Are We There Yet?

This past weekend, I drove a 15 seat bus down to Saint Simons Island (and then back to Athens) with a group of teenagers. I am guessing that over the course of the 7 hour drive, I was asked at least twenty times each way "are we almost there", "how much farther", and the famous "are we there yet". I could give the group a rough estimate of where we were, and what the GPS was predicting as our time of arrival, but there were bathroom breaks, dinner breaks, a traffic stop due to a funeral, etc. In other words, I had a rough idea of the arrival time, but it could change due to other factors. It was not until I was close to the destination that I could give an accurate time of arrival.

The same is true with both freshman and transfer timelines. UGA Admissions tries to give you a rough idea of when you will hear a decision, but other factors sometimes come into play. Add an extra 1,000 freshman applications, and the decision date will shift back. The state adds a new requirement to our review (like last year's Verification of Legal Presence), and we have to shift people to work on that instead of reviewing files. It is not until we are close to the end of the process that I can give more specific dates. In addition, if I gave out a date early on, and then it turned out to be wrong, I would have a huge number of angry calls/emails/posts/etc.

So here is what I have at this time for admission decisions:

• Freshman: At this point in time, we are still reviewing files, and we are still saying late March. Late March is late March, and I do not have any more specific information at this time. When it gets closer to late March and I have more details, I will update you on a revised timeline. Right now, just be patient, and know that we are deep into the file review process. Remember, 19,000 applications take a long time to review.
• Transfers: At this time, we are for the most part done with summer transfer reviews. We still have a small number of files that a few academic departments want to review, and a few challenging files, along with about 100 incomplete applications. As for Fall transfers, we are averaging about 40 decisions a day, and we have made over 300 decisions already. As a point of reference, last year at this time we were still finishing summer transfer reviews, so no fall transfer decisions had been made yet. I do not have any specific application dates or completion dates that we are working on right now, but more details will be given out at a later time as we get further into the process. At this point, we have over 2,000 Fall Transfer applications, and I expect that number to jump up as we get closer to the deadline.

Please do not call, email or post a question asking when you will hear a decision, as we will not be able to give you any more details beyond what I have stated above. Just be patient, and know that we are diligently working on reviewing applications.

I hope this helps, and Go Dawgs!