I am a child of the 80’s. I wore corduroy pants and a jeans jacket, and even had a Member’s Only jacket. My family had some of the ugliest cars possible, from a dirt brown Chevette (not a Corvette but a Chevette) to a yellow station wagon with fake wood paneling down the sides and flip up rear-facing seat in the back. I watched some of the cheesiest TV shows, from the A-Team to Knight Rider, and also a few good ones like Cheers, A Different World and Hill Street Blues. I played Donkey Kong and Pac-Man in a small arcade in downtown Wilton, CT, one town over from my even smaller town of Weston. I listened to Journey, Billy Joel and Queen on a Walkman (the cassette type). As you can guess, it was not always a pretty picture. But one thing the 80’s had that still stands out today is its share of classic movies, especially coming of age teen movies. We had Ferris, Marty McFly, the Griswalds, Spicoli, the Goonies, Daniel Russo, the Dead Poet’s Society and a whole host of others. And there is one iconic 80’s movie scene that is still iconic after all these years – Lloyd Dobler from Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything…, standing in on the front yard of Diane Court’s house in his iconic tan trench coat, holding up a boombox playing “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel in a grand gesture to win her back.
Unlike Lloyd though, most Admissions Offices do not need grand gestures from students to let us know that you are interested in us. We can assume that if you applied to UGA, you are interested in attending. If you are Wait Listed, we assume that if you let us know that you want to stay on the WL, you are still interested in UGA. If you submit a deposit, we are definitely positive that you are interested in us and we do not need demonstrated interest to help with scholarship decisions (we also assume everyone would like a scholarship, but that is a topic for another day). I am sure that some colleges use demonstrated interest in their decision making, but UGA is not one of those places. When you apply to UGA, you do not need to let us know that you would love to attend UGA, that UGA is your #1 school, or that you have always dreamed of attending the University. Demonstrated Interest is just not a factor in our UGA decision making process. If it did, I would expect that almost all 40,000 applicants might write some form of a demonstrated interest letter just to cover their bases, and then send the same demonstrated interest letter (with the name of the college changed) to all the other places they have applied. A student’s demonstrated interest does not impact a decision, a WL decision or any scholarship decisions, so no need to send us your grand gesture. Instead, take the time that you would have used to write a letter indicating Demonstrated Interest (at times now called Continued Interest) to instead go enjoy life for an hour or two. Maybe get a coffee, see a sunset, or maybe watch an old 80’s movie.
Go Dawgs!