|
By Sharron Hannon
shannon@uga.edu
The Faculty Admissions Committee has recommended to President Michael F. Adams stiffer  criteria for admission of transfer students--raising the required minimum grade point average from 2.3 to 2.8 for sophomores and to 2.5 for juniors and seniors. The changes would apply to applicants seeking to enroll for the summer and fall of 2000.
“Because admission to UGA is competitive, attaining the minimum GPA does not guarantee admission, only consideration,” says John Albright, senior associate director of undergraduate admissions. “The average GPA earned by the 1,834 students who transferred to UGA in fall 1999 was, in fact, 3.07.”
The Faculty Admissions Committee, a 13-member committee of University Council chaired by Scott Weinberg, a professor in the School of Environmental Design, also voted on two new criteria to be added to the Total Student Index, which is used to evaluate applicants for the incoming freshman class who are not offered “first notice” admission.
As of March 1, 12,905 applications for the fall 2000 freshman class had been received, and 6,373 of those students had been offered admission based on SAT or ACT scores and high school grade point averages. The average SAT of those admitted as of March 1 is 1243, and the average GPA is 3.76.
“We’ve got a target enrollment of 4,000 that we’re working backwards from,” says Albright.  That’s 272 fewer freshmen than were enrolled in fall 1999. The reason for the targeted decrease in undergraduate admissions--both freshmen and transfers--is to allow for a gradual increase in graduate admissions. Graduate School Dean Gordhan Patel earlier this year told the Institutional Strategic Planning Group that graduate school enrollment, which is currently about 18 percent of total enrollment, should be closer to 25 percent to be more in line with peer research institutions.
The undergraduate admissions office estimates the number of students to accept based on an expected “yield to enrollment” of about 50 percent--high for selective institutions of UGA’s size. That means accepting close to 8,000 students for a target freshman class of 4,000.
The nearly 7,000 students remaining in this year’s freshman applicant pool will be evaluated on academic criteria, and the Total Student Index will then be applied to those at the top. “We look at the top students academically in the pool and then apply the TSI,” says Albright. “We are not looking at academically marginal students.”
To arrive at the Total Student Index, the Faculty Admissions Committee has added two new demographic factors that provide some boost to students who are from economically disadvantaged counties or from low-performing Georgia public high schools.
“The idea is to offer a degree of reward to those who have done well despite difficult circumstances,” says Weinberg.
Additional factors weighed in determining the TSI are such criteria as extracurricular activities, immediate family alumni relatives, or coming from a family where one or both parents did not attend college. Race also continues to be among the factors, though a pending lawsuit has challenged that practice.
The deadline for transfer applications is April 1 for summer enrollment and June 1 for fall enrollment. About 1,500 slots will be open to transfer students in the fall, 340 fewer than last year. A wait list will be kept for sophomores with GPAs between 2.3 and 2.79, according to Albright. “Two-thirds of all transfers last year were sophomores,” he notes. “We’ll admit students from the wait list on a space-available basis.”
|
