@Culbreath Congratulations to your son on his Iowa admission and scholarship! Don’t give up on UGA. EA applicants are always highly competitive, which is demonstrated by the 25th percentile GPA being a 4.0. The regular admission statistics typically go down. UGA does put great emphasis on grades, rather than as they say what you do in 4 hours on a Saturday. Have you calculated your sons UGA GPA. That should give you a better idea!
Congratulations to all accepted! I’m in awe of the accomplishments listed here by those accepted and deferred. Clearly, this was an incredibly competitive group. Here’s my daughter’s info for comparison (if you’re like our daughter, you’re asking why the deferral?):
DEFERRED
OOS
8APs / 5 HONORS
AP Scholar with Distinction
Six years of French with 14 college credits
32 ACT (not superscore)
Two sport athlete (1 Varsity and 1 Club); competed at state and national levels in Club.
Two part-time jobs simultaneously
Strong history of community service
Now - to analyze the possible causes of a deferral…based on the data released, she seems like she fits in that middle 50% of admitted students.
As others mentioned, I suspect they just couldn’t get through 20,000+ applications. They need more time. They strictly looked at numbers and possibly some other demographic data to make quick decisions.
Her high school has an extremely stringent grading system not used by other schools in our area, or probably in our state (for good reason because it bites). Example: if you earn a 92.4% in a class, that’s an “AB,” which is worth 3.5. How did UGA decide to score AB grades. Did they call them an A or a B? I would assume that after weighting everything she had over a 4.0 UGA GPA, but not sure. Her unweighted GPA is 3.731 on her high school transcript.
GOOD LUCK ALL!
@rbc2018 @VirginiaBelle Thank you for your comments and encouragement! His UGA GPA is 4.125, which is not at the top but certainly respectable. Fortunately my son takes these things in stride and isn’t the least bit bothered. As an OOS I was hoping he’d be admitted with a scholarship offer so I wonder what a deferral means in that regard, if he’s not competitive for scholarships or honors. He just about killed himself with 6 APs his junior year and got 4 Bs and 2 As each semester. I agree with @rbc2018 it’s better for them to get a B in the AP than an A in regular, and he’d never be happy in a “regular” class. He says he doesn’t regret taking that many, even though it hurt his GPA, because “I learned a lot,” and that’s ultimately what drives him. He’s a kid who would do better under a holistic review because he’s very interesting and after reading the blog, I’m not even sure if they read everyone’s essays in EA.
@Culbreath Your son sounds like he has much to bring to any school and I especially like hearing his attitude towards learning. That is something to be proud of. I also agree there was no way in the short timeline of EA to holistically review 20K apps. I honestly don’t understand how they did it based on the equally amazing stats of the accepted/deferred kids on this forum and within my D’s school.
This is my first go 'round in this crazy process so some of the more knowledgeable posters will surely chime in, but from reading last year’s posts it sounds like kids were admitted to honors and receiving scholarships through March. Also, from reading Graves blog I definitely do not think deferred applications are at any disadvantage. Best wishes!
Thanks for the encouragement, everyone. After sleeping on it, I’m honestly still miffed but I know that there were many other well qualified students who got deferred. And please don’t take anything I say as a shot at those kids who did get in. I’m sure they deserved it.
I’m thinking that my total lack of APs hurt me. I moved this summer, and my old school offered 0 APs so I took as many honors and DE as I could. Unfortunately, even though the UGa GPA calculation sheet asks how many total IB/AP/DE courses you will have taken through senior year, their system only adds “quality points” for IB and AP, not DE. So I could never get above a 4.0 on the UGa GPA scale. I’m taking 4 APs this year at my new school, but of course I have no final grades yet. Even so, with a 4.0 and 32 ACT, I’m within the middle 50 of accepted EA students. Something in their algorithm bit me, I guess. I’d hate to know they actually reviewed my application and found some reason to pass at this point. It makes me worried about other schools I’m applying to.
As long as I can still compete for Honors College and maybe some scholarship money, I can handle this. I took the ACT a second time and made a 34, but it was past the EA materials deadline. By December I’ll have final grades for 2 accelerated AP courses (both As as of right now). I do have two acceptances and scholarship offers for other major universities, but UGa was at the top of my list. Good luck, y’all.
I get the impression since they were under the gun timing-wise with EA that they separated out the kids who were roughly 75th percentile for GPA and scores (with rigor reflected in the GPA), because those are the easy yesses. Then as time permitted they started sorting through the rest to take a closer look at the rest of the application (including things like DE classes that don’t weight the GPA but still show rigor). So a lot of those students who easily fall into the middle band got deferred but will make it through in RD. If you were deferred be sure to do the mid-year grades update. I think it’s one of those things that they say is optional but really isn’t.
Sorry if everything I just said is obvious to everyone 
I’ve just been thinking through the percentiles specifically (my daughter was accepted and is above 75th percentile for both GPA and scores so I’m thinking that’s the magic combo for the easy yes).
