Many high stat kids from our high school applied to UGA as their supposed “safety” - favoring schools such as Notre Dame, UVA, UNC & Vanderbilt. If they are admitted to the latter, they are highly unlikely to pick UGA. We’re in NC. In a regular year, we may have 15 kids applying to UGA, but this year there were 45. When my older daughter applied to UGA 7 years ago, I think there were less than 10 applicants from our high school. I wonder how many of the 8000 accepted EA have committed or intend to commit - vs. just picking UGA on a whim (never even having visited Athens, or Georgia for that matter), or as a safety.
I think you’re right - there will be a lot of waitlist movement over the summer, not only with UGA, but with a lot of colleges. I’m reading so many accounts of students sending 15-20+ applications to “cast a wide net” - they can only pick one winner. It will be interesting to see how the final enrollment numbers look. Kudos to UGA - in the 7 years since my oldest was accepted, they’ve steadily crept up to being a pretty tough school to get into (OOS).
One if my seniors is up to 18 at this point. She recently finished the last 2. She has 4 AP classes this year plus 3 more academic classes, and even got her last varsity soccer season on (captain). Most are in the NE, but she applied to a few in the south (where students were actually on campus in the fall). I think there is only 1 she might not get into, she will probably attend the cheapest one. Her twin applied to 6, her oldest sister applied to 6, her other brother 1 (ED), and her other sister about 8 (also mostly safeties/matches fit merit). She applied to honors, so I’m guessing they had essays. Not being able to take college tours hasn’t helped.
As far as I can remember D19 applied to 9 schools. D21 applied to 10 but one was only because I begged her to add an early safety, rolling school. I also asked D19 to do that but she was adamant that she would rather take a gap year than go to the schools I was suggesting, D21 was willing to do it nice there was no extra essay or anything.
D21 also applied to a few she really doesn’t love but at the last minute she added them. I think it came down to 5 likelies (1 being her favorite), 1 match and 4 that I have no idea where they are between match and reach because of the test optional situation.
A good friend’s son is a freshman at UNC (from a private school in Charlotte). He applied EA to UGA and was deferred and then was rejected RD. I understand admittance to UNC is not always a piece of cake from Charlotte despite similar in state acceptance percentages as UGA (mid 40s). Did many of the 45 who applied get in? My expectation is that it will not work out as a safety for many of them. Georgia Tech went from 40 percent acceptance rate to below 20 percent after it joined the Common App. I would think UGA would have at least some of that increased selectivity.
And I love that all these kids are applying to so many schools - my son is in 3 (including UGA) but hears from his reaches UVA (legacy) and UNC in a month or so. Our realistic best scenario for him (non legacy OOS) is waitlisted EA at UNC so perhaps he has a chance after all!
My son applied to 12 which seems insane but here in CA the UCs in particular seem very unpredictable. He’d like to stay in state for a host of reasons but even kids with near perfect stats cannot assume admittance to a UC campus. So at that point he added a half dozen out of state schools and hoped that merit scholarships could bring costs down to roughly what we’d pay in state. It’s seems like he got to 12 pretty fast. Best of luck to all.
D21 applied to 11. One was at my request (semi local, gives decent merit and more of an LAC than the rest of her list). She had two more originally on there but they were both financial reaches and had tons of supplemental essays so they were dropped. Had it not been for COVID and the loss of one income in the house, the list probably would have looked very different but probably the same ballpark number of schools.
But I think he should apply to USC. USC is a great school. If he works everyday a little bit may be he can finish by 15th. I understand about getting burnt out though.
According to Naviance, 9 of the 45 have reported acceptance (not an exact science, as students themselves do the reporting). My daughter was deferred and knows a few high stat classmates who were also deferred. We are also waiting for UNC, which we expect to be a deferral at best, given the current climate. Blows my mind as D21 has much higher stats than my other daughter did when she was admitted to UNC EA in 2013. Hard to imagine a scenario where one is deferred/denied from UGA and accepted into UNC. The times they are a changing…
BTW, we are in Charlotte too, at a private school.
One of my older daughters best college friends got off the UNC waitlist in July (2013). She’s from CA. She was a vocal performance major though - not a very popular major at UNC. She did switch to business. UNC was wonderful for my daughter, but I’m not convinced it’s the right fir for my younger daughter (she loves UGA). Ironically my oldest also got into UGA and wrestled with the choice between UGA & UNC. Part of her still regrets not choosing UGA.
I know! He may still do it, at least he has another week and a half to decide!
He’s at 13 and that would make 14. It just gets to the point when is it enough? He was deferred at his ED school, accepted with full scholarship to his safety, and now waiting on the rest. Long way to go.
My D21 applied to 8, was going to be 2 more but decided she wouldn’t go so why bother. We visited 3 with real tours and 4 by ourselves and 1 applied to cold. She eliminated 2 prior to admissions from our drive bys. 2 were applied to to chase merit. Heard from 5 so far. Got into her top choice but lower merit than compared to last year so most likely it will be one of the others that she got into honors college in and its local which may be a plus if COVID continues into the Fall.
@SammoJ So sorry to hear all that you guys are going through!
We have visited 5 of the 9 schools on D’s list. Tulane she has seen because D19 is there, she never did an official tour. That was supposed to happen over spring break. 4 we just walked around on our own and 1 (Elon) we had an official tour. I am sad she did not get to do the tours like D19 did.
It’s tough with UCs, especially with them being test-blind this year. They were always random but with a high UC gpa and a 36 ACT that’s rendered useless by the UCs, my son had to apply to a few out of state. He got 14 apps in. His dream school is out of state and he was deferred. Despite all the apps, I know we would be happy for him to get into one of the UCs he applied to. It’s that weird this year and he’s not taking anything for granted.
Yes, I have so many great memories of tours with my D18. Sad to have such a different environment for S21. We got three ‘real’ tours together. The other places he’s visited unofficially b/c they are not so far away. Sigh.
Completely agree on missing what would have been special tour visits bc even if the schools didn’t pan out for whatever reason, the experience of exploring the schools and towns/cities together with S would have been SO enjoyable.
