The second stop on my Georgia college visits trip this year was Athens, home of University of Georgia! So now: three special things about UGA!
Location and campus:
University of Georgia’s campus was the largest I’d ever seen! The group tour takes over 90 minutes and includes a bus as well as walking components, in order to cover all the different portions of campus. UGA’s campus buildings are a combination of old and new, and walking around the campus sometimes feels like walking through Central Park in New York, with winding pathways, flowering trees, and huge quads. Looming large over parts of East Campus is Samford Stadium, where Georgia’s football team plays and tens of thousands of students cheer them on every Saturday.
Array of majors and opportunities:
It is hard to imagine that a student would NOT be able to find their major at UGA! The university has EIGHT different colleges and universities within it, including;
- The Odum School of Ecology, UGA’s smallest undergraduate college, which is interdisciplinary in nature and and prepares students for careers in research, teaching, and public service focused on sustainability and climate change
- The College of Engineering, whose graduates have an average starting salary of $65,000/year
- The Mary Frances Ealy College of Education, which provides dozens of different programs that allow students to earn both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in only 5 years
- The College of Environment and Design, perhaps best known for its highly-ranked landscape architecture program
- The College of Family and Consumer Sciences, which houses a huge array of different majors, from Textiles, Merchandising and Interiors, to Food Science.
- The Terry College of Business, the second largest college at UGA, which offers degrees in eleven different business-focused disciplines and is ranked #8 among public business schools nationally.
- Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, the largest college within UGA with nearly 10,000 undergraduates, its most popular majors include Biology, Psychology, Computer Science.
- College of Agricultural and Environmental Science: Adjacent to UGA’s Veterinary Medicine school, CAES includes a variety of programs from poultry science to horticulture. It receives massive funding from the US Department of Agriculture, which can translate into scholarship money for undergraduates, and the college boasts a 100% job placement rate for its graduates upon graduation.
Student life:
Because of its large size and diverse student population, UGA does offer social opportunities for every kind of student. Athens is a small town, with the university as the city’s dominant attraction. There are some shops and restaurants near campus, but the vast majority of student life revolves around the campus, and the dominant elements of the social scene are Greek life and football.
Admissions:
If this all sounds awesome to you, you might be wondering: How do I get in? Admission to University of Georgia is competitive, and getting more competitive each year. This year, UGA’s out-of-state admit rate was 25%, and the fact that ⅔ of the families on my admission tour were from outside of Georgia speaks to how popular the university is outside its home state. UGA is not test-optional, and the average ACT scores for admitted students were between 31 and 34. An important component of UGA’s review of applicants is and evaluation of their rigor. The average number of AP/IB or dual-enrollment courses for admitted students last year was NINE, which means it’s important not only to get good grades, but to challenge yourself in difficult classes, too!
