I hope your son enjoys his experience! The tour guides were better about answering questions than the hosts who led the presentations in the auditorium (it wasn’t technically an auditorium, but I don’t remember the exact name of the room in the student center). Truthfully, the GT tour was one of our oddest tour experiences. The tour guides walked so far in front of part of the group that they were effectively left behind. And it wasn’t just 1 or 2 stragglers. It was probably at least 25% of the group. The tour guides stayed with 3 or 4 people in the front. But the worst part of the experience was hands down the auditorium part of the tour. Every question was answered with visit a url (web address provided). It would have been a better use of time for us to browse the GT web site on our own!
@MDmom8 My son applied RD and soon afterwards his previously assigned advisor was switched to UGA admissions. Maybe it’s a RD thing?
So interesting to see you had this experience as well. We toured around 20 schools and the GT tour was by far the worst. It was three hours and just awkward. It’s the only tour that ended with our daughter jumping into the car and saying “thank god that is over. Definitely not the place for me!” And you know what? That’s ok! Someone else on the tour probably loved it. But we still laugh whenever GT comes up!
100% agree. All tours are helpful, even if it’s just in identifying schools that aren’t the right match. I am a firm believer that not every school is the right place for every student!
We toured a different school with my daughter, and we knew it wasn’t the right place for her within 30 or so minutes of our arrival. We finished our scheduled itinerary and had a great time exploring the surrounding area. We loved the town way more than the school! The downtown area was absolutely adorable. 
I’m a brat, so I’d probably show up for the 8:30 AM tour and ask if there are enough no-shows to be added last minute. Also, keep watching the visit webpage. We’re also OOS, and I thought we were out of luck for a tour, but I kept checking anyway. They added a bunch more slots on a Friday morning in February that had previously been full.
Practically, I’m not going to fly there with my daughter on the chance of catching a tour on the date we can do it.
I will check back this weekend to see if the tour opened or they opened up another option.
Practically, I don’t think my daughter will attend UGA without Honors College admit which won’t be available until April, so there’s not a huge rush to get there next month. I
My OOS child was invited to the honors college in her EA acceptance email; however, it was not mentioned in the paper letter. I hope this is not an error and more is to come?
(Apologies in advance if I missed something. I am quickly scanning posts while looking for admitted students weekend info, particularly re: the honors college, in case anyone has insights on that yet.)
Our daughter was admitted in December OOS. No merit was offered at that time? Does anyone know if merit is offered only with acceptance? Apologies if i missed this earlier in the thread.
UGA & Non-UGA Scholarship Information - UGA Student Financial Aid.
“The majority of awards go out in March and are usually finalized by early April for all admitted first-year students. During the final scholarship reviews and awards, Admissions will offer scholarships to a wide range of students who have been admitted during any of the decision dates.”
Thanks so much@
When do regular decision notifications come out?
usually a Friday in early March
Does anyone have a sense on the average merit awarded to UGA? In our case, OOS?
For example, Pitt (though they give very little merit) is from $5K-$20K per year.
Any sense on what this looks like for UGA?
Mostly 1/2 OOS differential but some full state - those would be most common.
Very little merit from UGA, although a handful of students will receive some. Majority do not.
Is anyone here Jewish or from up north? Wondering how the feel is. We visited and loved but just curious
yes. our daughter is in her 1st year at UGA, Jewish and from the NY/NJ area. she has a nice cohort of Jewish friends. she’s not as involved in Hillel as I might like but she goes to Chabad for Friday night dinner most weeks and it’s very nice and comfortable with a good turnout. I don’t know how many kids go to Hillel Friday night but they have their own thing going on, too. Our daughter doesn’t go to religious services there but I didn’t expect her to. Hillel has lots of other social events going on, too, with coffee or bubble tea on campus almost every day. my daughter did not choose to be in the Jewish sorority but there is one, and there are 2 Jewish fraternities. overall it seems like, at least socially, the scene is more than adequate. has she met kids who are form the South and had never met a Jewish person before her? absolutely. but she doesn’t see that as a bad thing.
FYI the Hillel opened their new building this year, and Chabad is also moving to a new (bigger) building sometime soon.
I don’t know how robust the Jewish studies classes are- our daughter took intermediate Hebrew and it was quite easy and basic. But there are some cool classes on Israeli politics, Judaism in pop culture, Holocaust history…with professors who seem quite dynamic and well-known in their fields.
thanks! Great to know. We are far from religious and he would probably wouldn’t be involved in anything w Hillel, but was just was making sure it’s not strange to be Jewish there, compared to say UF, Wisconsin, UMD etc.
it’s definitely not strange or uncomfortable for her. the numbers might not be as high as those other schools but it’s a big school so 6% or 8% or whatever it is still adds up to plenty.
While my daughter chose a different school (UGA was just too large for her), there was zero concern/question about being Jewish there (which was important). There were some schools this would have been the case, but UGA wouldn’t have been one of them.
Sorry - mis tag @BF1216