so every Friday afternoon. If a decision is made on your application, you will receive an email late afternoon on that Friday notifying you that a decision is available on your status page. Review our transfer procedures and requirements, as well as our academic consideration levels. The summer and fall deadline for both the application and the materials is March 1.  Select the term you wish to attend, not one you have heard is easier to get in (this is a myth). If you select summer, for instance, we expect you to attend for summer, and if you do not, you cannot then attend in the fall. We are fine if you send in transcripts before or after you apply. As well, we need all transcripts from colleges ever attended as an undergraduate, even if you attended a college during HS. If a transcript has a different name than the one you applied with, please make sure to let us know so we can match up documents. The “other last name” filed is the place to […]

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Random UGA Admission Thoughts for 2019

  David Graves      January 3rd, 2019

It is the start of 2019, and a wide range of things are happening in the UGA Admissions Office. We have just closed down the freshman application for admission, we will open the transfer application for summer/fall 2019 on January 22nd, and we will be spending the next two and a half months or so hiding away in our offices as we read admission files. As such, here are some Admissions Thoughts as we move forward. The application deadline for freshman was 1/1, and the document deadline is 1/8 for materials. The required documents for freshmen are an official transcript and a counselor school report/recommendation (not a school profile). As well, any test scores must be requested to be sent to us from the testing agency by 1/8 (not an in office deadline), and the last test scores we can use were from the December SAT/ACT. If things are sent in after 1/8, we might be able to use them, but we cannot make any promises. If the item in question shows up on the status page, that means we have imported it into your file as on time.  We have a very large freshman applicant pool, with the overall number of EA and RD applicants together totaling 29,500+. Some of these applicants will not submit all the required items, so the official number of complete applications will not be known until later (but I expect it will be close to 29,000). Starting on 1/14, our office will be in […]

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Senior Year Do’s and Don’ts

  David Graves      August 3rd, 2018

It is that time of year again, when K-12 schools are starting back, students (and teachers) groan and parents quietly celebrate. Colleges are beginning to open their applications for the Class of 2023 (UGA’s app will open on September 1), and the college admissions process suddenly gets real. With the flip of the proverbial switch, applying to colleges suddenly changes from a vague future action to a reality and the tension level goes up to a seven or eight. I honor of this time of year, here is a list of do’s and don’ts for parents and students. Rising HS Seniors: DO: Have a wonderful senior year, as your senior year should be special. Focus on doing well in your classes, but also take time to strengthen your ties to your friends, meet new people, and enjoy your last year of HS. DON’T: Let senioritis overtake your brain. After you are admitted to a college, they will still be reviewing your final HS transcript, and you need to make sure your grades have not dropped to a level that causes problems in enrolling at your intended college. We rescinded eight offers of admission this year – please don’t be one of these next year. DO: Stay active in clubs, sports, volunteer work or other activities that you have been involved with during HS. Senior year should be a good finish to your HS years, not a count-down until you are out of there. DON’T: Be so active in all things […]

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Summer/Fall 2018 Transfer Application

  David Graves      January 22nd, 2018

The Summer/Fall transfer application will open today, January 22. While the application opens today, please take your time completing it. Make sure you are applying for the correct program, the correct campus, the correct term, etc. Here are a few suggestions and updates for transfer applicants.  We project we will begin reviewing Summer transfers in early February, and we will start with Fall transfers in late February. Review our transfer procedures and requirements, as well as our academic consideration levels. Select the term you wish to attend, not one you have heard is easier to get in (this is a myth). If you select summer, for instance, we expect you to attend for summer, and if you do not, you cannot then attend in the fall. Please send in all the required transcripts after you apply, not before. As well, we need all transcripts from colleges ever attended as an undergraduate, even if you attended a college during HS. If a transcript has a different name than the one you applied with, please make sure to let us know so we can match up documents. The “other last name” filed is the place to put any other last names, and this will catch any transcripts. If you started a freshman application earlier to set up an account, you will need to select the Freshman application you started on your admissions dashboard and change your application type to Transfer. It is much better to get everything correct before applying rather than […]

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2018 Freshman Application Changes

