UGA EA Class of 2025

Do you think that the ACT & SAT reported in the post reflects the average composite or super score? Those are some competitive applicants. Wishing everyone luck!

@H0llyw00d - in the blog post comments, he stated it was superscored.

Also, this is one of his responses to a question that someone posted in the comments - it’s very informative. I really respect his transparency.

"For this year, we have roughly 21,000 EA applications, and we have roughly 5 weeks between the deadline and the decision release date. As such, there is no way we can do whole student reviews on all these applications. As in the past, we are looking at the academic information first, and for some applicants, we will admit them based on their extremely strong academic work. For another large group, their academic information is very strong (core grades, core curriculum choices, and if sent then test scores), and we have been reading these files for the past 5 weeks. For another group below that, we have a large number of strong applicants whose academic work is strong, but not as strong as the first two groups. We will defer these students so we can have time to review their files in more detail (the information you referred to). Lastly, we have a small group of applicants where their academic work is not competitive, and we will deny these students based on this information.

Remember, we do not know what the RD application pool will be like, so we have to be cautious in how we move forward with decisions, as we treat EA and RD the same in the review process."

Thank you, @nanosec. I missed that comment. I went back to the post and see it now.

I think it’s also important to remember that it’s likely that applicants would only submit scores if they were high 
 so of course the score averages are high!

Agreed!

I applied EA to UGA as well, and I was reading a blog post by Davis Graves on the UGA website, and he said something about how they weren’t able to read all the applications holistically
 so does that mean they will only accept high stat kids??

@happyicecream Take a look at this post from another thread:

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22968286#Comment_22968286

Probably for EA. High stats kids are usually the ones accepted for EA, even in normal years. Stats for EA accepted applicants at UGA are quite a bit higher than those in regular decision. I expect the same will happen this year. UGA emphasizes grades over scores in normal years.

https://www.admissions.uga.edu/blog/uga-2020-ea-decisions-and-data/

Thank you both so much! Seems kind of unfair that they are not doing whole student reviews for most of the applications no?

They never do during EA. Too many applications to review in a month. They defer majority to regular decision. I would rather them have the quick turn around! Only people that are denied are those who are academically not competitive which is a small number. All deferred files will be reviewed in full during regular decision.

It is and it isn’t. They get so many applications for EA that it is impossible to get them turned around in just over a month with a holistic review of every application. However it seems that a “Deferred” decision with UGA isn’t nearly the death sentence that can be for many schools, it is just a way to buy time for a full and fair evaluation at regular decision. Some schools don’t announce their EA decisions until January or February, but when they do, if you aren’t accepted you are likely not getting in. With UGA, it still seems like there will be a lot of deferred applicants who later get in. A couple of years back my older child got deferred two places in December and then got admitted RD in March, so don’t jump off a bridge if that happens. Good luck!

Not a parent of a UGA applicant, but a Georgia resident with a GT applicant child -
Georgia passed SB 282 this year that mandates that 90% of early action applications accepted must be in-state students. This is why both UGA and GT switched their EA to EA1 (georgia residents) and EA2 (OOS applicants). The colleges hate this bill, fought against it. They want and value their OOS students.
What I have heard people around our area saying is that they are getting around it is to accept their desired in state residents early, defer lots of OOS applicants and accept mostly OOS RD and accept few instate RD.

Not entirely sure if this is true, but seems to be the opinion in our area.

@momof21 Also a Georgia resident, with a GT child and a son who is applying to Georgia and Georgia Tech this year. That bill actually never got off the ground and failed over the summer in June, thank goodness! UGA already has a very large percentage of in-state students but it would detrimentally affect Georgia Tech which is only 60 percent in state. My understanding is it is the intention of Georgia Tech to keep the same ratio of in state/out of state.

For clarification, that bill was very strongly opposed by UGA and GT. UGA generally has 80 percent or more Georgia residents so it would have a lesser impact arguably but both lobbied against strongly.

GA SB 282 failed and was not enacted.

Dr. Graves just tweeted that applicant Avg GPA for test optional: 3.81 and Avg for submitting was 3.99. He said "I am guessing that possibly for 2020-2021, “test optional” means “I have no acces/no way of taking these @#@$% tests.”

@nanosec it’s interesting that those submitting scores also have higher GPAs. I would interpret that as meaning for a segment of the non-submitting group, they are doing it to game the system and avoid submitting a mediocre score rather than because they couldn’t test (otherwise wouldn’t we expect the GPAs to be more similar?).

@rbc2018 That’s likely true. I have a lower GPA but my SAT was about average for UGA (1390) but most of the people who are test-optional probably got below the mid-1300s. I’m guessing there will be a lot of people with test scores and in-state people tomorrow.

I am genuinely confused by that tweet.

The statement that “I am guessing ‘test optional’ means I have no access/no way of taking these @#@$% tests.’” would imply that there is no significant difference between a 3.81 and a 3.99 GPA, such that as between two academically strong groups the only explanation for going TO is one of access. And yet, as people have pointed out, 3.99 is a stronger average score than 3.81, by an appreciable if not huge amount. So what is he saying?

And then the GIF from Elf of Will Ferrell getting hit by a snowball seems like even more of a non-sequitur.