How to Get Into the University of Georgia School of Medicine: The Definitive Guide (2026-2027)

The University of Georgia School of Medicine is Georgia’s second public medical school and its newest MD program. It is based on UGA’s Health Sciences Campus on Prince Avenue in Athens, in the historic Normaltown district. The University System of Georgia Board of Regents authorized the school in February 2024, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education granted it preliminary accreditation on February 13, 2026, and the inaugural Class of 2030 began classes in July 2026 with 64 students.

The school grew out of the AU/UGA Medical Partnership, a Medical College of Georgia campus that has trained physicians in Athens since 2010. That history matters, because a lot of older advice about “applying to Athens through MCG” no longer applies. The UGA School of Medicine now has its own AMCAS listing, its own secondary application, its own admissions committee and its own MD degree.

This guide is for applicants in the 2026-2027 application cycle, which fills the class that begins classes on August 2, 2027. It covers what the school is built to do, how its curriculum works, what it costs, who leads it, how admissions works step by step, and how to answer every current secondary question. Every figure is labeled with its year or cohort, and facts were checked against official sources on October 18, 2026.

Some things have not changed since the Partnership years. The program is still small, it still teaches through small-group cases, it still puts students in community clinics early and it still trains them across Northeast Georgia. Other things are new: a mission written for an independent school, six curricular threads, a five-region structure that sends every student to a rural clerkship, and two pathway programs for UGA undergraduates. Knowing which is which will help you write an application that fits the school as it is in 2026, not as it was described a few years ago.

Key Takeaways

• It is now a separate school. You apply to the University of Georgia School of Medicine directly through AMCAS and complete UGA’s own secondary. The Medical College of Georgia campus in Athens is finishing its last classes and no longer takes new students through a campus preference.
• Accreditation is real and still progressing. The LCME granted preliminary accreditation in February 2026. Programs are considered accredited from that step. The next LCME survey is scheduled for 2027-28, with provisional and then full accreditation to follow as the first class advances.
• Georgia comes first, but not only Georgia. The school prioritizes Georgia residents and applicants with a defined tie to the state. It accepts out-of-state applicants who show strong mission alignment; competitive nonresidents typically present an MCAT of 511 or higher. Only U.S. citizens and permanent residents are considered.
• The first class was academically strong. The inaugural Class of 2030 averaged a 514 MCAT and a 3.85 GPA, and 95% were Georgia residents.
• Deadlines come early. For the 2027 entering class, the Regular Decision AMCAS deadline is October 15, 2026 and all materials are due November 15, 2026. The Early Decision AMCAS deadline was August 3, 2026.
• Cost is public-school cost. Annual tuition is $30,048 for Georgia residents and $63,912 for nonresidents. The first-year cost of attendance, including living expenses, is $61,604 for residents and $96,098 for nonresidents.
• Training is small-group, early clinical and statewide. Students learn through cases in groups of seven to eight, serve patients at Athens Free Clinic sites from the first weeks, belong to one of five regional Houses and complete a rural clerkship in Southwest or Southeast Georgia.
• Next step: if your BCPM GPA is 3.0 or higher and your MCAT is 502 or higher, plan your secondary now. The four required essays and the reapplicant essay are 300 words each, and full examples are below.

Key Statistics About the University of Georgia School of Medicine

The snapshot below collects the numbers applicants ask about first. Class figures describe the inaugural Class of 2030, which entered in July 2026 and is the only class profile the school has published. National admissions data currently covers the 2025 entering class, a year before the school enrolled students, so no medians, percentile ranges or offer counts exist yet. Cost figures are the current posted budget, which matches the 2026-27 University System of Georgia MD tuition rate. The table that follows gives the cohort and source of every figure.

Two cautions help when you read these numbers. First, they describe one class admitted through an unusual cycle. The first application window opened only after preliminary accreditation in February 2026 and ran for about two weeks, so the 2026-2027 cycle, with a normal AMCAS timeline, will be the first full-length cycle. Second, the MCAT and GPA figures are averages for students who enrolled. They are not cutoffs. The published minimums for receiving a secondary are a 3.0 BCPM GPA and a 502 MCAT, and the school encourages Early Decision only for applicants at about 512 and 3.7 or higher.

For context on how UGA compares with other programs, see our list of average GPA and MCAT scores by medical school.

Mission and Educational Priorities

The school’s mission is short and specific: “To educate excellent physicians, to pursue new knowledge, and to advance the health of our communities, Georgia, and beyond.”

Its vision describes four aims: to be a leader in innovative medical education that yields a diverse workforce valuing excellence and lifelong learning; a trusted healthcare partner addressing Georgia’s unmet health needs; a collaborative research nexus; and a welcoming and supportive environment for students, faculty and staff. Its six values are Respect, Teamwork, Integrity, Commitment, Curiosity and Courage. Those six words matter for applicants, because the school asks letter writers to assess your alignment with them.

To educate excellent physicians: the workforce problem

The school exists because Georgia does not train or keep enough doctors. Georgia ranks 39th in the nation in active patient care physicians per capita and 41st in public medical students per capita, and ten Georgia counties have no physicians at all. UGA founded the school to expand in-state medical education, increase the number of doctors in the state, strengthen the physician workforce and improve access to care in medically underserved communities.

What this means for you: the admissions committee is building classes of future Georgia physicians. Dean Shelley Nuss has described the inaugural students as having chosen “a mission to expand access to care and strengthen the physician workforce across our state.” Applicants who can show a real, specific connection to Georgia’s health needs, and some evidence that they will practice where they are needed, fit that purpose. A general wish to help people does not distinguish you here.

To pursue new knowledge: research inside a flagship university

UGA is a land-grant and sea-grant research university with $654 million in research and development spending in fiscal year 2025, and it ranks first among U.S. universities for new products brought to market. The medical school’s own research enterprise is new. It is led by a research center director recruited as a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and an associate dean for research, and it emphasizes translational work that moves discoveries from the lab toward patients.

UGA also brings something few medical schools have nearby. With the School of Medicine, UGA became one of 13 universities in the nation with schools of veterinary medicine, human medicine and agriculture on one campus. The university’s Precision One Health Initiative builds on that mix. One Health is the idea that the health of people, animals, plants and the environment is linked, and UGA’s initiative organizes research in four areas: translational medicine, systems modeling and data analytics, epidemiology and disease ecology, and social sciences and medicine.

What this means for you: One Health is a research strength of the university around the medical school, not a formal admissions requirement. Infectious and zoonotic disease is one of the nine Georgia health challenges students study, alongside cardiovascular disease, diabetes and metabolic disease, cancer, maternal and infant mortality, mental and cognitive health, trauma, healthcare workforce shortage and respiratory health. If you have done work in public health, environmental health, agriculture, veterinary settings or food security, it belongs in your application. Explain what it taught you about patients, not just what it taught you about science.

To advance the health of our communities: service built into the curriculum

Service at UGA is a graded requirement, not an extracurricular. Community and Population Health is a must-pass component in which first- and second-year students care for patients at Athens Free Clinic sites under faculty physician supervision and complete a community research or advocacy project. A curricular thread called Serving Georgia and Beyond runs through all four years. Every student is assigned to one of Georgia’s five regions for a four-year capstone that identifies a real healthcare gap with community partners.

What this means for you: sustained service with a community, especially one with barriers to care, is directly relevant to what you will do in your first semester. The school’s FAQ names “observable commitment to service” as part of what makes a competitive applicant.

Accreditation and Institutional Identity

The University of Georgia School of Medicine is accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), the accrediting body for U.S. programs leading to the MD degree. The LCME granted the school preliminary accreditation on February 13, 2026, after a review of its policies, educational program and facilities that included an on-site survey in September 2025. The school is listed on the LCME Directory of Accredited Programs as “Preliminary,” initial year 2026, with its next survey in 2027-28.

What the accreditation stages mean

New medical schools move through three LCME steps:

1. Preliminary accreditation. This allows a school to recruit and admit its first class. Under LCME rules, programs are considered accredited beginning with preliminary accreditation and have the rights of that designation.
2. Provisional accreditation. The review typically happens when the first class is in its second year. The school lists its next review for January 2028, and the LCME directory lists the next survey year as 2027-28.
3. Full accreditation. The review typically happens when the first class is in its final year. Initial full accreditation lasts five years, and later surveys normally follow an eight-year cycle.

LCME accreditation is what makes graduates eligible for the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination and for residency programs. Accreditation is a standards review, not a ranking or a guarantee of outcomes, and the school will continue to be assessed as its first class advances.

What happened to the Athens campus of MCG

From 2010 until 2026, medical students in Athens were enrolled at the Medical College of Georgia through the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership, which was the longest-serving medical partnership of its kind in the United States when UGA announced its own school. Those students earned MCG degrees. The Partnership is now closing as its remaining MCG students finish; Dean Nuss still serves as its campus dean, and those roles end when the Partnership closes.

For applicants, the distinction is simple. If you want to train in Athens, apply to the University of Georgia School of Medicine. If you want MCG, apply to MCG, which has its own campuses in Augusta and Savannah and its own regional clinical campuses. They are separate schools with separate applications. Georgia applicants can apply to both, along with the other medical schools in Georgia.

If you are building clinical hours as you decide where to apply, our pre-health internships page explains what supervised international clinical work looks like.

Medical Programs and Affiliations

Doctor of Medicine (MD)

The MD is a four-year program taught in Athens, with clerkships across Georgia. The inaugural class has 64 students. When UGA broke ground on the new Medical Education and Research Building in April 2024, it described the building as giving the school capacity to grow from 60 students per class to 120 in the future. That is a long-term capacity figure, not a target for the 2027 class.

The program is designed for students who may enter any specialty. The clerkship curriculum is planned to prepare graduates for rural medicine, primary care, competitive residency programs and subspecialty training, and the Office of Student Affairs advises students across all specialties, including the most competitive.

