The applications are all in for the UGA Regular Decision group of students, so here is some information on the total UGA freshman applicant pool for Fall 2023.
- The total application numbers (EA and RD) are roughly 43,600, which is up substantially from last year.
- Roughly 26,000 students applied for Early Action, and 17,600 applied for Regular Decision. We do not treat either group differently in the review process, only in the timelines for decisions.
- Roughly 45% of the applicant pool is in-state, and 55% is out-of-state/international. Due to UGA being the flagship university for the state of Georgia, we do have a goal of having our enrolling class (not accepted but enrolling) be roughly 80% in-state and 20% out-of-state, so it will be somewhat more challenging to be admitted as a non-GA resident.
- We have applicants from just over 6,300 high schools, with the range going from 1 applicant (a number of schools) to 438 applicants (Lambert HS). We do not limit decisions based on the high school a student has attended, but instead look at each student individually.
- The top six choices of major by applicants is Biology (3447 applicants), followed by Business (3113), Finance (2707), Psychology (2092), Marketing (1958) and Computer Science (1806). A student is not tied to their initial choice of major, as enrolling students can change their major prior to orientation using the UGA student system called Athena. As well, this means we do not have different decisions based on different majors, as this would not make sense due to the ability to change majors.
- We have applicants from 154 of the 159 GA counties, with the five outliers generally being from counties without a high school in the county, ones with a tiny HS age population, etc.
- The average core course GPA for the entire applicant pool is roughly a 3.87 using the UGA GPA calculation method. This is not the GPA you see on your HS transcript, as that is usually very different from our GPA. We see such a wide variety of HS GPA’s and grading scales, ranging from 4.0, 5,0, 6.0, 12.0, and 100 methods (and more), thus using the various HS GPA’s on a transcript does not allow for equal comparisons. The link I have provided shows exactly how we calculate a GPA. Again, this the UGA GPA average for the entire pool, so as you can see the applicant pool is very strong academically.
- The average ACT and SAT for the entire applicant pool of 43,600 is roughly a 28 Composite/1292 Total. While core grades and a student’s curriculum are generally better indicators of academic strength than test scores, I am giving this data out due to the state of Georgia mandating test scores for all the GA public colleges/universities.
- The projected freshman class is 6,200 students, and since we know that not all applicants we admit will enroll at UGA, we will offer a much large number of students than the size of the class (we do not have details on this specific number). We will not know exact details until we are able to look at the overall applicant pool, do analysis of how we project the admitted students will yield (meaning will they select UGA), and are then able to finalize decisions.
Currently, we are deep into the review of freshman files, so that means we are reading hundreds of files daily. As such, we are limited in our ability to respond to emails and phone calls.- Remember that UGA does not use demonstrated interest in our admission or scholarship reviews, so there is no need to email, text, or call us to let us know that UGA is high on your list of future colleges. We assume that if you applied to UGA, you are interested in us.
- We will have two waves of decisions going out in the next 3 months. A small group of students will be admitted in mid-February, and these students are academically at the top end of the applicant pool, would have been admitted in EA, and are almost exclusively RD applicants. The final decisions for all RD and deferred EA students will be released in mid-March. No dates for these two waves are available now, but we will give them out prior to the decision dates.
- We continue to review files for both admissions and scholarships, and the next round of scholarships will be tied to the mid-March decision date or after. Students do not have to take any additional steps to be considered for scholarships, as we use the admission application for the review.
Good luck, and Go Dawgs!