I’m sorry about what happend, but nothing will change the outcomes at this point so it’s probably best to move on. I believe your daughter is looking at UGA now as her top choice. That’s a great school! Good luck to her.
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I completely understand the frustration that comes with the lack of complete predictability at holistic admissions schools. It’s hard for so many of us comprehend that they have far more qualified students than they have room to accommodate, so that nothing is truly sufficient to guarantee admission (particularly if it’s a flagship and you’re OOS).
In Georgia, we do finally have a very strong guaranteed admissions program, called Georgia Match. GEORGIA MATCH | Georgia Student Finance Commission
Through this, my daughter knew in October that she was basically a lock at (almost) every public college or university in Georgia. However, crucially, they do not offer that for the 3 schools that admit holistically- UGA, Ga Tech, and Georgia College and State University.
Many highly qualified instate students will not be granted admission to those (particularly Ga Tech and UGA), but they do have other strong options. These holistic schools are just too much in demand for it to be possible to guarantee admission on any metrics. And lots of students will transfer to UGA or Ga Tech from these other schools.
I know not every state offers this, but I wish more would do so - to lessen the sense that all schools are unpredictable.
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Right. All states have some processes in place to protect in state students. It’s just a challenge in high population states like California, Florida, etc. where there are too many qualified in state applicants for the available slots.
And on the flip side, there are states with no good publics who’s kids need somewhere to go and they look OOS. And also the issue of schools needing a certain amount of OOS tuition to fund their programs. There’s just no good answer to the in state vs. Out of state question.
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I hear your frustration with your home state of Florida. This is a UGA thread and while I think UGA (and GaTech for that matter) have some of the most transparent admissions practices of any public uni, any time a process is described as “holistic” there will be opacity. Then add-in the waitlists or deferrals of high stat kids and it’s beyond confounding.
In GA, there are additional criteria to offer auto-admits to val/sal of all schools, accept kids from every county, etc… basically serving the entire state. This means that it can actually be more difficult for kids (regardless of stats) in the metro or affluent areas than those in rural or low-income areas. There are so many factors that make the admissions results beyond prediction.
But without a doubt it can be frustrating. Hugs.
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That’s an excellent point. Here in WA state, it is more challening to get into the UW if you are from Seattle vs the east side of the state just because of unequal distribution of talent and the desire to be more diverse geographically. Could be the issue in FL and some other larger states possibly.
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Absolutely. And if you live in Chapel Hill it’s much harder to get into UNC vs. rural North Carolina.
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Where there are too many applicants for slots at the flagships but not if one expands their list to other public schools. That is a significant difference.
Edit for typo
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Agreed! AP scores are not good comparators for a few reasons. AP teachers’ results tend to improve year over year, in part because it takes more than a 1-week summer training (that many schools won’t pay for!) for teachers to really learn the syllabus and exam and figure out which things are essential and which things are less important for getting a 3/4/5. It wouldn’t be fair to compare scores from a brand new teacher to those of a teacher who has taught the class for 10 years.
Also, there is the issue of cost. Some students do not take the exam because the school does not have funds to pay the $97 fee per exam and the parents cannot afford it.
Remember SAT subject tests? Those were good for student comparisons, and cheaper than AP exams, but they fell out of favor with colleges and were discontinued a few years ago . . .
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Yep. One of my AP teachers was telling me once that research by CB says that average scores go up in a teachers class by .75 points after just one year of teaching. And it goes up .5 a point on average if the teacher does the AP reading. Drastic results there that were not at all caused by the students.
SAT subject tests were discontinued before I had a chance to take them, but I think they tested high school vs. college skill level, so that would definently be more valuable. Probably was just too expensive the write the exams since only basically the ivys looked at them.
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Holistic admissions is a farce. It’s simply not possible for large public schools to truly evaluate every applicants resume and essays in depth. I know for a fact it does not happen at schools who claim “holistic”. That is just a loophole for them to do as they please without accountability.
State public schools should not be allowed to do anything that isn’t totally transparent and fully disclosed. That alone would greatly help match students to schools. Doing away with common app spamming of kids applying to 30+ schools is also necessary, that’s ridiculous as well.
It makes no sense for my daughter to be denied by in state flagships and accepted into OOS flagships that are even more highly regarded and “Ranked”, and also honors programs. None of that makes sense and is a strain on the system as well as a massive financial hit to families.
The entire process is broken. I feel bad for some in this thread who’s kid is clearly qualified and an in state student and were denied by UGA, while my child was accepted OOS (we were forced to apply OOS because of the randomness of FL schools. We did not want to send our kid OOS)
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I agree that UGA runs its admissions in a very professional and transparent way, with a level of communication that is not seen with other schools. They are very refreshing and also another reason why we had a very good idea on where we stood with our chances. We knew exactly what UGA prioritizes relative to our applicants strengths. That transparency and disclosure really helps with matching….even if it’s not perfect and “anything can happen”. Great school and wonderful admissions department.
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Hopefully those who want schools to do more to protect in state applicants also support legislators and governors that vote for sufficient financial support for their state school system such that they don’t need oos tuition. If you vote for the politicians who deny financial requests from their school system then…
But back on GA topic, hopefully those waitlists here get in. My own daughter will be turning down her GA offer and I hope it passes on to one of you! (I know it doesn’t literally work that way.)
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UGA is a tough admit OOS. We had kids from my daughter’s school with much higher stats than that denied.
Our in state daughter was waitlisted as well. The sad thing is when you look at the common data set for UGA versus 20 years ago there is a dramatic difference in those that attended 20 years ago versus now. 20 years ago the average ACT score was around 25.5 and the range was from 23 to 28. Today the average is more like 29.5 with a range from 27 to 32. That is a significant statistically significant shift in the type of student. Students from 20 years ago should likely have not been accepted to today’s UGA. But schools most schools like kennesaw have not seen this shift. 20 years ago their average ACT score was 21.5 and today it’s 22. There is a huge gap between UGA and all the other schools. So what happens to students with 26 to 28 ACT scores who would have had no problem 20 years ago getting accepted to UGA no how little to no 2nd in state option. At schools like Kennesaw they would be in the 85th to 90th percentile versus other students. As a result many of these are having to go out of state at great expense when in the past they would have been easily accept to UGA
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So have you decided between UF and UGA yet?
Heavily leaning UF as of now.
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I think you have applied to many of the same schools as my kid. Our family loves UF and UGA (no family ties/affiliations) and both are terrific and reasonably priced for an OOS student IMO…though usually still more than instate publics. I’m curious why UF over UGA given the price difference? I think I remember seeing you got merit money but may be wrong. UF is ranked slightly higher…though I guess it is program dependent and rankings are very subjective.
Our daughter is staying in state where we are lucky to have good public options but we would have been thrilled to send her to UGA or UF.
I did get a scolarship at UGA, but I think I am still going to UF just because I enjoy the campus a bit more. Also have some friends who live nearby. So I’m willing to pay a bit more for that. Nothing against UGA of course, definently a second or third choice for me.
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