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How to Write the University of Georgia Essay 2024-2025

So you have decided to apply to the University of Georgia, where the only thing hotter than your ardor for the Georgia Bulldogs will be your animus toward the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and the Georgia summer heat.

While the school is well-known for its back-to-back football national championships, its campus also boasts a wide array of pre-professional career tracks into any one of its specialized colleges, such as the Terry College of Business, the College of Veterinary Medicine, or the School of Social Work. Whichever field of study you end up choosing, you’ll get all the excitement that comes from going to a large research university with almost 30,000 other undergraduates.

Of course, a large student body also means the University of Georgia receives a high number of applications. One of the best ways to help yourself stand out from the crowd is by crafting a strong supplemental essay, which is why we’re going to give you detailed guidance on how to tackle this year’s UGA prompt.

Read this University of Georgia essay example to inspire your own writing.

University of Georgia Supplemental Essay Prompt

The transition from middle to high school is a key time for students as they reach new levels of both academic and personal discovery. please share a book (novel, non-fiction, etc.) that had a serious impact on you during this time. please focus more on why this book made an impact on you and less on the plot/theme of the book itself (we are not looking for a book report)., we are not restricting you to the exact years of 8th-9th grades, but rather the general timeframe of the middle to high school transition, which can extend somewhat further than one year on each end. feel free to use your discretion in your choice of the timeline focused on the shift to your high school years. (200-350 words).

This prompt may have caused you to do a double take. What? An essay about a middle school book? Don’t worry, the admissions committee isn’t trying to trick you. You are actually allowed to write about a book that impacted your transition from your tweens to your teens.

The motivation behind asking this question is to see how you approach and handle large changes. The transition from middle school to high school is a turbulent time that in many ways mirrors the transition from high school to college—increased responsibility, new friendships, more academic challenges, finding yourself, etc. Although you are framing your development through the lens of a book, the real core of your essay is about the challenges you faced and how you handled them.

As you start brainstorming your essay, there are two routes you can take.

Pick a book first and tie it back to your life.
Pick a challenge in your life and find a book that relates to it.

Either approach is valid, it simply depends on what stands out to you more. If you had a book you were in love with that deeply resonated with you when you were 13 or 14, pick that! Think about what drew you to the book. Did the main character experience a challenge similar to you at the time? Did you find parallels to reality in the social commentary? Was there a prevalent theme that inspired you? Asking yourself these questions can help you recall what was so monumental about the book so you can draw a connection to yourself.

It’s also okay to not have any book immediately jump out at you. In that case, you can start by thinking about yourself during that time frame and ask yourself what big changes or challenges you faced. Maybe you struggled to maintain old friendships when you moved to a bigger school. Maybe you became self conscious about your looks and struggled with confidence. Maybe you found a passion for a particular extracurricular activity. Once you pick something important, you can think about books you read that relate to your experience in some way.

Before we get any further, it’s important to remind you to pick a book you actually read . The prompt isn’t asking for the most impressive book you’ve ever read, so don’t pull out War and Peace just because you think it will make you sound sophisticated. The book you pick should reflect what you read as a 13 year old (give or take a few years), so there’s no penalty for choosing Divergent or a young adult romance book.

When you have both your book and your connection to yourself, you need to ask yourself what role the book played in your development. For some students, it might be that they saw themselves in the main character and drew strength from their actions to act more courageously towards the challenges in their life. For other students, maybe there was a central theme like not belonging that resonated with them and made them feel like they weren’t alone when they read, despite feeling that way at school. Maybe some students were spurred to change their actions upon reading a negative depiction of a character.

The connection you have to the book should be extremely personal. One hundred students could pick The Outsiders , but every student could have a different explanation for why that book helped them through their transition. Describing your unique connection to the book and the impact it had on you is the most important part of this essay, so make sure you go into as much detail as possible.

If you are unsure whether or not your essay explains the impact of the book on your life well enough, you can always use an anecdote to highlight the point you are trying to make. You can also use creative writing to your advantage and write your essay as if you were in the book. Just be careful not to get so creative that you take away from the heart of your essay!

At the end of the day, this should be one of the more fun supplemental essays you get to write. You don’t have to worry about selling yourself as a talented high school student; you are allowed to be young and yourself in this essay. Your book and its impact can be as deep as you want or more on the lighthearted side. Don’t overthink it!

Where to Get Your University of Georgia Essay Edited For Free

Do you want feedback on your University of Georgia essay? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

Need feedback faster? Get a free, nearly-instantaneous essay review from Sage, our AI tutor and advisor. Sage will rate your essay, give you suggestions for improvement, and summarize what admissions officers would take away from your writing. Use these tools to improve your chances of acceptance to your dream school!