Early Decision Program

Early Decision is for applicants who have identified UGA as their clear first choice. EDP applicants apply and interview early and receive a decision before the regular process begins. If you are accepted, you commit to enroll at UGA and may not apply to other medical schools. There is no formal cutoff beyond the secondary screen, but the school encourages EDP applicants to have an MCAT of 512 or higher and a BCPM GPA of 3.7 or higher. The last MCAT accepted for EDP in this cycle was the July 11, 2026 test date. Out-of-state applicants may use EDP but should be highly competitive and strongly aligned with the mission.

Pathway programs for UGA undergraduates

The school runs two pre-admission programs. Applications for both open in May, and the 2026 deadline was August 21, with interviews in September.

Georgia Grown Physicians. This is a two-year early assurance program for Georgia residents who graduated from a Georgia high school in an Archway Community and who are committed to serving rural and underserved Georgia. Applicants need sophomore standing with two years of college remaining, a full year of college biology and chemistry with labs, a college GPA of 3.5 or higher and a BCPM GPA of 3.3 or higher, plus an ACT or SAT composite of 24 or higher or a high school GPA of 3.5 or higher. Up to five students are chosen each year. Students receive mentoring from physicians with similar hometown backgrounds and about 100 shadowing hours near home. To keep assured admission, students must earn a degree, complete the prerequisites, keep an overall GPA and science GPA of 3.5 or higher, score 506 or higher on the MCAT, complete program requirements and submit an early assurance AMCAS application to UGA only. Not being selected does not count against a later regular application.

Dawgs to Docs. This is a one-year pathway for current UGA varsity student-athletes. It offers mentoring, clinical exposure and academic support built around athletic schedules, and the opportunity to be a competitive applicant to the School of Medicine after completing program requirements. Eligibility includes a college GPA of 3.5 or higher, a BCPM GPA of 3.3 or higher and a demonstrated intention to practice in Georgia. Up to five student-athletes are chosen each year.

Both programs use the school’s Multiple Mini Interview format. Students in these programs, or anyone weighing medical internships for undergraduates during the college years, should plan clinical exposure that fits around coursework and, for athletes, training seasons.

Dual degrees and research options

The school does not yet offer dual degrees. It is exploring an MD/MPH and an MD/MBA. Under the planned model, students would apply to the second program at the end of the second year or start of the third, take a leave after third year to complete the second degree and return for the fourth year of the MD. The school does not list an MD/PhD program.

Students who want more research can take a research year between the third and fourth years, join the Medical Student Scholars Program in the summer after first year, or use resources of the Georgia Clinical and Translational Science Alliance, including its Master of Science in Clinical Research for pre-doctoral students.

Clinical affiliates

The school lists twelve clinical affiliates: Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Crisp Regional Hospital, Elbert Memorial Hospital, Landmark Hospital of Athens, Northeast Georgia Health System, Northside Hospital, Piedmont Healthcare, Ridgeview Institute of Monroe, Shepherd Center, St. Mary’s Health Care System, Stephens County Hospital and Union General Health System. The clinical rotations section below explains how students rotate through them.

Curriculum Overview

The curriculum combines small-group, case-based learning with early clinical work, and it is built around the health of Georgia’s communities. Students learn foundational science and clinical reasoning together, begin clinical skills in their first week and serve patients in community clinics within the first few weeks.

Small group learning: the core method

Small group learning is the main teaching method in the first two years. Students work in groups of seven to eight with both a basic science facilitator and a clinical facilitator. Each week’s case is revealed in segments, so students identify what they do not know, research it, apply it to the next part of the case and build clinical reasoning as a team. In the first year, groups usually work one case per week; in the second year, two. Attendance is required, preparation is expected, and faculty assess each student’s contribution to the group as part of the course grade.

Large-group sessions, including lectures, workshops, team-based learning and flipped classrooms, support the cases rather than replace them. A typical pre-clerkship week has 20 to 32 scheduled hours, of which 14 to 18 are required, and includes small groups, anatomy lab, clinical skills, Community and Population Health clinics, self-paced activities and a weekly quiz.

Years 1 and 2: integrated organ-system courses

The first year teaches normal structure and function in a clinical context. The second year teaches pathophysiology, diagnosis and management.

Anatomy runs through these courses, with team-based dissection of a human body donor, imaging, models and clinical correlation sessions. Students also learn in a simulation center and through standardized patients, trained actors who portray patient scenarios.

Clinical Skills

Clinical Skills is a must-pass, longitudinal component that starts in the first week. First-year students learn history-taking, communication, motivational interviewing and physical examination in groups of four with one preceptor. Second-year students add hospital encounters with real patients and write history and physical notes. Students also learn basic procedures under supervision and point-of-care ultrasound. Must-pass Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) at the end of years 1 and 2 are required to advance.

Community and Population Health

Community and Population Health (CPH) is the component most tied to the school’s mission. Classroom sessions cover listening and communication, social and structural determinants of health, adverse childhood experiences, trauma-informed care, health disparities, climate and health, and community-engaged research and advocacy. In clinic, students work in teams led by physician faculty at one of 12 community-based sites of the Athens Free Clinic, completing seven to eight half-day clinics each year at an assigned longitudinal site. First-year teams design a community research or advocacy project and seek IRB approval if needed; second-year teams carry it out and present a scholarly poster. Students must pass the CPH portfolio to advance.

Six curricular threads

Six threads run across all four years, each led by a faculty thread leader:

1. Evidence-Based Medicine
2. Ethics, Professionalism and Professional Identity Formation
3. Systems-Based Practice
4. Technology in Medicine, including digital tools, health information systems and artificial intelligence used thoughtfully and ethically
5. Team-Based Healthcare, including interprofessional education
6. Serving Georgia and Beyond

Grading and Step 1

Pre-clerkship courses are graded Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory, with an internal Honors designation that is reported in the Medical Student Performance Evaluation and used for honor society selection. Grading is criterion-based, not on a curve. Course grades come from weekly quizzes, final exams, small group assessments, anatomy practicals, clinical skills assessments and assignments. Students must pass USMLE Step 1 to start the third year, and the end of the second year includes a dedicated six-week study period, two practice Comprehensive Basic Science Examinations and support from the Academic Success Program.

Years 3 and 4

The third year includes required clerkships in internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, family medicine, neurology and pediatrics, plus a planned four- to six-week rural clerkship at a partner in Southwest or Southeast Georgia and time for career exploration electives. In the fourth year, students take USMLE Step 2 CK, complete required rotations, take electives in their chosen specialty, apply for residency and finish with a capstone course that prepares them for internship. Clerkships are graded A, B, C or F, which the MSPE reports as Honors, Near Honors, Satisfactory and Unsatisfactory, and each clerkship includes an NBME subject exam. There are must-pass OSCEs in year 3.

The clerkship and fourth-year curriculum is still being finalized for the first class, which reaches its clerkships in 2028. Applicants should expect details such as rotation lengths and sites to be confirmed as agreements are completed.

Admissions Requirements and Application Process

How you apply

All applicants apply through AMCAS, choosing the University of Georgia School of Medicine as a separate school. After AMCAS delivers your primary application, the school screens it. Applicants with a BCPM (biology, chemistry, physics and math) GPA of 3.0 or higher and an MCAT of 502 or higher are invited to complete the UGA secondary application, which costs $75 unless you have an AAMC fee waiver. If your undergraduate BCPM GPA is below 3.0, the school will consider a graduate BCPM GPA of 3.0 or higher with at least 15 hours of completed graduate BCPM coursework. If you are new to the primary application, our AMCAS application guide walks through each section.

A complete file includes:

• the AMCAS application
• the UGA secondary application and fee (or fee waiver)
• an MCAT score from within the past three years
• three to five letters of recommendation
• proof of permanent residency, if you are not a U.S. citizen
• completion, or imminent completion before matriculation, of a bachelor’s degree and the required prerequisites

The secondary also collects verification of lawful presence, which all admitted applicants must provide under University System of Georgia policy. When your file is complete, the Office of Admissions and the Admissions Committee review it and decide whether to invite you to interview.

Who is eligible

Citizenship. Only U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents are considered for the MD program. Applicants who are not citizens must upload proof of permanent residency, such as a copy of a green card, on the secondary.

Residency and ties to Georgia. As a state medical school, UGA prioritizes Georgia residents and applicants with a tie to Georgia. A nonresident is considered to have a tie to Georgia if any of these is true:

• you graduated, or will graduate, from a Georgia four-year college or university
• you currently live and work in Georgia
• a parent or guardian lives in Georgia
• you graduated from a Georgia high school

Out-of-state applicants without a tie are welcome if they are strongly aligned with the mission. Competitive nonresidents typically present an MCAT of 511 or higher, strong academics, meaningful experiences and a demonstrated commitment to the mission. In the inaugural class, 95% of students were Georgia residents.

Coursework location. All prerequisite coursework must be completed at a regionally accredited institution in the United States or Canada. International coursework does not count toward prerequisites unless it was accepted as transfer credit and appears on a U.S. or Canadian transcript. A bachelor’s degree is required before you start.

Required prerequisites

One academic year means two semesters or three quarters. Advanced Placement credit, pass/fail and credit/no credit courses are accepted if your undergraduate institution granted the credit. Online courses are accepted, but in-person courses are strongly recommended.

The school also recommends anatomy and physiology, biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, immunology, microbiology, a social science such as psychology and a foreign language, with Spanish highly recommended. If you want to build Spanish-language clinical skills before medical school, a supervised medical internship in Peru is one option to compare with local volunteer interpreting.

Tests

The MCAT is required and must have been taken within the past three years. For the 2027 entering class, the oldest score considered is from January 2024. The Admissions Committee sees your last three years of scores and considers your highest score. CASPer and PREview are not required.

