Students walk on UGA campus

UGA Brings Together Strong Students from Across State — and Beyond

The University of Georgia welcomed its class of 2029 to campus on Wednesday as 6,200 first-year students descended upon Athens for the first week of classes.

“We are excited to welcome the exceptional class of 2029 to the University of Georgia,” President Jere W. Morehead said in a UGA TODAY story.

Bryce Holder, Sydney Jarrard, Mollie Beth Johnson, KB Lake and Kris Wilhelm are journalism majors in Reporting II, and they spoke to first-year students about their admissions process.

 

With the opening week underway, the university released its annual class statistics, which paint the class of 2029 in a positive light. The average high school GPA for the incoming freshman class was 4.17, with an average ACT score of 31 and an average SAT score of 1356. The group also includes over 200 Georgia valedictorians and salutatorians.

The class of 2029 is one of the highest-achieving classes in UGA’s history, according to UGA, and a diverse group from nearly every state, 15 countries, and 142 of Georgia’s 159 counties.

Two UGA students stand together.
Kadence McIntyre and Addie Williams pose for a photo outside the Tate Student Center on Aug. 14, 2025. Students are returning to campus for the start of the fall semester, bringing energy and activity to central campus hubs. (Photo/Avery Ambrogio)

Addie Williams and Kadence McIntyre, both freshman biology majors from Jesup, Georgia, who attended Wayne County High School with a senior class of just over 300 students, said only nine of their classmates were accepted into UGA.

I wasn’t confident at all,” Williams said. “I had so many backup options.”

Williams added that her acceptance letter made her cry because she did not expect to get in. McIntyre joked that she didn’t even want to open her envelope. Both freshmen held high school GPAs over 4.0 and took the maximum amount of AP classes offered at their high school.

Jaydin Mercer, a freshman health promotion major who graduated from Walton High School in Marietta, Georgia, said her application experience was a bit different. She said she took nine AP classes and her GPA was around 4.0. 

“I felt pretty good about it,” Mercer said. “Everybody was trying to get in, so I knew that if I did get deferred, I would still probably get in.”

Lynsey Miller, Avery Ambrogio, Sebastian Baggett and Wiley Reed are journalism majors in Reporting II.

 

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