UGA Overall EA Admissions
Over the last decade, the UGA applicant pool has grown at a substantial rate. If you look at the number of applicants over the past 10 years, you will see tremendous growth in our applicant pool both in size and in academic strength. We have gone from roughly 11,000 EA applicants in 2014 to roughly 30,400 EA applicants this year, and we expect the overall applicant pool (EA and RD together) to show similar growth. In addition, the applicant pool has flipped from roughly 65% In-State applicants in 2013 to 40% In-State applicants this year. As such, our admissions process has had to adapt as well. This year, our growth in EA was roughly 13%, with both In and Out of State numbers growing at about the same rate. As a part of UGA’s role as the flagship university for the state of Georgia, we have a commitment to serve the state of Georgia. The stated goal for UGA is to maintain a rough balance for enrolling freshmen (not admitted students but enrolling students) at 80% In-State and 20% Out-of-State. UGA still wants a strong, broad-based freshman class, and we want students from all around the country and the world to enroll here, but we must do this within the scope of the desired 80/20 enrollment balance. This growth in applicants and focus on In-State enrollment has led us to split the EA decision timelines into two groups starting last year (the 2024 class), with In-State EA students receiving a decision in November and Out-of-State EA applicants receiving a decision in December.
TOTAL OVERALL EARLY ACTION APPLICANT DATA
Here is some data on the Total EA applicant pool so that people have a better understanding of the competitiveness of the group. Again, this is data on the total EA applicant pool, and not on the group we will be accepting (which will be higher). In other words, we expect that this will be an extremely competitive year for admission in both the EA round and in the overall process.
EA Applications – 30,300+ Applicants– This is a 13% increase over last year. The breakdown of the applicants is roughly 12,300 GA Residents and 18,000+ Non-GA Residents. I do not have the academic data breakdown right now, but I will share this later in the process.
UGA is planning on releasing the In-State EA decisions on the status page on Friday, November 22 at 4 pm EST and EA Out-of-State decisions will be released on the status page on Friday, December 6 at 4 pm EST. We are excited about this, and I am guessing you are as well, and hopefully it will allow for a little less nerve-wracking holiday breaks for some of you. I will also have an updated post on decision day with information on the admitted group.
Next Steps in the Admissions Process
For those of you who have applied Early Action to UGA, here is what is now happening in our office as we review files and prepare to make EA decisions.
- Right now, our focus is on reviewing EA files, so we might be slightly slower in responding to any incoming emails. We will definitely respond, it just might take a slightly longer.
- Of our EA applicants, roughly 88% have all required materials/test scores in their file and are considered complete and ready for review. We have sent out a lot of communications to students who are incomplete, and we will continue to do so in order to make sure everyone knows if something is missing. We would rather over-communicate this than have it be a surprise when EA decisions go out and a student learns they are incomplete. The deadline for getting in materials for EA is 10/29, and we import test scores and documents daily which then show up on the status page. As such, there is no reason to call/email about items. I suggest checking with the sender (ACT, College Board for instance), as a send date is generally later than a request date. On the positive side, if an EA applicant does not have a complete file by the deadline, they will just be deferred and their file will be rolled over to our RD timeline so the student has more time to get things in and reviewed later.
- At times, some applicants suddenly notice that they have left off something on their activities section or made a mistake in this information. If it is minor (you misspelled something or left off a year), don’t worry about it. If it is a larger error, you can always write an explanation and give the correct or new information, then upload the document as a resume off your status page. These go directly into your file, so it is the quickest and easiest way to do this. You do not need to email your UGA counselor or contact our office to be able to upload a document to address these issues.
- In our review, we do not use demonstrated interest. I will repeat this and bold it, we do not use demonstrated interest. As such, there is no need to reach out to our office and let us know how much UGA means to you, that we are #1 on your list, etc. If you apply, we assume you are interested in UGA.
- All applicants are initially given an academic review, and this is when we look at your HS transcript to determine your core grades, calculate a UGA GPA, and look at the rigor of your overall curriculum. We ask students to self-report their core grades, and we now verify these grades and fix any minor errors. If you think back and believe you might have made a mistake in entering in your grades, don’t worry, as we will catch and correct any errors.
- The next step is the start of a detailed holistic review of the EA applicants.
- For a large number of applicants where their overall academic work is extremely competitive, we will look at everything in their file, from grades to grade trends, course rigor, involvement in activities/sports/work, volunteer experiences, and their essays and recommendations.
- There is also a large group of applicants where they are still very strong academically, but not at the level of the first group, and we will hold off on a holistic review to let the student submit Fall grades, any new test scores, etc.
- Lastly, there will be a smaller group of applicants that unfortunately are not as competitive academically when compared to the rest of the applicant pool, so these students will receive a denial decision in EA.
Go Dawgs!