Letters of recommendation

Send three to five letters through the AMCAS Letter Service. The school asks letter writers not to address letters to a specific school, to use letterhead and to sign them. Multiple Admissions Committee members read each letter and review it holistically. Writers are asked to assess your fit for medicine and your alignment with the school’s six values: Respect, Teamwork, Integrity, Commitment, Curiosity and Courage. Choose writers who have watched you do those things, and consider sharing the list with them.

Experience

The school does not publish minimum hours for clinical work, shadowing, service or research. Shadowing is recommended, not required, and there is no hour threshold: the school wants meaningful, sustained exposure to the daily work of physicians and the ability to reflect on what you saw and how it shaped your decision. Its FAQ describes a competitive applicant as someone who can demonstrate the AAMC premed competencies, align with the school’s values and mission, show diverse and substantial experiences, demonstrate an understanding of medicine and show an observable commitment to service. The school does not offer shadowing, clinical or research opportunities for premedical students, and it encourages applicants to find them through their own campus advising offices, local clinics, hospitals and community organizations. Plan these early: most applicants build experience over several years through local work, research and supervised internships for pre-med students.

Timeline for the 2027 entering class

As of this October 18, 2026 update, the Early Decision deadlines and the Regular Decision AMCAS deadline have passed. If you already submitted AMCAS and received a secondary, finish it well before November 15. If you are planning for the 2027-2028 cycle, the most useful months are the spring and summer before you apply; use them for the MCAT, for letters and for pre-med summer internships or local clinical work that adds direct patient contact.

Decisions, rolling review and commitment dates

The school uses rolling admissions. Interview invitations for the 2026-2027 cycle began going out on August 15, 2026. Interviews run from September through January, and the school notifies applicants of next steps as files are reviewed. Decisions can take longer near deadlines. Accepted applicants then follow the AAMC “Choose Your Medical School” schedule:

Other policies to know

• Deferral. Accepted applicants may request a one-year deferral in writing, with documentation, by June 1 of the matriculation year. The Admissions Committee decides at its sole discretion.
• Transfer. The school does not accept transfers from other medical programs.
• Deposit. No deposit is required to hold an acceptance.
• Waitlist. The school typically uses 30 to 60 waitlist positions per cycle and asks each waitlisted applicant whether they want to remain on the list.
• Update letters. Applicants who are offered an interview may send a notice of significant updates, such as new research or publications, significant honors or substantial new clinical or service work.
• Prerequisite deadline. Prerequisite coursework must be finished by July 2027 for the 2027 entering class.
• Criminal background check. A criminal background check is part of the admissions process.
• Start date. A one-week orientation is mandatory, and classes for the 2027 entering class begin August 2, 2027. The school does not run a separate prematriculation program.
• Immunizations. Students must meet University System of Georgia and UGA immunization requirements, and clinical sites may require more.
• Technical standards. Applicants must meet the school’s technical standards in observation, communication, motor skills, intellectual abilities, behavioral and social abilities, and ethics and professionalism, with or without reasonable accommodation. Request admissions accommodations through UGA’s Accessibility and Testing Office.
• Conflict of interest. Committee members, interviewers and reviewers sign a conflict-of-interest attestation each year and recuse themselves from any applicant they know, including applicants they wrote letters for. A committee member with a family member applying is ineligible for the whole cycle.

Visiting and contacting the school

The Office of Admissions is on the second floor of Pound Hall, 105 Foster Road, Athens, on the Health Sciences Campus. It hosts open houses, virtual office hours and admissions information sessions, including one scheduled for November 6, 2026, and visits college health fairs around Georgia. Check the school’s event calendar for current dates.

Tuition, Cost of Attendance and Financial Aid

The University of Georgia School of Medicine charges public tuition set by the University System of Georgia. Its current posted budget lists the same tuition in each of the four years. The amounts equal two semesters of the USG Doctor of Medicine rate for Fall 2026 to Summer 2027, so this guide labels them 2026-27.

Tuition and direct costs

Total cost of attendance by year

Cost of attendance (COA) is the school’s estimate of everything a year of medical school costs, including direct charges and indirect costs such as books, housing, food, transportation and personal expenses. It is also the cap on how much financial aid you can receive.

A few line items explain the differences. The first-year budget includes $1,000 for books and equipment and $16,080 for housing. The second year adds the Step 1 fee ($680) and an annual background check ($80). The third year is the most expensive because it budgets more for housing ($20,904), more food and travel, the Step 2 fee ($680) and visiting student application costs. The fourth year adds residency applications ($450) and residency interview travel ($3,000). Nonresident transportation budgets are slightly higher. The posted budget does not list a separate health insurance charge, so ask the Office of Financial Aid how student health insurance or a waiver applies to your situation.

Adding the four posted years gives a four-year estimate of about $258,012 for a Georgia resident and $396,140 for a nonresident at current rates. Actual costs will change as tuition and living costs are reset each year.

Athens living costs

Athens is a college town, and many students rent in Normaltown, the neighborhood around the Health Sciences Campus. The school budgets $16,080 a year for housing in the first, second and fourth years. Students should plan for a car by the clinical years, because clerkships take place in Athens, Gainesville, metro Atlanta and rural partner hospitals, and the budget includes transportation costs every year.

Scholarships

Every incoming first-year student is considered for an admissions scholarship through the admissions application itself, with more information collected after an offer. There are two types:

• Merit scholarships, based on the Admissions Committee score, which considers academic achievement and MMI and interview scores among other criteria.
• Need-based scholarships, based on AMCAS, FAFSA and supplemental information. To be considered, incoming students must submit a FAFSA to UGA by March 1, 2027.

Students are notified by April 1, 2027 whether they will receive an admissions scholarship. Unless noted otherwise, these awards continue for all four years if you stay in good academic standing, enroll full time and meet professionalism standards. Donors had committed more than $10.8 million in scholarship support by February 2026. Admitted students can also search external awards through UGA’s Scholarship Universe system. For outside funding ideas, see our guide to top medical school scholarships.

Loans and the 2026 federal changes

Federal loan rules changed on July 1, 2026, and older advice about Grad PLUS loans no longer applies to new borrowers at UGA:

• Medical students are eligible for Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loans only. They are not eligible for subsidized loans or Graduate PLUS loans.
• The annual unsubsidized limit is $50,000 ($25,000 per semester), and the aggregate limit is $200,000 for a professional degree, within a $257,500 cap on all federal student borrowing combined.
• The current fixed rate is 8.07% as of July 1, 2026 (subject to change), with a 1.057% origination fee.
• Private medical student loans can fill gaps after federal aid, up to the cost of attendance.

At UGA’s posted budget, a nonresident’s yearly cost exceeds the $50,000 federal limit by more than $46,000, and a resident’s by more than $11,000. Plan for scholarships, savings, family help or private loans to cover the difference, and compare offers carefully.

To apply for aid, file the FAFSA each year using UGA’s school code 001598. The 2027-28 FAFSA opened October 1, 2026 and uses 2025 tax information. All medical students are independent for FAFSA purposes, so parental income is not required. The School of Medicine Office of Financial Aid offers one-on-one counseling every year.

Service-based funding

Programs that trade service for funding can reduce debt for students who plan to practice in shortage areas. The federal National Health Service Corps Scholarship pays tuition and eligible fees and a monthly stipend for up to four years in exchange for two to four years of primary care service at an approved site in a Health Professional Shortage Area. In Georgia, the Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce runs loan repayment programs for practitioners who agree to work in underserved areas of the state after training. For a broader view of what medical school costs nationally, read The Cost of Medical School.

What this means for your school list

UGA charges the same University System of Georgia tuition rate as the Medical College of Georgia, and the difference between resident and nonresident tuition is large. Nonresident applicants should run the four-year numbers before applying. Because merit awards use the Admissions Committee score, including MMI performance, a strong interview can matter for cost as well as admission.

Campus Facilities and Student Life

The Health Sciences Campus

The school sits on UGA’s 56-acre Health Sciences Campus on Prince Avenue in Athens’ Normaltown district, separate from the main UGA campus. The site was the State Normal School, one of Georgia’s first teachers’ colleges, from 1891 to 1932, and the U.S. Navy Supply Corps School from 1953 until 2005. The UGA College of Public Health shares the campus.

Key buildings for medical students:

• Medical Education and Research Building. The new 93,000-square-foot building is scheduled for completion in December 2026 and will be the school’s primary educational building. It includes large active-learning classrooms, an anatomy lab, a simulation center, a clinical skills center, individual and group study space, a student lounge and well-being spaces. Nearly one-third of the building is dedicated to biomedical research. The $100 million project was funded by $50 million from the state, matched by private gifts. The Office of Student Affairs will be on its first floor.
• Russell Hall. Built in 1974, this nearly 63,000-square-foot building has classrooms, small group and clinical skills rooms, a gross anatomy lab, a medical library and faculty offices.
• Winnie Davis Hall. Built in 1902 as a State Normal School dormitory, it now houses the school’s administration.
• Pound Hall. The former State Normal School auditorium houses the admissions, financial aid and registrar offices, plus UGA recreation space with strength and cardio equipment and Wheeler Gym.
• Carnegie Library. Built in 1910 with a grant from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, it is now a student center and digital library and a favorite study spot.
• George Hall. The only auditorium on the Health Sciences Campus, used for large lectures and events such as Match Day.
• Scott Hall. Home of The Niche, one of UGA’s dining halls.

Houses and student support

On the first day of orientation, each student learns which of five Houses they belong to. The Houses are named for five regions of Georgia and serve as a home base for all four years, led by a Head of House faculty mentor, with near-peer mentoring from older students and friendly competition in the House Games. In the first semester, every student meets one-on-one with the Associate Dean for Student Affairs, Academic Success, Financial Aid and their Head of House.

