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With a new focus on academics, the times seem to be changing.
Has the high life been quelled, or is it just changing direction?
T he University of Georgia has always loved a good party.
Occasionally, people have noticed.
BACA iN THE ’10S
There was a time in the late 70s when producers of the
movie National Lampoon's Animal House requested to fiim on
the UGA campus. Their request was denied by school offi
cials who didn't want to draw attention to the school’s domi
nating social atmosphere.
Barry Wood, public relations director at UGA at the time,
remembers being approached by the film’s producers. Wood,
who. along with his colleagues, denied filming on the basis
that the script was “a sad commentary on public taste,"
maintains now that UGA wasn’t really a party school then.
The real cinematic draw to the campus was the architecture.
“Now, the university had nothing to do with the theme of
Animal House," Wood clarifies. “They just needed classic-
type buildings, which abound at the university. And from the
script it was obvious there was no benefit to the university."
At least one Athens resident who came to town for the
parties in the late 70s and attended UGA in the early ‘80s
(and who preferred to speak anonymously), remembers the
campus as the perfect setting for a Belushian romp.
“When I was in school, there were no bars," the music/art
scene veteran told Flagpole. “You couldn’t pay money to
have your entertainment pre-packaged. You had to have
house parties. My friends and 1 would drive onto the frat
house lawns, and go inside, and scavenge food, alcohol, toi
let paper, load it till up and drive off. They’d be too drunk to
move and just stare at us."
“We had tons of drugs, but no one was stupid, no one was
O.D.ing. That’s because it wasn’t some sort of weekend
thing; it was an every-day commitment, a way of life."
AiSiN0 STANDARDS
Has the University of Georgia abandoned its party heart
for loftier academic goals? Statistically, it would seem so.
While some students may succeed in pulling off a hardy regi
men of partying and studying with remarkable academic
results, the profile of UGA’s 1998 incoming freshman class
suggests that they are attracted by the promise of an educa
tion. This year’s freshmen possess higher SAT scores and
high school GPAs than predecessors. In fact, in the past few
years, a steady incline of statistically-based school smarts
has appeared. From 1992 to 1996, the average high school
GPA of incoming freshman has steadily riser, from a 2.59 to a
2.88. This year, the average incoming freshman will hold a
high school GPA of 3.6 for college prep courses and an SAT
score somewhere between 1100 and 1200, according to UGA
Undergraduate Admissions.
The university has been straying from its party image to
one of more serious scholasticism, engaging in a heavy
emphasis on academics implemented during the years
Charles Knapp was president (1987-1997). Prompted by an
overwhelming response to Georgia’s HOPE scholarship —
which, instituted under Knapp in 1993, pays for a student’s
tuition and books provided he or she maintains a B average
— UGA has been forced to become more selective.
Prospective UGA students outnumber the actual space allot
ted to physical bodies on campus.
“Because of the HOPE scholarship,” says Nancy McDuff,
director of undergraduate admissions, “the demand to
attend UGA rose in the early ‘90s. And the quality of the
applicant pool [13,000 applicants for almost 4,300 spots in
1998] is getting stronger and more competitive.”
In deciding on admissions, the university compares appli
cants’ profiles and chooses the best from among the candi
dates. UGA does not publish minimum GPA or SAT score
requirements. “If we published those minimjm require
ments, people might assume, ‘Oh, if l have that, 1 can get in,’
which isn’t true,” McDuff says. “It’s a very different admis
sions process than it was 10 years ago. Now, there are three
to four freshman applications for every available seat.”
Selectivity is necessary to combat increasing population.
By the year 2008, according to information provided by
Albright, the number of graduating high school students in
Georgia — who compose almost 90 percent of UGA freshmen
— will have increased by 33 percent, an amount that the uni
versity will not be able to accommodate.
NATIONAL P&omiNENCE
It has become more difficult to get in. But that alone does
n’t mean UGA doesn’t get noticed nationally for its students’
tendency to get down. For years, Georgia made appearances
in Playboy magazine’s ranking of the nation’s top 40 party
colleges. The last year Playboy performed the ranking, in
1987, UGA placed 36th. (The magazine has since replaced its
party school list with a “top college bar list": UGA was repre
sented in the 1997 list by way of Lowery’s Tavern — now the
Armadillo — downtown.)
These days, it’s the Princeton Review that ranks the coun
try’s top party schools — UGA made the Top 20 in 1997. It
was ranked 19th, trailing behind sixth-ranked Emory
University and No. 1 party school West Virginia University.
(The list is based on polled students’ consumption of beer
and hard alcohol, soft and hard drugs, the hourly amount of
studying per day, and the popularity of the Greek system.)
Lately, however, the university is also making appear
ances on academically esteemed lists. Kiplinger's magazine
rates UGA as one of the 20 best public universities on a “best
buy" poll, based on quality of education and low tuition.
Money magazine’s 1998 “Best College Buys” also included
UGA as one of its nine “unbeatable deals” nationwide. This
year, US. News and World Report placed four of UGA’s gradu
ate programs in the top tier of national institutions, putting
the College of Education in first place, tied with the
University of Virginia among public universities in South.
UGA also placed 26th in U.S. News and World Report’s 12th
annual “America’s Best Colleges" guidebook.
H FLAGPOLE AUGUST 26, 1998
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Photography by Christine Harness