@Culbreath I agree, I personally would rather have a kid shoot high with lots of AP classes and get some Bs (my sons were like this), rather than dumbing down the schedule to assure more As, but I don’t think that’s how a lot of admissions people see it (I remember the UVA blog one time saying it’s really best to take all of the AP classes and get all As, lol)
Congrats to all who got in yesterday! What an EA year this was. My D was…
DEFERRED (oof, I did not want to write that)
TO as she didn’t get any scores back before EA
7 AP’s, 2 Honors (Chem & Spanish IV)
5 years of foreign language
Private, rigorous school which strictly regulates AP classes - must apply to take AP classes
3.99 UGA GPA (I think—not 100% sure)
NHS & Spanish Honor Society
AP Scholar with Honor
Yearbook Editor in Chief
Multiple school leadership positions chosen by faculty
Great community service
Years of babysitting two special needs families
So yeah, based on my rough calculation of her UGA GPA and going TO for EA, I felt confident she’d be deferred, especially when EA applications went up 28%+. Also, I suspected that for all the “we will treat TO apps the same” verbiage, UGA would go for the high test score kids—and they did, 70% of the time. Oh well.
What’s discouraging is that my D21 will only be “average” in the RA pool based on what I’m seeing with deferrals of high stat kids. As an extra kick in the teeth, D will only be able to submit a 1310 SAT. However, her activities and leadership are solid and real, and her essays are thoughtful and well-written; we’re hoping that will mean something in a holistic assessment. We’d love for her to join her sibling who’s already at UGA.
Onwards we go to April. Fingers crossed for all.
I’m not sure anyone on this thread knows the answer, but we’ve been chatting in my house about what to do now that D21 is deferred. I know there is an update form to be filled out, but my daughter won’t have her first half-year grades until after the form deadline. Is anyone in this situation? Anyone planning on sending Q1 grades? Or just self-reporting that? Obviously, we want to make the most out of that section, just not sure about the next steps.
My son shoukd have his first semester grades, but if he didnt I would submit his first quarter grades if it improves his application
Congratulations to those accepted. The applicant pool was incredibly competitive this year. So many who have said they were deferred will be excellent candidates for RA when they have time to read the whole file. Please keep the faith and know that you will end up exactly where you are supposed to be, even if it isn’t UGA. Best wishes to all of you.
D Accepted
-In State
-UGA GPA 3.97 (Maximum UGA GPA is 4.0 because her school already adds weight to AP/IB grades. 1 high B first semester of Freshman year.)
-Top 5% in class of 310
-4 AP’s
-IB Diploma Candidate
-Test Optional
-BC and NHS
-Varsity and Club Athlete all 4 years
-200+ hours of Community Service
-Multiple Clubs
-German Exchange Program
-Model UN Delegate
-Multiple Summer Leadership programs
Housing registration link is now active.
Congratulations to all accepted…sounds like a fantastic class.
D21 DEFERRED
OOS 10APs / 35 ACT / 4.535 UGA GPA. Strong rec letters and essays.
Spanish National Honor Society president, Peer Leader, NHS, speech team, choir, published poet and club sports national champion. Good but not exceptional community service, and created a social awareness/anti-bullying presentation to be shared with younger students at local grade schools.
Having followed this thread regarding UGA’s process and understanding the tight window, I’m not shocked by the deferral and would hope that she would be accepted later on. UGA was one of her two top schools and she knew deferral was possible; nevertheless, she is definitely disappointed and seems to be losing interest in UGA, saying it “wasn’t meant to be”. I hope she decides to wait it out and see what happens.
@Caliban5 I’m very surprised that she was deferred. It doesn’t make sense based on what they say they look at. Academically she’s an obvious yes, which is supposed to be what they focus on first with EA. I’m certain she’ll get in RD, but I understand her disappointment.
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Accepted -OOS. 4.58 WGPA, 3.89 UWGPA (didn’t figure out the UGA one) , 34 ACT, 13 APs, 6 DE, a bunch of ECs but nothing outstanding. Congrats to all who are in, best of luck to those deferred–looks like a lot of strong candidates were deferred.
It will be interesting to see when the Honors acceptance and first round of scholarships are communicated. They said it would be early December - I just wonder how early.
@nanosec I was wondering that too. Would be great to get that info. in the next week or so!
Good grief, that is nuts! She has a terrific profile, especially the UGA GPA. My deferred daughter will feel better about that. I am sure your daughter will be getting in RD, their loss if she goes somewhere else. Good luck!
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By the way @UTSquared, we visited UT and all loved it. Beautiful campus and great programs. In the end, D21 decided not to apply due to limited OOS merit and access to Honors Program. Great school.
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Honors and Initial Scholarship notifications are going out “late afternoon” on 12/11.
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Does anyone know what types/amount of scholarships are normally awarded during the EA notification period? Obviously it doesn’t include the FF but am wondering what is typical, specifically for OOS. Thanks!