The Office of Student Affairs offers longitudinal career advising from the first year, specialty advisors before clerkships, an Academic Success Program with learning specialists and near-peer tutoring, and a mentor program that pairs students with physicians from the UGA alumni and community network. The Office of Personalized Health and Well-Being provides wellness support, and medical students can use UGA’s counseling and health services. The school describes its culture as collaborative: grading is criterion-based, so students are not competing for a curve.

Student organizations

The inaugural class is founding the school’s student organizations, which are organized as Specialty Interest Groups and Clubs, and can partner with interest groups created by AU/UGA Medical Partnership students. Students who do not find a group can propose one. The Student Leadership Council is the student governing body, with five elected officers: president, vice president, business manager, social director and communications director.

The school is applying for chapters of the two national medical honor societies, Alpha Omega Alpha and the Gold Humanism Honor Society, and expects formal recognition before the first class reaches its clinical years. Election to both happens around the start of the fourth year. The AOA criteria the school has set include Honors in at least 30% of pre-clerkship courses and a clerkship GPA of 3.5 or higher; GHHS members are nominated by classmates in the third year.

Service: the Athens Free Clinic

The Athens Free Clinic is a primary care teaching clinic run by faculty physicians, medical students and nurse coordinators of the UGA School of Medicine and the AU/UGA Medical Partnership. It operates twelve mobile clinic sites and the Clarke Middle Health Center, providing free care to the Athens community. Every first- and second-year student serves there through Community and Population Health, and the clinic’s medical director also directs that curriculum. Undergraduates can apply to a competitive volunteer program that supports the clinic with administrative and outreach work, which is one way UGA students can contribute before medical school.

Living in Athens

Athens offers the energy of a classic college town, with a well-known music and arts scene, outdoor recreation and food, and access to the full UGA campus, including its athletics, 20 schools and colleges and student services. Many medical students rent near the Health Sciences Campus in Normaltown. Because rotations spread across Northeast Georgia and metro Atlanta in the clinical years, most students need a reliable car by the third year. UGA’s Engagement, Leadership and Service office lists hundreds of student organizations across the university, and medical students can join university groups as well as School of Medicine groups.

Clinical Rotations and Research Opportunities

A distributed clinical model

UGA does not own a university hospital. Instead, clerkships and fourth-year electives follow a distributed model across Northeast Georgia, giving students exposure to many practice settings and patient populations. The school has clinical partners in all five regions it considers central to its mission: North Georgia, Metro Atlanta, Piedmont, Southwest and Southeast. Students complete most rotations in three of those regions, at partners in Northeast Georgia, in Atlanta and in and around Athens. Each student also completes a rural rotation in the third year at a partner in the Southwest or Southeast.

Partners named for clerkships include:

• Northeast Georgia Health System (Gainesville)
• Piedmont (Athens and Atlanta). Piedmont Athens Regional is a 427-bed, not-for-profit hospital and regional referral center serving 17 counties around Athens, with a Level II trauma center and a Level III neonatal intensive care unit.
• St. Mary’s (Athens). St. Mary’s Hospital is a 196-bed hospital serving Athens-Clarke County and 12 surrounding counties, with rural hospitals in Greensboro and Lavonia.
• Northside (Atlanta)
• Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (Atlanta)
• Crisp Regional Medical Center (Cordele)

The full affiliate list also includes Elbert Memorial Hospital, Landmark Hospital of Athens, Ridgeview Institute of Monroe, Shepherd Center, Stephens County Hospital and Union General Health System. More partners are being added as agreements are finalized.

Graduate medical education in Athens

The School of Medicine and St. Mary’s Health Care System sponsor an Internal Medicine Residency Program that moved over from the AU/UGA Medical Partnership; its first class of 12 residents under the School of Medicine began on July 1, 2026. The program’s training sites include St. Mary’s Hospital; Community Internal Medicine of Athens (CIMA), the continuity clinic where residents care for their own patient panels; and St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital in Greensboro, a 25-bed critical access hospital where residents work as rural hospitalists. For medical students, resident teams mean more teaching on the wards, and Dean Nuss’s statewide GME work means Georgia now has more residency positions for graduates who want to stay.

Rural training

The planned rural clerkship places each student for four to six weeks at a rural partner, rotating through all hospital services to see how specialties work in a rural context. The regional capstone and House structure also tie students to one of five Georgia regions (Appalachia, Metro Atlanta, Piedmont, Wiregrass and Coastal) for four years. If rural practice interests you, this is one of the most distinctive parts of the school.

Research: required and optional

Required scholarship. Every student completes a community health-focused scholarly project in Community and Population Health, working in a team with a community partner to develop an intervention for a local health problem. Some students go on to present or publish these projects at state, regional and national meetings.

The Medical Student Research and Scholarship Program. Led by the associate dean for research, the program takes students through four phases with a faculty mentor: Explore (find a mentor and question), Develop (write a proposal), Discover (do the work) and Disseminate (present at the School of Medicine Research Symposium, scientific meetings or in publications). Projects can be basic, translational, clinical, health services, commercialization, healthcare management or educational research.

Medical Student Scholars Program. This summer program gives rising second-year students eight to ten weeks of research in an area of their choice, in Athens at UGA’s labs, centers and institutes, or at institutions across the United States or abroad. It ends with an annual student research symposium with poster and oral presentations.

Other options. Students can take a research year between the third and fourth years and can use Georgia Clinical and Translational Science Alliance training, including the Master of Science in Clinical Research.

UGA research strengths nearby. The School of Medicine Research Center, directed by Dr. Yana Zavros, focuses on translational research. UGA’s Precision One Health Initiative connects investigators in veterinary medicine, public health, ecology and other fields, including projects that compare diseases shared by people and animals, such as Zavros’s work on Cushing’s disease.

Match outcomes so far

The UGA School of Medicine has no graduates yet; its first class is scheduled to graduate in 2030. The AU/UGA Medical Partnership, which used the same Athens campus and many of the same faculty, reported that every student in the Class of 2024 matched, the second straight year of a perfect match rate, with 50 MCG students going to 22 states plus Washington, D.C. in 19 specialties. Its Class of 2025 matched into 15 specialties in 17 states plus Washington, D.C., with 70% entering primary care or core specialties. These are MCG results and do not predict outcomes for the new school. For national context on how residency matching works, see Match Day 2026: results and what they mean.

Notable Alumni, Faculty, Leadership and Admissions Staff

Because the school is new, its people fall into three groups: the leaders who built it, the faculty who teach and do research there (many of whom taught at the AU/UGA Medical Partnership for years) and the Partnership graduates who trained on the same campus. The profiles below use the school’s own directory and biographies and UGA news coverage, with titles as listed in October 2026. They describe public roles, not admissions preferences.

School leadership

Shelley (Michelle) Nuss, MD, MACP, Founding Dean. Dr. Nuss is the chief academic and administrative leader of the School of Medicine and a professor of medical education in internal medicine and psychiatry. She oversaw the school’s accreditation process, curriculum design, expansion of clinical affiliations and the start of its research enterprise. She is also a national figure in graduate medical education: through the University System of Georgia Board of Regents’ GME expansion, she led the development of new residency programs that, by 2025, added nine teaching hospitals, 35 residency programs and nearly 900 resident positions across Georgia. She continues to serve as campus dean of the AU/UGA Medical Partnership until it closes. She earned a pharmacy degree at Purdue and her MD at West Virginia University, where she trained in internal medicine and psychiatry and served as chief resident, and she has been elected a Master of the American College of Physicians. For applicants, her GME work explains why the school talks so much about keeping physicians in Georgia: training more residents in the state is part of the same plan.

Erica Brownfield, MD, MBA, FACP, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Dr. Brownfield oversees many of the offices an applicant and student will deal with, including Admissions, Curriculum, Student Affairs, Faculty Development, Accreditation and Personalized Health and Well-Being. Before joining UGA in 2024, she spent years at Emory University School of Medicine, most recently as associate dean for medical education. She completed her internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and earned an MBA at Emory, and she has received the Clinician Educator of the Year Award from the Southern Society of General Internal Medicine.

Vaishali (Rani) Dixit Schuchert, MD, Associate Dean for Student Affairs. Dr. Schuchert leads the Office of Student Affairs, which meets every first-semester student individually, runs the House system and provides academic success, wellness and career advising. She coated the inaugural class at its White Coat Ceremony on August 29, 2026. A surgeon trained in general surgery and surgical critical care at the University of Pittsburgh, she was named to Pittsburgh’s Academy of Distinguished Medical Educators in 2024.

Johan Bester, MBChB, PhD, Associate Dean for Curriculum. Dr. Bester joined the school in 2026 to lead the curriculum office and its oversight committee. He previously served as associate dean for pre-clerkship curriculum at Saint Louis University School of Medicine and as director of bioethics at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV. He is a family physician and bioethicist trained at Stellenbosch University, which helps explain the weight the curriculum gives to ethics and professional identity.

Jonathan Murrow, MD, Associate Dean for Research. Dr. Murrow leads the Medical Student Research and Scholarship Program, the structure students use to find mentors and complete projects. He is a cardiologist who earned his MD at Emory and trained at Johns Hopkins and Emory, and his research has examined oxygen delivery and use during exercise, including exercise training for peripheral arterial disease.

Admissions leadership and staff

Brian Steele, EdD, Associate Dean for Admissions. Dr. Steele is the school’s inaugural associate dean for admissions and an assistant professor of medical education. He leads development of an admissions process aligned with the school’s mission to serve Georgia’s healthcare needs. He came from the University of Kansas School of Medicine, where he was associate dean for admissions, and earlier worked in recruitment and admissions at the UMKC School of Medicine. His doctoral research at Kansas studied mentoring in a Scholars in Rural Health program, and his listed interests are admissions, rural health and pathway programs. He serves on AAMC national committees. For applicants, his background fits the school’s pathway programs and its Georgia focus.

