Freshman Class, Law & Vet Med Set Records for Diversity
October 20, 2011
UGA enrolled the largest freshman class in history this fall. According to data from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, the class includes some 5,500 freshmen – an increase of more than 10 percent over last year.
With more than 1,400 of the entering freshmen self-identifying as other than Caucasian, the ethnic and racial makeup of the entering class shows record diversity.
More than 480 first-year African-American students are enrolled (8.7 percent of the class). The previous high for entering freshmen was 440 in 1995. The first-year class also includes a record number of Hispanic students, with 300 self-identified as Hispanic (5.4 per cent of the class).
About 12 percent of the class comes from other states and countries, with 223 of the incoming freshmen representing 51 different home countries. Almost 7 percent come from families where English is not the native language and approximately 5 percent of the incoming freshmen are the first in their immediate family to attend college.
Close to 4,900 of the freshmen are in-state students. Based on the projected number of high school graduates in Georgia in 2011, one in 20 are enrolled this year at UGA.
The entering freshmen once again have a strong GPA of almost 3.8. The SAT average was 1860 on the 2400 scale. For those students who took the ACT, the mean score was 28. The number of applications received for this year’s freshman class—nearly 18,000—is one of the highest recorded at UGA for a new class, following several years of record applications.
UGA’s School of Law also enrolled one of the most academically talented and diverse classes in its history. The 225 students in the Class of 2014 had a median Law School Admission Test score of 165, a school record. Almost 30 percent of the entering class indicated they are members of a minority group, another record. Additionally, 18 percent of the entering class in the College of Veterinary Medicine are underrepresented minorities.