The state of Georgia will soon mail letters to its 120,000 high school seniors informing them which public colleges and universities in the state they’re eligible to be admitted to if they apply.
The program, dubbed GEORGIA MATCH, is one of the largest state-run direct admissions initiatives in the nation, according to a release from the office of Governor Brian Kemp, who announced the program at a workforce summit on Thursday in Atlanta. According to the release, no other state in the country currently has a direct admissions initiative of this scope and scale.
“GEORGIA MATCH is a great example of the historic success we can achieve when stakeholders across the education spectrum work together,” said Kemp. “This program will ensure that every high school student in our state knows they have options to learn and succeed here in the No. 1 state for business.”
Like with other direct admissions programs, Georgia is hoping that by informing students of their eligibility to be admitted without requiring them to first go through a lengthy admissions process, it can boost college enrollments and perhaps increase student diversity as well. It seeks to reduce some of the complexity of the application by being proactive – flipping the normal application-admissions sequence, something like receiving notice of a pre-approved mortgage.
Under the program, which is a collaborative effort by several state agencies, seniors will receive a personalized letter from Governor Kemp listing the public technical institutions, colleges and universities to which they could be directly admitted, based on high school grades Georgia already collects to administer its HOPE Scholarship program.
All students will receive a letter of eligibility for admission to the twenty-two Technical College System of Georgia institutions, and those students with higher GPAs will also see offers of admission at up to twenty-three University System of Georgia institutions. The letters will inform students of the next steps they need to take to claim a spot at a college on their individual lists.
Three of Georgia’s public institutions are not participating in the direct admissions program – the University of Georgia, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia College and State University – all of which base their admission decisions on additional factors.
Participating institutions will waive application fees for students during November 2023 for students who apply through GEORGIA MATCH. Students may view their personalized MATCH list, request more information, and claim their spot at gafutures.org/GEORGIAMATCH.
Idaho was one of the first states to introduce a direct college admissions program, rolling it out in 2015. Initial evaluations showed it resulted in an undergraduate enrollment increase of more than 8% and raised in-state student enrollment by almost 12%.
Now other states and private companies have jumped into the direct admissions business, including the Common Application (Common App), which has piloted a direct admissions program since 2021, SAGE Scholars’ FastTrak program, Niche, and the state of Minnesota, where over 50 colleges and universities take part in that state’s version of a direct admissions program.
How big an impact can direct admissions have on actual college enrollment? Is it a game-changer or just an eye-catching gimmick?
A recent large-scale study suggests that direct admissions can boost applications, but, by itself, has a negligible effect on enrollment, which is influenced by several other factors, notably the cost of attending college. And we still don’t know how students who enroll through direct admissions perform academically once they are in college. That’s one of the key questions to be answered, and the size of Georgia’s effort makes it an ideal candidate to evaluate the multiple components and effects of a direct admissions policy.
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