Chelsea Wesnofske, PhD, Director of Admissions. Dr. Wesnofske directs the Office of Admissions in Pound Hall. Under the school’s admissions conflict-of-interest policy, the associate dean for admissions makes conflict determinations in consultation with the director of admissions. The office also includes an administrative specialist, an outreach and engagement coordinator and a data management coordinator, and it can be reached by phone at 706-713-2633.

Faculty

Yana Zavros, PhD, Director of the School of Medicine Research Center. Dr. Zavros joined UGA in 2024 as its 18th Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, in molecular medicine, to build the school’s research enterprise. She is known for gastric and pancreatic cancer research, and one recent NIH grant totaled $14 million. She is also using a One Health approach to study Cushing’s disease, which took 16 years to diagnose in her own case and is far more common in dogs than in people, working with UGA veterinary researchers. Her work is a clear example of the cross-college research UGA can offer.

Suzanne Lester, MD, MS, Director of Community and Population Health and Medical Director of the Athens Free Clinic. Dr. Lester leads the part of the curriculum that sends first- and second-year students into Athens Free Clinic sites and community projects. She is a board-certified family physician who earned her MD at UCSF, and her work focuses on service learning, access to care, mobile health care, immigrant health and women’s reproductive health access. She was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society as a faculty member in 2021. Applicants who write about service will recognize her program in the school’s essays and interviews.

Mary (Molly) Bond, MD, FACP, Director of Clinical Skills. Dr. Bond directs the clinical skills curriculum and its OSCEs. An internist in Athens since 2003, she has taught with the Medical Partnership since it opened in 2010, including eight years as its site clerkship director for internal medicine, and she teaches in Community and Population Health. She earned her MD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and trained at the University of Virginia.

Tresa Chappell, MD, FAAP, Director of Small Group Learning. Dr. Chappell directs the case-based small groups at the center of the first two years. A pediatrician trained at Emory and Vanderbilt, she practiced in Alpharetta and Athens for more than 12 years and served as chief of pediatrics at St. Mary’s Hospital. She served on the MCG Admissions Committee from 2020 to 2022 and helped develop UGA’s admissions processes through the LCME Admissions Working Group and the search committee for the associate dean for admissions.

Laurel Murrow, MD, Associate Professor of Medical Education in Internal Medicine. Dr. Murrow is site clerkship director of ambulatory medicine for the Medical Partnership and has precepted at Piedmont Community Care Clinic since 2016. She was associate program director of the Piedmont internal medicine residency from 2015 to 2021. She earned her MD at Johns Hopkins and an MSc in control of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and her interests include access to care for underserved patients, outpatient quality improvement and health literacy.

Jon P. Mochel, PhD, Director of UGA’s Precision One Health Initiative (College of Veterinary Medicine). Dr. Mochel is not a School of Medicine faculty member, but his initiative is part of the research setting around the school. He is a professor of systems pharmacology in the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine and founding director of the Precision One Health Initiative, which organizes research in translational medicine, systems modeling and data analytics, epidemiology and disease ecology, and social sciences and medicine. He is a board-certified veterinary pharmacologist and toxicologist with more than 170 indexed publications and has been listed among Stanford’s “World’s Top 2%” scientists since 2024. Students interested in shared human and animal disease can learn from this work through UGA’s research programs.

Alumni of the Athens campus

The UGA School of Medicine has no graduates yet; its first class is expected to graduate in 2030. The physicians below trained in Athens through the AU/UGA Medical Partnership and earned their MD degrees from the Medical College of Georgia. They show what students on this campus have gone on to do, not what the new school’s graduates will do.

• Peter Bodunrin (Partnership Class of 2021) matched to a transitional year and ophthalmology at Emory University School of Medicine.
• Sahar Alimohamadi (Partnership Class of 2021) matched to vascular surgery at UPMC in Pittsburgh.
• Emily Morris (Partnership Class of 2021) matched to neurological surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin Affiliated Hospitals.
• Naser Ibrahim, a Partnership graduate, appears on the 2020 match list for a neurosurgery preliminary year at Tulane University School of Medicine and on the 2021 list for neurological surgery at Tulane.

The Partnership’s later classes also matched widely: the Class of 2024 had a 100% match rate across 19 specialties, and the Class of 2025 matched into 15 specialties with 70% entering primary care or core specialties.

Admissions Statistics and Class Profile

What the school has published

The only published class profile is for the inaugural Class of 2030, which entered in July 2026.

How to read these numbers

Denominators. About 235 of more than 2,000 applicants were interviewed, which is roughly 12% of applicants. That is an interview ratio, not an acceptance rate. The school has not published how many offers it made, so no true acceptance rate exists for this class. The ratio of matriculants to applicants (64 of more than 2,000, or about 3%) is a matriculation ratio and understates the share of applicants who received offers.

Averages, not medians or minimums. The 514 MCAT and 3.85 GPA are class averages. The school has not published medians, ranges, percentiles or separate science GPA figures, and none exist yet in national admissions data, which currently covers the 2025 entering class, a year before the school enrolled students. The published floors for a secondary invitation are a 3.0 BCPM GPA and a 502 MCAT, and for out-of-state applicants the school says competitive candidates typically present 511 or higher.

An unusual first cycle. The first application window opened only after preliminary accreditation in February 2026, ran for about two weeks and filled a class starting five months later. The 2026-2027 cycle follows the normal AMCAS calendar, so its applicant pool and timing will be different.

The next class. The school estimates about 60 new entrants for the 2027 entering class, all in the MD program, with no separate Early Decision or special-program count. A typical cycle also uses 30 to 60 waitlist positions.

Residency mix. With 95% Georgia residents, roughly three members of the first class came from outside Georgia. The school’s own definition of a tie to Georgia (a Georgia college degree, living and working in Georgia, a parent in Georgia or a Georgia high school diploma) matters for nonresidents.

How UGA compares with the Athens campus it replaced

The Partnership’s classes were smaller: 37 MCG students matched from Athens in 2020 and 50 in 2024. UGA’s first class of 64 is larger, and the new building gives the school capacity to grow toward 120 students per class over time. Statistics from MCG’s Athens years describe MCG’s admissions system, which covered all MCG campuses, and should not be used as UGA benchmarks.

What to do with this

If your BCPM GPA and MCAT are at or above the secondary screen, you are eligible to complete the secondary. If your numbers sit well above the class averages and UGA is your clear first choice, compare Early Decision carefully with a broader application. If you are below the averages, your experiences, essays and MMI performance will carry more weight, and the clinical internships for pre-med students and local patient-care work you choose should show direct, supervised patient contact that you can reflect on.

Tips and Strategies for Admission to the University of Georgia School of Medicine

Gaining admission to UGA takes more than strong metrics. The school is building classes that will learn in small teams, serve in community clinics from the first weeks and train across Georgia’s regions. Competitive applicants show intention, not convenience.

Show your connection to Georgia’s health needs with specifics

The mission is about Georgia’s physician shortage, and the school prioritizes Georgia residents and applicants with ties to the state. Being from Georgia is not the same as showing commitment. Name a place, a problem and your role in it. You might write about a county where the nearest obstetric unit closed, a clinic where patients wait months for a specialist, or a community where transportation decides whether people keep appointments. Connect those observations to the school’s nine Georgia health challenges or its five regions only if the connection is real.

For out-of-state applicants, the question is why Georgia. A Georgia college degree, family in the state or a long-term practice plan in Georgia gives the committee a reason to believe you will stay. Generic interest in public universities does not.

Prepare for small group learning before you arrive

Small group learning is graded and attendance is required. Faculty assess how you prepare, participate, collaborate and contribute to the group’s learning. In your AMCAS Work and Activities, highlight experiences where you taught peers, led a study group, worked on a team problem or changed your mind after hearing a teammate. Research teams, capstone courses, tutoring and team-based service projects translate well. Avoid presenting yourself as a lone high performer. The school wants students who make the group better.

Treat service as preparation, not decoration

Community and Population Health is a must-pass part of the first two years, and the school names “observable commitment to service” as part of a competitive application. Sustained service with one community, especially one facing barriers to care, is worth more than a long list of one-day events. If you can, choose service that includes direct contact with patients or clients and gives you something to reflect on: what made care hard, what you did and what you learned.

Build clinical experience with real patient contact

The school does not offer shadowing or clinical placements for premedical students, so you will build experience elsewhere. Shadowing shows you what physicians do. Patient-facing roles show what you can do. Roles such as medical assistant, emergency department technician, certified nursing assistant, hospice volunteer, scribe or interpreter give you material for the secondary and the MMI. Supervised pre-med internships can add hands-on experience in another health system, but they work best alongside sustained clinical and service work at home.

Use your values as evidence

Letter writers are asked to assess your alignment with Respect, Teamwork, Integrity, Commitment, Curiosity and Courage, and the Reflection essay asks about the values that guide you. Do not list all six. Pick the values you can prove with stories, and choose letter writers who saw them in action.

Write essays that show, not tell

Your personal statement and secondaries should focus on specific moments that shaped your decision to pursue medicine rather than summarizing your resume. Concrete experiences carry more weight than abstract motivation. For technique, read Showing Instead of Telling: How to Make Your Essays Stand Out.

Ask for strong letters early

Three to five letters are required. A detailed letter from a research mentor, clinical supervisor or service coordinator is usually more persuasive than a generic endorsement from someone who barely knows you. Give writers your activities list and the school’s values, and ask early. If a writer asks you to draft your own letter, use Writing Your Own Medical School Letter of Recommendation: A Step-by-Step Guide to keep it honest and specific.

