Several Georgia colleges and universities are temporarily allowing prospective first-year students to bypass submitting results from the ACT or SAT if they have a sufficient grade-point average and meet other criteria as part of their admissions application.
The University System of Georgia has approved the changes for various schools due to the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, outbreak. The organizations that administer the exams, used by most U.S. colleges and universities as part of the application process to determine student proficiency, have been postponed due to the pandemic. There have been 25 deaths and more than 750 confirmed cases in Georgia, state officials said Monday.
Prospective first-year students must meet all other admission requirements, including satisfactory completion of the Required High School Curriculum and all other requested documentation.
Some of the system’s research universities are allowed to make the changes for prospective students, but they must have a high school grade-point average greater than a 3.0, according to a system memo. The memo says the changes do not apply to prospective University of Georgia and Georgia Tech students since those schools have already admitted their freshmen classes, and have students on waiting lists.
Students must have a high school grade-point average greater than a 2.31 who want to attend the system’s comprehensive colleges and universities, such as Georgia Southern. More than 16,000 students have applied to be first-year students to Georgia Southern, which has the highest enrollment of any college or university south of metro Atlanta.
“This is yet another way Georgia Southern is adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the university said Saturday in a news release.
Kennesaw State University is also making the change, which will apply to the summer and fall semesters.
KSU President Pamela Whitten said in a press release Monday: “This is a time for implementing flexible solutions to ensure that incoming college students are not harmed by the inability to take SAT/ACT tests. We are confident that our incoming summer and fall classes will be well prepared to meet the academic opportunities available at Kennesaw State.”
Students must have a high school grade-point average exceeding a 2.0 applying to the system’s nine state colleges and nine state universities, the memo said.
A student who has ACT or SAT scores is still free to submit them and the college or university should feel free to utilize those scores to decide admission, the memo says.
About the Author
