Tom Jackson

A record number of students returned to campus last week, four weeks earlier than usual, as the state’s flagship university makes the switch to semesters. Classes begin Aug. 24.
The targeted enrollment of approximately 30,330 will eclipse the previous record of 30,149 set in fall 1995, and will be up some 800 students over last fall’s enrollment, predicts UGA Vice President for Student Affairs Dwight Douglas.
“This enrollment figure is right on the target mandated by the regents for this year, as we continue the slow climb toward the targeted enrollment figure of 32,500 for fall semester 2002,” Douglas says.
Around 6,500 students will be new to the Athens campus this fall, including some 4,300 entering freshmen, 1,500 undergradute transfers and many of the 1,200 new graduate students. Douglas estimates 89 percent of the new freshmen will be Georgia residents and, for the fifth consecutive year, at least 97 percent of in-state freshmen will attend on the HOPE Scholarship.
The predicted average SAT score of the entering freshmen is 1,190, compared to 1,181 for last fall’s entering class. Their high school grade point average in college preparatory courses will be about 3.6, Douglas says.
Officials estimate the female-to-male ratio will remain at about 60-40 and an estimated
13 percent of the entering freshmen will be minorities, the same as fall 1997.
Residence halls opened last week with 5,820 students reserving spaces. Of those, 270 students assigned to Reed Hall were asked to delay their arrival on campus to Aug. 22, as last-minute renovation continued on the 45-year-old residence hall. Those who needed to arrive before that day were placed in temporary spaces in other residence halls or local motels until their rooms were available.