University of Georgia (UGA) 2024-25 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

Regular Decision Deadline: Jan 1

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University of Georgia 2024-25 Application Essay Question Explanations

The Requirements: 1 essays of 200-300 words

Supplemental Essay Type(s): Oddball

T he transition from middle to high school is a key time for students as they reach new levels of both academic and personal discovery. Please share a book (novel, non-fiction, etc.) that had a serious impact on you during this time. Please focus more on why this book made an impact on you and less on the plot/theme of the book itself (we are not looking for a book report).” (200-300 words)

This prompt asks you to discuss a book that made a big impression on you as you navigated the transition from middle to high school. At CEA, we always recommend that you choose an unexpected work in order to stand out from the pack, but ultimately, you should aim for authenticity rather than uniqueness. If Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was the book you turned to in the beginning of freshman year, where you found not only fantastical escape, but also an accurate reflection of the struggles of fitting in (even if you weren’t the “chosen one”), then write about that! But a word of warning if you choose a more commonly read book such as those from the Wizarding World: your essay has to go above and beyond if it has any chance of making an impression on the admissions department at UGA.

If, however, there is another less-mainstream book that struck a chord with you, we encourage you to select that one to elaborate upon. No matter your choice, as you contemplate the prompt, ask yourself: Which characters have inspired you? Which plotlines have stayed with you long after you closed the book? How did you apply what you took from the story to your own life?

Regardless of the book you choose, try to give yourself as much time as possible to reflect on its impact and the role it played in helping you navigate your introduction to high school. As always, it’s your job to tell admissions a story, one that reveals information about who you are, what you care about, and/or what inspires you.

About Kat Stubing

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What to expect when Applying

david graves july 29th, 2024 in blog.

Senior year of high school is about to start, and UGA is on the list of schools you are considering. But what now? How do you make sure you are giving us the information we want, and how will UGA review your file? Over the last 15 years, I have shared a great deal of advice about the UGA Admissions process. For this admissions post, I will try to pull together some of the highlights that can hopefully be a resource for your admissions journey. Treat this as a form of my admissions greatest hits.

a review of your academic work over the past 3 years, focusing mainly on core grades but also the required SAT/ACT scores.
an analysis of how you have challenged yourself in your core HS classes (including senior year), with an added focus on your academic area of interest.
a look at your activities and involvement during your HS years in clubs, sports, activities, etc., with a focus on depth over breadth.
an understanding of your writing and creativity through your essays, but also through different creative outlets (music, robotics, debate, dance, etc.).
an examination of your work ethic and maturity in and out of the classroom through all areas of the application, including recommendations.
a review of your respect for others through your volunteer work, your interaction with others, and your areas of involvement.
FYI – We are not restricting you to the exact years of 8th-9th grades, but rather the general timeframe of the middle to high school transition, which can extend somewhat further than one year on each end. Feel free to use your discretion in your choice of the timeline focused on the shift to your high school years.
It seems like every high school has their own way of calculating a GPA, and there are hundreds of different grading scales out there. As such, UGA calculates our own UGA GPA that we reference in all the data points we share.
We are only looking at core courses/grades (so English, Math, Science, Social Science and World Language work).
We only add weight for AP, IB or AICE grades, as these are internationally standardized.
We do look at all courses, including honors, dual enrollment, etc. in our review of a student’s course rigor, and we do look at senior courses in this review.

We do not use Demonstrated Interest. If you apply, I assume you’re interested in UGA. That’s it for demonstrated interest by us.
EA vs RD as a factor in the decision. We treat Early Action and Regular Decision applicants the same, just with different timeframes. If you are comfortable applying EA, apply EA. If you want more time, later test scores, etc., apply RD.
UGA does not use race, ethnicity, gender or legacy status in our review (we haven’t for 30 or so years).
We do not limit admission offers based on a specific high school, county, or geographic area (we do use GA residency in our review though).
We do not make decisions based on your intended major. We do not have limits on the number of “X” majors we can admit, especially since enrolling students can change their major prior to orientation.
For Early Action (EA) applicants, In-State students will hear in late November, and Out-of-State students will hear in early December (more exact details will be released closer to these dates).
For Regular Decision and EA deferred applicants, the Final Decision date will be in early to mid-March.
Admission decisions are released on a student’s admission status page, and they are released on Friday afternoons at 4 pm ET.
Merit scholarship offers will be released starting in December or early January and going through early April.