  David Graves      May 22nd, 2017

With each new year of admissions comes changes to the application and/or application process so that we can make better decisions every year, and also make sure that we are able to release decisions in time frame that works for both our office and the applicants. As such, here are the changes for the freshman application for students starting in Summer/Fall of 2018. Coalition Application – Starting this year, we will begin accepting applications submitted through the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success (also known as the Coalition Application). We will continue to have our own application (and we expect a majority of our applicants will use our form), but we wanted to allow students who use the Coalition Application for multiple colleges to have this option. We will still be accepting documents through our normal methods of Naviance/Parchment, GaFutures and documents sent by mail, so there is no change that needs to happen for counseling offices sending us materials.  Short Answer/Essay Changes – Students who apply Early Action (EA) or Regular Decision (RD) will complete the exact same application, as there will now be two short answer/essay questions for both EA and RD applicants. In the past, EA applicants did not complete the short answer/essays unless they were deferred, but now all freshman applicants will complete these when they apply. As well, we have shifted from three to two short answer/essays for applicants. This change will allow us to begin our holistic read process earlier, will eliminate the issue […]

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December/January Admission Notes

  David Graves      December 12th, 2016

The Holiday break is coming up, which means a large number of students will be completing their application (or part II of their deferred EA application). Here are some suggestions for Regular Decision and Deferred Early Action applicants to review. Patience. Patience is key, as this time of year brings out a rush of supporting materials. We will receive tens of thousands of documents over the next month, and we need time to match these items up, enter them into our system, and have them show up on the application status page. We have made great strides in importing documents, so the status page is almost a live feed, but mailed items take a little longer to add to a file. You do not need to call/email us if you do not see an item on your Status page. Give us 10 business days from when you applied or the document was sent (not requested but actually sent), whichever was later. As well, make sure your name on your documents matches your application data (and both name and email on test scores). Part II for Deferred applicants. For deferred EA applicants, your next step is to make sure you complete part II of the application (the 3 short essays), give us any updates on the Update section, and contact a teacher through your status page about sending in a recommendation.  Test Scores. We will take the January SAT for admissions review for this year and the February ACT (without Writing!), […]

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2017 Early Action Update

  David Graves      October 26th, 2016

With the Early Action deadline hitting about 10 days ago, here are a few updates about the process: Total EA Applications (7% increase over last year):  15,560 (submitted and fee paid) Complete Early Action Applications as of today: 13, 850 (89% of the group) # of EA Applicants Applying within 4 days of Deadline: 4,264 As you can see, a large number of the Early Action applications are complete. The biggest item that is missing right now are official test scores, and as long as they were both taken and UGA was marked as a score recipient by 10/15, we can use them. You can see if your SAT scores have been sent by looking at the Score Sends option on your online score report. The ACT does not have an online listing of when scores are sent, so you would need to contact them directly. We just imported 3,900 10/1 SAT scores this morning, so a large number of files just changed to complete. If you took the 10/1 SAT with Writing, those scores are suppose to be sent to us on 10/30. We are caught up completely on importing documents. If your documents were submitted by the 10/22 deadline, it will be considered for Early Action. If a document is not in, you need to take steps ASAP. Your Steps Be sure to check your Status Page to make sure you are complete!  If items you have sent are not showing up on your Status Page, double-check with your counselor, […]

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2017 Early Action Updates

  David Graves      October 10th, 2016

We are within a week of the EA deadline, so here are some updates about the process so far. Currently, we have roughly 10,200 EA applications submitted as of right now (3;12 pm on 10/10). We expect a jump in application numbers as we get closer to the deadline, and we heavily suggest not waiting until the last minute to apply. Deadlines are usually when your computer fails, your dog gets sick on the keyboard, etc. For students impacted by Hurricane Matthew, we will be extending the EA deadline to 11:59 pm on October 18. We hope that you and your family are safe following the devastating impact of Hurricane Matthew. We understand that recovering from the storm may be your top priority over the next week, and we have extended our Early Action application deadline to Tuesday, October 18 for applicants impacted by the hurricane. If you wish to take advantage of this deadline extension, please note that there is no need to contact us. Simply submit your application by 11:59 p.m. on October 18 and you will receive full consideration as an Early Action applicant. For all students, we will continue to accept supplemental materials, including the school report and transcript, through October 22nd.  Remember that in order to assure that UGA can use your SAT/ACT scores, the tests must be both taken and UGA must be selected as a score recipient by the 10/15 deadline. This means that if you put in UGA as a score recipient of […]

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