2018 Freshman Application Changes

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.

1. 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. 
2. 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 of hounding EA deferred students to submit the essays at a later date, and will help us maintain our decision release timelines.
3. Regular Decision Deadline – We will be shifting the Regular Decision application deadline to January 1 (up from prior years of January 15), with a document deadline of January 8. The Early Action deadline will remain October 15 (with the document deadline on October 22). As our application pool has increased, we have been challenged to keep pace with a mid-late March final decision timeline, and this change will help keep us on track.
4. SAT/ACT Test Dates – For Regular Decision or Deferred Early Action applicants, the last test dates we will be able to use will be the December dates. Both the SAT and ACT have changed their test date offerings, and as such this has caused us to change our timelines. As well (just like past years), make sure you request the scores to be sent to UGA by the application deadline (for both EA and RD timelines).