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Enrollment, freshman SAT set records
The university has broken through two of the longest-standing admissions and academic ceilings in its history as enrollment this fall exceeded 31,000 and the freshman SAT average topped 1200.
Final fall enrollment figures released by the registrar’s office show a record 31,288 students enrolled in fall semester classes, a 1.2 percent increase over the previous record of 30,912 set last fall. It’s the first time more than 31,000 students have ever registered for classes at UGA in a single term.
Final reports from the admissions office on this year’s 3,944 new freshmen show they have an SAT average of 1203, topping last year’s score by eight points. This is the first year the SAT average has ever been above 1200.
The 1203 average is 184 points above the national SAT average of 1019 and 229 points above the state average of 974. This is the fourth consecutive year the SAT average has risen at UGA; over the past 10 years, the average has climbed 65 points.
According to the registrar’s office, undergraduate enrollment this fall rose by 111 students, or 0.5 percent, to 24,010 students. Graduate enrollment is up by 3.1 percent to 5,709.
Enrollment in the professional schools of law, pharmacy and veterinary medicine totals 1,366, a 2.6 percent increase. Independent study enrollment totals 203 students.
Resolution reached in ‘Acropolis’ case
The Judicial Programs office in the Student Affairs division reached an informal resolution Nov. 7 with five students involved in an Oct. 3 incident in which two students were found blindfolded in the cargo area of a sports utility vehicle being driven along South Milledge Avenue in Athens. Their acceptance of the informal resolutions, which require the students to perform community service work for their violations of university conduct regulations, closes the case.
“Our investigation revealed that the reality of the situation was not as serious as the initial perception and was different in a number of ways from the tragic incident of spring semester in which a fraternity member died,” says UGA Vice President for Student Affairs Richard Mullendore. “However, the behavior was certainly inappropriate and reflected negatively on the individuals, the Greek system and the university. These and other campus leaders should learn from this incident the serious implications such actions can have for them and the institution.”
Astronomer receives two grants
The National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have awarded two grants totaling some $469,824 to Peter Hauschildt, a UGA assistant professor of physics and astronomy.
The NASA grant funds a project that will help scientists better understand the mass loss of stars. The second grant, which is part of a joint NASA-NSF program, will fund studies on so-called “nearby stars.”
“We now have the means to tackle these complex problems in much greater detail than previously thought possible,” says Hauschildt. “These grants will allow us to hire post-doctoral researchers to work on developing and implementing new computer programs that will help us analyze data gathered by others.”
Very hot stars or stars late in their lifetime lose mass through stellar winds. Although researchers have known this for years, and some models have been developed to understand the basic physics of stellar winds, the detailed properties of the wind and the rate of mass loss cannot be accurately predicted.
The NASA grant will allow a post-doctoral researcher to work on computer programs that can help predict how these winds act. The grant under the joint NSF-NASA program will allow another post-doctoral researcher to develop model atmosphere simulations of celestial phenomena called cool stars. |
