University of Georgia

Public · Selective · GA

Photo: Unknown (Public domain)

School data & stats

TypePublic

LocationGA · South

SettingUrban

Undergrads32,137

Student:faculty17:1

Outcomes

4-yr grad rate75.5%

6-yr grad rate89.7%

Drop-out rate6%

Study abroad—

Cost

In-state tuition$11k

Out-of-state tuition$32k

Application fee—

Community

Racial diversity34.3%

Gender diversity57.2%

International1.1%

Identity—

Overview

The University of Georgia is the nation's first state-chartered university, anchoring the classic college town of Athens an hour from Atlanta. It combines the breadth of a major public research university with a campus culture built as much around athletics, Greek life, and Athens's lively downtown music-and-arts scene as around the classroom. North Campus's historic quad, ringed by antebellum-era buildings and the wrought-iron Arch, sits within walking distance of a much larger modern research campus to the south, giving UGA both a traditional Southern-flagship feel and the scale of a school with dozens of graduate and professional programs.

Academics

Grady College gives UGA a strong national reputation in journalism and mass communication and administers the George Foster Peabody Awards, one of broadcasting's most prestigious honors. The school is equally well known for business through the Terry College, agriculture through its land-grant extension network across the state, and veterinary medicine. Its honors program layers smaller seminars, priority registration, and funded undergraduate research onto the large-university experience, and CURO, the campus's undergraduate research initiative, makes it genuinely easy for motivated students to land a lab or research post outside the sciences too. Study-abroad options at UGA's own Oxford and Cortona, Italy campuses are unusually well developed for a public flagship.

Campus & student life

Athens itself is inseparable from the UGA experience, a walkable college town whose indie-music pedigree (R.E.M. and the B-52's both got their start here) and downtown bar-and-venue scene give students a genuine city-adjacent culture without leaving campus. Football Saturdays between the hedges at Sanford Stadium are the defining campus ritual, complete with Uga the bulldog mascot and the Redcoat Band, and by tradition students avoid walking under the Arch on North Campus until graduation day. Greek life is large and visible, and a dense club and intramural scene fills out student life well beyond game days.

Getting in

Admission is holistic but competitive for a public flagship, weighing course rigor and extracurricular depth alongside grades and scores rather than a strict formula. Georgia residents make up the large majority of the class, though out-of-state interest has grown alongside the football program's recent national prominence. The honors program runs its own separate, more selective application track for students who want smaller seminars and research funding layered onto the larger university, and demonstrated interest in a specific college -- Terry, Grady, or Warnell among them -- can matter for competitive programs.

After graduation

UGA sends graduates heavily into Georgia and the broader Southeast in business, agriculture, journalism, and veterinary medicine, backed by an alumni network that is large, loyal, and especially concentrated in Atlanta's corporate and civic life. Grady's journalism and media pipeline and the veterinary school's regional reputation both open specific, well-worn career paths that few flagships can match, and Terry College graduates recruit heavily into Atlanta-based finance, consulting, and corporate roles.

Worth knowing

The veterinary school and Grady College's Peabody Awards give UGA a level of name recognition in specific fields that many larger flagships lack. Back-to-back national football championships have raised the program's national profile further and reshaped out-of-state application interest. Out-of-state students should know the culture leans heavily Georgia-rooted, with school pride, tailgating, and football woven tightly into everyday campus identity.

uga.edu ↗

Admissions

Acceptance rate37.7%

Enrolled mid-50%SAT 1270–1480 · ACT 29–34

Test policyrequired

Rec letters0

Deadlines (2026–27 cycle)

Early actionOct 15

Regular decisionJan 1

Verified from the school’s admissions page ↗

Applying (2026-27 cycle)

Apply through Common App.

Early Action is non-binding; supporting materials are due by October 29, two weeks after the October 15 application deadline.

Verified from the school’s admissions pages ↗