Can someone share the range of AP’s that UGA considers? I know the more you have, the better. Just looking for the range from least amount they will consider to most if all other things are within range.
TIA!
Actually it’s not the exact number but which ones.
A good list is: 6-8, total, including AP English Language, an AP history, an AP math (calculus if aiming for economics, business, or STEM), an AP science and/or AP foreign language then others that highlight your academic strengths and ability in your chosen field (if you’re aiming for a Humanities/social science you need AP lit, AP gov, one more AP history, etc whereas if you’re aiming for STEM you need AP physics 1 or C, AP CS principles and/or A).
Taken: APush, AP chem, AP spanish, AP psych. Had honors Bio, honors geometry, honors English9, Honors Chem, Honors Alg2, Honors Spanish, Honors English10, Honors Eng11, HonorsPreCalc.
Senior year: AP bio, Honors Physics, Honors Calc, Honors Eng12. Dual Enrollment Anatomy and DR Physiology.
Stem major: So sounds as if she doesn’t have enough AP in the STEMS and/or enough AP’s overall.
Honestly, she is also a 4-Sport Varsity player for 4 years, Also played Club for one sport for 2 years so it was difficult to balance it all. It appears she’d be a maybe at UGA. She will apply and see, but we will consider that she will likely be denied or waitlisted at best. Thank you for your response @MYOS1634. If you or anyone else has any insight, we will gladly take it.
Any chance she can take AP Physics 1 and AP Calculus AB, instead of Honors Physics and Honors Calculus?
If not, having these two will be WAY more important than having random AP’s.
Would it be possible for her to take AP CS (Principles or A) instead of AP Bio? Unless she’s aiming at Premed, in which case AP Bio makes sense.
Dual Enrollment Anatomy/Physiology would be better if she aimed at nursing. If she’s aiming at Premed, it’s a “nice to have” but premeds don’t take “medical” classes at all - they take regular Biology for Biology Majors and Chemistry for Chemistry Majors, but must rank top 10-20% compared to these. [in College, Calculus may have a premed section, not sure it’s really worth it to take it but avoid calculus for engineers. Physics should be algebra-based and not Physics for Engineers (equivalent to AP Physics 1+2).]
Ideally, for premed:
AP Calculus AB, AP Bio, AP Physics 1 + Honors English, Honors (social science: sociology? economics? government? Perhaps 1semester as dual enrollment?)
If that’s not possible, stick to current schedule.
- in any case
Volunteer in a health setting where she can use her Spanish (local clinic?)
Her current schedule + previous classes should make UGA a match if she has a 4.0- 4.1 WEIGHTED and 1380-1420 SAT. If higher than that, she should aim for the Honors College (very useful for premeds since they get a personal adviser and smaller classes that aren’t weedout).
Remember that “match” = 50/50 odds. (In CollegeConfidential parlance, “low match” = higher than 50% odds although not a sure thing, “high match” = lower than 50% odds but still pretty good.)
UGA has become very competitive: there are lots of excellent students in Georgia! (UGA’s average honors college student has something like a 4.2 GPA/1500 SAT…) and if premed or engineering she’ll be competing with them.
To optimize her odds of admission, I WOULDN’T check “premed” but perhaps choose a major such as biochemistry or neuroscience? (SO MANY kids check “premed”…)
Take her to visit Agnes Scott. Very strong in the sciences. No weedout classes. A good match for a student for whom UGA is a match, too - but not the same fit (Agnes Scott doesn’t have football, is suburban, and small. But it’s really good for young women aiming for a career in the sciences/medicine).
Perhaps borrow a Fiske Guide or a Princeton review’s best colleges.
In South Carolina, College of Charleston has a very good Honors College that can be a good alternative to UGA (minus the football spirit). For football, FSU (honors). For premeds, Eckerd (liberal) or Berry (conservative) are worth a look. Run the NPC to see if two of these are affordable and check out their website/request info form to see which ones are a good fit.
I don’t know how experienced with the process you are, so I apologize if it’s obvious to you, but: 2 safeties, 3-5 matches (including UGA), and a couple reaches would make for a decent list. Make your budget clear to her, run NPCs together, and help her create a list that includes two affordable safeties she can see herself at. Those may be the hardest colleges to find.
Thanks again @MYOS1634! Here is some background… She has a 4.3. It looks like when we recalculate the UGA gpa she has a 4.187. SAT is also in line but lower middle of that number if I remember correctly, but is retaking it as well. Her problem is that she does not know if she wants to do Engineering, Science or possible pre Med. The plan was to have her do an engineering camp this summer which is in a few weeks. She will be exposed to all fields in engineering, do projects etc… We are hoping this sheds some light. In the fall she is scheduled to be in a special program for Senior students. It is a pre med/health program where the kids take the dual enrollment courses in Anatomy and Physiology while also shadowing all types of doctors and professionals in the field. They get to observe surgeries and procedures and also volunteer and give back to their community.There is also leadership opportunities and speaking engagements. It is quite a special program, quite competitive and you must apply to be accepted in to the program. It is meant to be an exploratory program. We thought this was a perfect way to see if medicine or a health profession is also in her future and we weighed it heavily against taking her own Dual enrollment courses. Our understanding is that for fields in the STEM area, there is little leeway to change majors or sometimes even transfer in to another college within your university. We have been warned these are competitive majors and depending on school, changing can be difficult or not possible. For these reasons, she felt adding more AP may be too much on top of this program. She does lean more science than Math. Her only B+ was in Honors Pre Calc and was an 89.4 so I also think she worries about the AP Calc or AP Physics being math based. Thoughts?
Also, thank you for your suggestions. We are open to it all. She has a lot to consider as she could go the athletic route, but probably cannot do her sport where she wants to go to school. Also we are not sure that she would even have the time. We are open to any insight because she has so many balls in the air and we need to start narrowing the options.
@Fissie - UGA really has become more competitive in recent years but at first glance, I would think your student would be admitted. Couple of general comments as we just went through this with our oldest daughter (starting her Freshman year at UGA in a few weeks).
- The best source of info for all things UGA admissions is the Admissions Office blog. Most schools have blogs of some sort but this is by far the best I've seen in terms of quality of content, frequency of updates and a robust Q&A-based comment section which Mr. Graves (Admissions AD) checks and responds to regularly throughout the day: https://www.admissions.uga.edu/blog/
- EA vs regular - as is the case with most schools, I'd recommend applying EA; but would note that UGA does not appear to complete a full holistic review of applications but rather does a first cut of sorts focusing on GPA, Course Rigor and Test Scores with a greater emphasis on the first two vs the third. Graves has said multiple times on the blog that the staff feels that how a student performs day in and day out in a challenging curriculum is a better indicator of success in college than performance on a 3-hour test. All other factors (recommendations, ECs, etc.) are given more weight during the RD period.
- They've said that they don't put as much emphasis on which major a student is considering when making an admissions decision because students can literally change their major on their first day of classes.
- Per conversations with someone from their Admissions dept, there's no universal "right number" for # of AP courses, but they are looking for students who took the most challenging courses available at their school. If a student's school offered 20 but they took 3? Not as impressive as a student whose school offered 6 and they took 4.
Not sure if your student is a resident vs OOS but anecdotally speaking, there did seem to be a slight bias in favor of OOS applicants during EA when considering similar-stat students, but I can’t confirm or quantify that.
If she hasn’t visited yet, I’d strongly encourage it. We visited a lot of schools over the last few years including the usual “best college town” candidates you see every year (Ann Arbor, Chapel Hill, etc.) but Athens really is special. Felt like it was the best-kept secret in terms of school options.
Good luck!