Apply early in the window

The school reviews on a rolling basis and strongly encourages Regular Decision applicants to submit AMCAS by September 1, six weeks before the deadline. Interviews run from September through January. Submitting early and turning the secondary around promptly gives you access to more interview dates.

Prepare for the MMI, not a conversation about your file

Interviews are closed, so interviewers have not read your application. Each of the six stations tests how you reason through a scenario in six minutes. Practice structured thinking, not memorized answers. The interview section below explains the format in detail.

Consider Early Decision honestly

EDP is binding. If accepted, you cannot apply elsewhere. It makes sense if UGA is clearly your first choice and your metrics are at or above the encouraged 512 MCAT and 3.7 BCPM GPA. If you need to compare cost, location or programs, a Regular Decision application across several schools is safer.

Secondary Application Questions, Example Responses and Analysis

Applicants who meet the BCPM GPA 3.0 and MCAT 502 screen are invited to complete the UGA secondary after AMCAS delivers their application. For the 2026-2027 cycle (2027 matriculants), the secondary includes four required essays for all applicants and one additional essay required of reapplicants only. Each has a 300-word limit. The secondary costs $75 unless you have an AAMC fee waiver, and it also collects proof of permanent residency (if you are not a citizen) and verification of lawful presence. Regular Decision files, including the secondary, must be complete by November 15, 2026.

The school does not publish a recommended turnaround time. Because review is rolling, return the secondary as soon as you can do it well, ideally within about two weeks of the invitation.

For each prompt below you will find what it asks, an approach, a worked example and an analysis with mistakes to avoid. The examples are teaching material written for this guide. Do not copy them; your essays must come from your own experiences. For a broader list of prompts at other schools, see our medical school secondary essay prompts database.

Prompt 1: What draws you to the University of Georgia School of Medicine, and how have your experiences prepared you to serve communities across Georgia? (300 words, required)

The prompt: “What draws you to the University of Georgia School of Medicine, and in what ways have your experiences prepared you to contribute to and serve communities across Georgia? (300 words)”

Who answers: all secondary applicants, Early Decision and Regular Decision.

What it asks: two things. First, what specifically draws you to UGA. Second, how your experiences have prepared you to contribute to and serve communities across Georgia. Many applicants answer the first half well and the second half with a single sentence. Give each half real space.

Approach: choose two or three features of UGA that connect to something you have already done. Verified options include Community and Population Health at Athens Free Clinic sites in the first weeks, small group learning, the five-region capstone and Houses, the rural clerkship in Southwest or Southeast Georgia, the Serving Georgia and Beyond thread and the school’s research programs. Then show two or three experiences that prepared you to serve, ideally in Georgia, with one concrete detail each. End with where you want to practice or what problem you want to work on.

Illustrative example, not an actual applicant essay:

I grew up in Tift County, where my grandmother drove forty minutes to Tifton for every cardiology visit and skipped the ones that fell during peanut harvest. Even then, I was watching distance shape a disease. The University of Georgia School of Medicine draws me because its curriculum treats that distance as something to study and change, not background.

Three features matter most to me. First, Community and Population Health would place me at an Athens Free Clinic site within my first weeks, on a team led by a physician faculty member. For two years I have volunteered as a Spanish interpreter at a free clinic in Valdosta, and I have learned that a patient who trusts the person at intake tells the truth about missed doses. I want to keep building that skill under supervision. Second, the regional structure. Being assigned to one of Georgia’s five regions and building a four-year capstone with community partners there matches how I already think about health: by place. I hope to work in the Wiregrass region, where I know one gap from the inside, follow-up care for diabetes after a hospital stay. Third, the required rural clerkship would let me test whether I can carry a rural inpatient service before I choose a residency.

My preparation is practical. As a pharmacy technician I reconciled medication lists for older adults, and I learned how often a “noncompliant” label really means a cost problem or a transportation problem. In a public health statistics course I mapped county diabetes mortality and found my home county near the top. I do not want that map to stay a class assignment. I want to train where graduates are expected to return to places like Tift County and bring care closer to home.

Analysis: The prompt has two parts: what draws you to UGA and how your experiences prepare you to serve communities across Georgia. The example answers the first part with three verified features (Community and Population Health at the Athens Free Clinic, the five-region capstone, the rural clerkship) and ties each one to a personal reason instead of praising them. It answers the second part with two concrete experiences (interpreting at a free clinic and medication reconciliation as a pharmacy technician) and one piece of evidence (the county mortality map). It names a region and a specific gap, which reads as commitment rather than a slogan. Mistakes to avoid: listing every program on the website, writing about Athens as a college town instead of the training model, or claiming a commitment to rural Georgia without any experience behind it.

Prompt 2: Career Celebration (300 words, required)

The prompt: “Career Celebration (300 words): Imagine you’ve reached the end of a fulfilling and impactful career. A trusted colleague or mentee is delivering a speech in your honor at a celebration of your professional life. What would you want them to say about the kind of work you did, the values you embodied, the relationships you built, and the legacy you left behind? Take this opportunity to reflect on the career you aspire to build and how you want it to be remembered.”

Who answers: all secondary applicants.

What it asks: imagine the end of your career and describe what a colleague or mentee would say about four things: your work, your values, your relationships and your legacy. Then reflect on the career you want to build and how you want it remembered. It is a values question disguised as a creative prompt.

Approach: decide what kind of physician you hope to become, in what kind of setting, and choose one or two specific behaviors for each of the four areas. Use the speech frame briefly, then write plainly. Keep the career believable: a hospitalist who built a discharge clinic is more convincing than a surgeon who cured a disease. Tie at least one part to evidence from your past so the essay is not only imagination.

Illustrative example, not an actual applicant essay:

I would want the speaker to be a former resident I trained, beginning with something small: “Dr. Okafor knew the name of every nurse on the night shift, and she asked for their read on a patient before she wrote the order.”

That sentence would mean more than any title, because the work I want to do is general internal medicine in a mid-sized Georgia hospital, where the hospitalist, nurse and pharmacist share responsibility for the same frail patient at 3 a.m. I would want her to say I was steady in those hours: that I explained a hard diagnosis twice if the family needed it twice, and that I called the primary care office myself when a discharge plan depended on a follow-up visit that might not happen.

I would want her to mention curiosity, not as a word on a list but as a habit. I read the study behind a guideline before I taught it, and I changed my mind in front of the team when the evidence changed.

On relationships, I hope she would describe teaching teams where students were allowed to be wrong out loud. I learned that value in a study group I organized after failing my first organic chemistry exam. The group worked because nobody pretended to understand what they did not.

For legacy, I hope she could name one concrete thing that outlasted me: a post-discharge clinic for patients without a primary care doctor, run by residents and still open after I retired. And I would want her to end by saying I was fair: to difficult patients, to tired colleagues and to students who were trying.

That is the career I want to build: competent, collaborative and useful, in a community that needed one more doctor who stayed.

Analysis: The prompt asks about four things (the work, the values, the relationships and the legacy) and then asks for reflection on the career you want. The example uses the speech frame for one opening line and then spends its words on substance, covering each of the four areas in its own paragraph so a reader can find them. It stays specific: a named setting (general internal medicine in a mid-sized Georgia hospital), behaviors instead of adjectives (calling the primary care office, reading the study behind a guideline) and a legacy that is concrete and modest. It echoes several of the school’s stated values (teamwork, curiosity, commitment) without listing them. Mistakes to avoid: writing a eulogy full of awards, choosing a specialty you cannot explain, using the whole essay for the speech and leaving no reflection, or promising a career arc you have no evidence for.

Prompt 3: Academic Journey (300 words, required)

The prompt: “Academic Journey (300 words): Tell us about the decisions and experiences that have defined your academic journey. This space is for you to provide context for any element of your academic history that you believe would help us better understand your path, persistence, and personal growth. For example, you may want to discuss the reasoning behind a significant change in major or a shift in academic interest, provide context for any course withdrawals or changes in your academic performance, or explain a unique academic timeline like attending multiple institutions or taking a gap year. You can also use this opportunity to describe your approach to improving a standardized test score after an initial attempt.”

Who answers: all secondary applicants. It is listed with the required essays, so plan to answer it even if your record is straightforward.

What it asks: context for your academic path: the decisions and experiences that defined it, and anything that helps the committee understand your path, persistence and growth. The examples it lists include a change in major, withdrawals or performance changes, an unusual timeline such as multiple schools or a gap year, and how you improved a test score after a first attempt.

Approach: list every element of your record a reader might wonder about. Address the most visible ones first. For each, give the cause in one sentence, the decision you made and the result, with evidence such as later grades or a new score. If your path was simple, write about the academic decisions that shaped it, such as why you chose your major, a course that changed your direction or how you balanced work and school.

Illustrative example, not an actual applicant essay:

I started college at Georgia Southern as a business major because it felt safe. My mother runs a small catering company in Statesboro, and I assumed I would help her grow it. In my second semester, a required statistics course ended with a project on food insecurity in Bulloch County. The numbers led me to the county health department, where I volunteered on weekends, and the volunteering led me to a physician who described her job as solving problems one patient at a time. I changed my major to biology at the end of that year.

The change cost me time, and it shows on my transcript. I withdrew from General Chemistry II in my third semester after my grandfather’s stroke, when I was driving to Savannah three times a week to help my mother care for him. Withdrawing was the right call. I retook the course the next fall with a lighter schedule and earned an A, and my science grades rose every semester after that.

I transferred to UGA as a junior to take upper-level microbiology and genetics courses my first campus did not offer. Attending two institutions taught me to ask for help early. At UGA I went to office hours in the first week of every course, not the last.

My first MCAT score was 501. I had studied while working thirty hours a week and never took a full-length practice test under timed conditions. For my second attempt I cut my hours, took eight full-length exams, kept an error log and reviewed every missed question by content area. I scored 510.

My path has not been straight, but each turn was a decision I made on purpose. I learned to persist without pretending the obstacles were not there.

