Charles submitted an Early Action application in September of his senior year, one of about 11,500 EA applicants to UGA. If you gave a quick glance at his academic profile, you would see that he is a strong overall student, but not perfect. He was mostly an A student in high school, but he did have a few B grades (mostly math), and one pesky C grade in Pre-calculus. In addition, while he challenged himself with almost all Honors and seven AP courses over the entire span of the core academic areas, I guess you could say that he might have been able to challenge himself a little more, but that would be really nitpicky. In addition, while his SAT scores were above the 1200 range (a little stronger in Critical Reading than Math), he probably would say that he would have really liked to have boosted those scores. While he was definitely a strong student, his application was deferred from Early Action so that we could take a closer look at everything in his file (and in reality his life). I am guessing this was a tough blow to him, as he was in the top 15% of his class at a strong high school in Georgia (94+% go on to college), challenged himself in the classroom and did well on the SAT, but he stuck with us and sent in the needed additional materials for deferred EA students.
It was in the next stage of the admissions process, the holistic file reading process, where Charles truly shined. I am not just being kind when I say that his file rated as one of the strongest in the entire pool of applications we read that year, as the notes and ratings on his file were, to put it mildly, almost off the top of the chart.
I have gone into great detail in past blog posts about how we read files and what we look at, but here is a brief primer. We look at the academic side of an applicant, with a focus on the courses taken, the grades they made in core courses, and the academic progress over the 3-3.5 years of high school so far. We then look at a student’s activities outside of the classroom, their essays, recommendations, passions, etc. in the context of what opportunities the student has in their school/community. For instance, we cannot penalize a student for not taking AP courses if none are offered, but we then want to see that student challenging themselves in other ways (DE courses, summer programs, etc.).
When we reviewed his file, Charles stood out in many areas. Beyond the academic information mentioned earlier, we noticed that he continued to challenge himself senior year and do well (all A’s first semester), and even in math, an area that he would probably say is not his best subject, he took AP Statistics and made a 100 for the term. We then got to the other parts of the file, and it was even more impressive. When we read applications, we want to see the passions a student has, and what they not only dream/hope for, but what they have actually done. We want to see the blood, sweat and tears (okay, you don’t need to actually bleed or cry, don’t worry).
“I am an accidental criminal.” What a great first line to an essay, especially if the “crime” is creating/being CEO of a non-profit named Greening Forward, empowering over 2,000 youth with $117,000 in funding to help save their local environments and communities, all at the age of 12 (a little younger that the age needed to sign the leases and rent the trucks that he did). Charles was also a youth council board member for Youth Service America (YSA), volunteered at the county children’s shelter, was a part of the UGA College of Ag. and Env. Sciences Young Scholars Program, among other activities. Did we love his application just because he wanted to “save the planet”? No (although he was named a Captain Planet Young Superhero), we loved his application because he found a passion and took action, serious action, while at the same time maintaining a great academic record. His recommenders used words such as “initiative”, “generous”, “positive”, “motivated’, “curious”, among other glowing adjectives.
In the overall look at our review of his file, Charles was great across the board. UGA was not going to be the place where he started to blossom, but instead it would be the place where he could continue to grow, and in return he could help the University grow and excel as well. We are looking for students who will have an impact on the UGA community, and are able to make a difference on our campus. Don’t worry, we do not expect all applicants to start their own non-profit or be named a Captain Planet superhero. What we do want are applicants who be strong academically, challenge themselves, find their passion and make a difference.
I hope this helps give a little more insight into our read process, and Go Dawgs!