Analysis: This prompt invites context for several possible elements: a change in major, withdrawals or grade changes, multiple institutions or gap years, and a retaken standardized test. The example addresses four of them in order (major change, a withdrawal, a transfer, an MCAT retake) and gives each one a cause, a decision and a result. The MCAT paragraph describes a method (timed full-length exams, an error log, review by content area), which is what the prompt asks for when it says ‘your approach.’ The tone stays factual and does not ask for sympathy. Mistakes to avoid: repeating your personal statement, explaining every B, blaming professors, using vague phrases such as ‘I faced challenges’ without saying what happened, or skipping a visible issue on your record that a reader will notice anyway. If your record has no such issues, use the space to explain the decisions that shaped your path.

Prompt 4: Reflection (300 words, required)

The prompt: “Reflection (300 words): What are the core values that guide you? Describe a time when those values were challenged, either by circumstances or by encountering someone whose perspectives differed from your own. How did you respond, and what did you learn about yourself in the process? In what ways does this experience reflect how you will contribute to the UGA School of Medicine and the profession of medicine?”

Who answers: all secondary applicants.

What it asks: four linked questions. What are your core values? When were they challenged, by circumstances or by someone with a different perspective? How did you respond and what did you learn about yourself? How does that experience reflect how you will contribute to the UGA School of Medicine and to medicine?

Approach: choose one or two values and one real situation where they were tested. Situations involving a person who saw things differently often work well, because they show how you treat people who see things differently, which matters in small group learning and patient care. Show what you did, not only what you felt. End by connecting the lesson to a specific part of UGA, such as small groups, the Athens Free Clinic or the House system, and to the profession.

Illustrative example, not an actual applicant essay:

My core values are honesty and respect, and I have learned they can pull against each other.

As a certified nursing assistant at a long-term care facility in Macon, I cared for a resident I will call Mr. H., a retired truck driver with heart failure who refused his compression stockings and told every new aide that doctors “just want to sell you something.” His view of medicine was the opposite of mine. I tried to correct him. I explained edema, showed him a diagram and watched him tune me out.

My honesty was missing respect. I had treated his distrust as an error to fix instead of a view he had reasons for. During evening care I asked about his routes and the clinics he had stopped at over thirty years. He told me about a doctor who prescribed a medication he could not afford and never asked why he stopped refilling it. His distrust had a history.

I did not pretend to agree with him. I told him plainly the stockings would help his legs and breathing. But I also asked what would make them easier, and he said pulling them on alone hurt his hands. I raised this with the charge nurse, and we arranged for an aide to help him each morning. He wore them most days after that.

I learned that I can hold firm on what is true while staying curious about the person in front of me. That matters at the UGA School of Medicine, where small group learning depends on teammates who push back respectfully and where Community and Population Health puts students with patients whose trust has to be earned. I want to be the classmate who listens first and the physician who asks why before deciding someone is wrong.

Analysis: The prompt has four parts: your core values, a time they were challenged, how you responded and what you learned, and how the experience reflects your future contribution to UGA and medicine. The example names two values in the first sentence, shows the conflict between them through one patient, describes a specific change in behavior and a result, and states the lesson in one sentence. The last paragraph connects the lesson to two verified parts of UGA’s curriculum (small group learning and Community and Population Health) instead of making a general promise. It protects the patient’s identity. Mistakes to avoid: choosing a story where you were simply right and the other person was wrong, describing a debate about politics instead of a real interaction, listing six values without testing any of them, or ending without answering the final question about UGA and the profession.

Prompt 5: Reapplicant Question (300 words, reapplicants only)

The prompt: “Reapplicant Question [REAPPLICANTS ONLY]: If you are a reapplicant, use this space to highlight aspects of your application that have changed since your last application. (300 words)”

Who answers: only applicants who applied to the UGA School of Medicine in a previous cycle. Because the school’s first cycle was in spring 2026, most reapplicants this year applied for the 2026 entering class.

What it asks: what has changed in your application since you last applied.

Approach: start with an honest assessment of your previous file, ideally with an advisor. Then describe the changes that address its weaknesses, with numbers and dates: new clinical hours, new responsibilities, completed coursework, a new MCAT score, new service or research. Show how your understanding of medicine or of UGA’s mission has changed, not only your hours. Reapplicants who spent the year in a structured program, such as one of the pre-med gap year programs that include supervised patient care, should still emphasize what they learned and how it changed their goals.

Illustrative example, not an actual applicant essay:

Since I applied to the University of Georgia School of Medicine for the 2026 entering class, I have worked on the two weaknesses my pre-health advisor and I identified when we reviewed my file: limited hands-on clinical experience and essays that described my interests without showing them.

Clinical experience. My first application listed 120 clinical hours, mostly shadowing. Since then I have worked full time as an emergency department technician at a community hospital in Gainesville, Georgia, logging more than 1,400 hours taking vitals, performing EKGs, assisting with splinting and transporting patients. I also spent six weeks in a supervised clinical internship abroad, taking vitals and doing intake with a local nursing team, which taught me to work through an interpreter and with fewer resources.

Service in Georgia. I joined a weekly blood pressure screening program at two churches in Hall County, and I now train new volunteers on cuff technique and on when to refer someone for same-day care.

Academics. I completed a graduate-level biostatistics course and earned an A, which strengthened the skills I will need for evidence-based medicine.

Reflection. My first essays said I wanted to serve rural Georgia. This year I can explain why, through patients in our emergency department who drove in from Habersham and Rabun counties because the nearest clinic was closed on weekends. Those patients are why the Appalachia region and the school’s rural clerkship mean more to me now than they did a year ago.

I am a stronger applicant because I spent the year doing the work I said I wanted to do, not because I rewrote the same story.

Analysis: The prompt asks only what has changed since your last application. The example opens by naming the weaknesses it set out to fix, then organizes the changes under short labels (clinical experience, service, academics, reflection) with numbers and dates a reader can check against the new AMCAS file. It avoids criticizing the committee’s earlier decision and ends by showing growth in insight, not only in hours. Because the school’s first application cycle ran in spring 2026, most reapplicants this cycle applied for the 2026 entering class. Mistakes to avoid: copying last year’s essays with small edits, listing new activities without explaining what they taught you, or blaming the condensed first cycle for the outcome.

Program-specific prompts

The school does not offer an MD/PhD or dual-degree program for entering students, and it has not published any track-specific secondary questions for this cycle. Georgia Grown Physicians and Dawgs to Docs students apply through their own program applications before medical school and then submit an early assurance AMCAS application; the program booklets do not describe separate secondary essays.

Mistakes to avoid on the UGA secondary

• Recycling MCG answers. UGA’s prompts are different from the Medical College of Georgia’s. Essays written for MCG’s questions will not answer UGA’s.
• Describing the old Athens campus. Write about UGA’s current curriculum (small group learning, Community and Population Health, the threads, the regions and the rural clerkship), not about choosing Athens over Augusta.
• Going over 300 words. Count carefully. Every UGA essay is limited to 300 words.
• Saying “One Health” without substance. If UGA’s One Health research genuinely connects to your experience, explain how. If it does not, you do not need it.
• Leaving the Academic Journey blank. It is required. If your record is simple, write about the decisions that shaped your path.
• Repeating your personal statement. Each secondary should add something the committee has not read.

Interview Format and Preparation

The confirmed format

Applicants invited to interview take part in a virtual, closed Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) on Zoom. You rotate through six stations. Each station lasts eight minutes: two minutes to read the prompt and six minutes to respond to an interviewer. “Closed” means interviewers do not have access to your application file, so each station judges only what you say in those six minutes. Business professional attire is expected. Interviewers are UGA faculty, campus partners and community partners.

Interview invitations for this cycle began on August 15, 2026. Early Decision interviews took place in mid-September 2026. Regular Decision interviews run from October 2026 through January 2027, within a rolling process that runs from September through January. Your invitation will give the available dates and any additional instructions.

The MMI matters beyond admission. Merit scholarships are based on the Admissions Committee score, which takes MMI and interview scores into account along with academic achievement.

What the school says about preparing

The school’s own advice is practical:

• Practice. Watch MMI examples, and schedule a mock MMI with a pre-med advisor or career consultant if you can. The school highly recommends a mock interview.
• Be yourself. The interview is meant to help both sides judge fit.
• Take care of yourself. Rest, eat beforehand and keep water nearby.
• Limit distractions. Close other browser tabs, silence your phone and use a quiet room.
• Learn Zoom. Use a neutral background that does not blend with your clothes, test your camera and audio, check your internet connection and set up good lighting.

UGA’s Pre-Professional Advising Office also publishes interview preparation resources for UGA students.

How to prepare for six eight-minute stations

The guidance below is general MMI practice, not a description of UGA’s scoring rubric, which the school does not publish.

Use your two minutes. Read the prompt twice. Identify who is affected, what the core tension is and what you would need to know. Jot a three-part outline if you are allowed to take notes.

Structure the six minutes. A reliable pattern is to restate the situation briefly, name the stakeholders and the competing values, consider two or three options and their consequences, choose one and explain why, and say what you would do if your first step did not work. Leave time for follow-up questions.

Expect scenarios that test the school’s values. Stations commonly involve ethical dilemmas, teamwork problems, communication with a frustrated person, a policy question or a short task. UGA’s six values (Respect, Teamwork, Integrity, Commitment, Curiosity and Courage) are a useful lens for practice, as are themes from Georgia health care such as access in rural counties, health literacy and trust.

Practice with a timer and a partner. The hardest part of an MMI is pacing. Rehearse with stations you have never seen, and ask your partner to interrupt with follow-up questions. Our guide to the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) explains common station types, and you can practice with 320 Common Medical School Interview Questions and Answers and our list of the most common medical school interview questions.

Bring examples, but do not force them. Because interviewers have not read your file, a short, relevant example from your clinical or service work can help, as long as it answers the station’s question.

Do your homework on UGA. Even in a closed MMI, you may be asked why you want to train at UGA or in Georgia. Know the basics: small group learning, Community and Population Health at the Athens Free Clinic, the six threads, the Houses and regions, and the rural clerkship.

If you would like structured mock MMIs and feedback, IMA’s medical school admissions consulting team can help.

Frequently Asked Questions About the University of Georgia School of Medicine

Is the University of Georgia School of Medicine accredited?

Yes. The LCME granted the school preliminary accreditation on February 13, 2026, and it is listed in the LCME Directory of Accredited Programs. Under LCME rules, a program is considered accredited from the preliminary stage and has the rights that come with it, which is what allowed the school to admit its first class. The school will next be reviewed for provisional accreditation, which usually happens when the first class is in its second year; the LCME lists the next survey for 2027-28. Full accreditation is reviewed when the first class reaches its final year. LCME accreditation is what makes graduates eligible for the USMLE and for residency programs. If accreditation status matters to your decision, check the LCME directory again before you commit.

How do I apply to the University of Georgia School of Medicine?

Apply through AMCAS and select the University of Georgia School of Medicine, which has its own AMCAS listing. If your BCPM GPA is 3.0 or higher and your MCAT is 502 or higher, you will be invited to complete UGA’s own secondary, with a $75 fee or a fee waiver. You no longer apply through the Medical College of Georgia and choose an Athens campus preference; that route belonged to the AU/UGA Medical Partnership, which is closing. For the 2027 entering class, the Regular Decision AMCAS deadline was October 15, 2026, and all materials are due by November 15, 2026. Strong applicants who are sure UGA is their first choice can consider Early Decision in a future cycle.

Can out-of-state students apply to the University of Georgia School of Medicine?

Yes. The school prioritizes Georgia residents and applicants with a tie to Georgia, but it welcomes out-of-state applicants who are strongly aligned with its mission and interested in serving the people of Georgia. Competitive out-of-state applicants typically present an MCAT of 511 or higher, plus strong academics, meaningful experiences and a demonstrated commitment to the mission. A nonresident has a tie to Georgia if they graduated (or will graduate) from a Georgia four-year college, live and work in Georgia, have a parent or guardian in Georgia, or graduated from a Georgia high school. In the inaugural class, 95% of students were Georgia residents, so plan to explain clearly why you want to train and practice in Georgia.

Does the University of Georgia School of Medicine accept AP credits?

Yes, if your accredited undergraduate institution accepted the credit. AP, pass/fail and credit/no credit courses all count toward prerequisites when your college granted the credit. Online courses are also accepted, though the school strongly recommends in-person courses. Because the school also recommends upper-level biology courses such as biochemistry, genetics, immunology and microbiology, students who used AP credit for introductory science should take advanced science courses in college to show readiness for medical school coursework.

Is the University of Georgia School of Medicine curriculum pass/fail?

The first two years are graded Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory, which works like pass/fail, with an internal Honors designation for strong performance. That Honors designation is reported in the Medical Student Performance Evaluation and used for honor society selection. Grading is criterion-based, not curved, which supports the collaborative small groups. The clerkship years use letter grades of A, B, C or F, reported as Honors, Near Honors, Satisfactory and Unsatisfactory. You must also pass must-pass OSCEs and USMLE Step 1 before third year.

Do University of Georgia School of Medicine students need a car?

In practice, yes, especially by the third year. The Health Sciences Campus is compact and close to Normaltown housing, but clinical training follows a distributed model. Community and Population Health sends first- and second-year students to Athens Free Clinic sites around the city, and clerkships take place at partners in Northeast Georgia, metro Atlanta and in and around Athens, plus a rural rotation in Southwest or Southeast Georgia. The school’s cost of attendance includes a transportation budget in every year, rising in the clinical years.

What does “One Health” mean at the University of Georgia School of Medicine?

One Health is the idea that the health of people, animals, plants and the environment is connected. At UGA it is mainly a research strength of the university around the medical school. UGA is one of 13 universities with schools of veterinary medicine, human medicine and agriculture on one campus, and its Precision One Health Initiative organizes research in translational medicine, systems modeling and data analytics, epidemiology and disease ecology, and social sciences and medicine. In the curriculum, infectious and zoonotic disease is one of nine Georgia health challenges students study. You do not need veterinary or environmental science experience, but if your work connects human health to animals, food systems or the environment, explain what it taught you.

When did the UGA School of Medicine begin accepting applications independently from MCG?

The school opened its first independent application cycle in spring 2026, right after the LCME granted preliminary accreditation on February 13, 2026. More than 2,000 people applied in a condensed two-week window, the school interviewed 235 and the inaugural class of 64 started in July 2026. The 2026-2027 cycle is the first full-length cycle on the normal AMCAS calendar. Students who were admitted earlier to the Medical College of Georgia’s Athens campus remain MCG students and will finish with MCG degrees.

What MCAT and GPA do I need for the University of Georgia School of Medicine?

The minimums to receive a secondary are a 3.0 BCPM GPA and a 502 MCAT taken within the past three years. Those are screens, not targets. The inaugural class averaged a 514 MCAT and a 3.85 GPA. The school encourages Early Decision applicants to have about a 512 MCAT and a 3.7 BCPM GPA or higher, and says competitive out-of-state applicants typically present 511 or higher. If your undergraduate BCPM GPA is under 3.0, the school will consider a graduate BCPM GPA of 3.0 or higher with at least 15 completed graduate BCPM hours. No median MCAT or GPA has been reported yet, because national class data currently covers the 2025 entering class, before the school enrolled students.

Does UGA require CASPer, PREview or a situational judgment test?

No. CASPer and PREview are not required for the 2026-2027 cycle. The MCAT is the only required exam. The school evaluates judgment and communication through the secondary essays and the Multiple Mini Interview instead.

What is the University of Georgia School of Medicine acceptance rate?

No acceptance rate has been published. For the inaugural Class of 2030, more than 2,000 applications came in during a condensed two-week cycle, the school interviewed 235 applicants (about 12%) and 64 students enrolled. The number of offers was not reported, so the true acceptance rate is unknown, and 64 out of more than 2,000 is a matriculation ratio that understates it. National class data currently covers the 2025 entering class, before the school enrolled anyone, so the 2026-2027 cycle will be the first with a full public record.

Does the University of Georgia School of Medicine require a deposit or use a waitlist?

No deposit is required to hold an acceptance. The school does keep a waitlist, typically 30 to 60 positions per cycle, and asks each waitlisted applicant whether they want to remain on it. If you are offered an interview, you may also send a notice of significant updates, such as a new publication, a major honor or substantial new clinical or service work. Accepted applicants who need a year off can request a deferral in writing by June 1 of the matriculation year; the Admissions Committee decides each request.

Does the University of Georgia School of Medicine have Early Decision?

Yes. The Early Decision Program is for applicants whose clear first choice is UGA. EDP applicants apply and interview early, get a decision before regular review begins and commit to enroll if accepted, without applying to other medical schools. For the 2027 entering class, the EDP AMCAS deadline was August 3, 2026, materials were due August 15, interviews took place in mid-September and decisions were released October 1. The school encourages EDP for applicants with an MCAT of 512 or higher and a BCPM GPA of 3.7 or higher.

How much does the University of Georgia School of Medicine cost?

For 2026-27, tuition is $30,048 a year for Georgia residents and $63,912 for nonresidents, plus $1,944 in UGA student fees. The first-year cost of attendance, which adds books, housing, food, transportation, insurance and personal costs, is $61,604 for residents and $96,098 for nonresidents. The posted four-year budget adds up to about $258,000 for residents and $396,000 for nonresidents at current rates. Medical students can borrow up to $50,000 a year in federal unsubsidized loans and are not eligible for Grad PLUS, so plan for the gap and apply for scholarships by filing the FAFSA by March 1.

What is the University of Georgia School of Medicine interview like?

It is a virtual, closed Multiple Mini Interview on Zoom with six stations. At each station you get two minutes to read a prompt and six minutes to respond to an interviewer, who has not read your application. Dress in business professional attire, test your technology and practice with timed mock stations. The school recommends a mock MMI with a pre-med advisor or consultant if you can arrange one.

Can international or DACA students apply to the University of Georgia School of Medicine?

No. Only U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents are considered for the MD program, and admitted students must verify lawful presence under University System of Georgia policy. Permanent residents must upload proof of status, such as a green card, with the secondary. Prerequisite courses must also be completed at a regionally accredited U.S. or Canadian institution; international coursework counts only if it was accepted as transfer credit on a U.S. or Canadian transcript.

Can I still train in Athens through the Medical College of Georgia?

Not as a new applicant. The AU/UGA Medical Partnership, MCG’s Athens campus, is closing as its current students finish. New students who want to train in Athens apply to the UGA School of Medicine. The Medical College of Georgia remains a separate school with campuses in Augusta and Savannah and regional clinical campuses, and it has its own application and secondary.

Does UGA offer MD/PhD or dual degree programs?

Not yet. The school is exploring an MD/MPH and an MD/MBA. Under the planned model, students would apply at the end of the second year or start of the third, complete the second degree after the third year and then return for the fourth year of the MD. No MD/PhD program is listed. Students who want research can use the summer Medical Student Scholars Program, the required community research project, an optional research year or clinical research training through the Georgia Clinical and Translational Science Alliance.

What is the Georgia Grown Physicians program?

It is a two-year early assurance program for Georgia residents who graduated from a Georgia high school in an Archway Community and want to serve rural and underserved Georgia. Students apply as college sophomores with a 3.5 college GPA and 3.3 BCPM GPA, among other requirements. Up to five are chosen each year. Students who earn their degree, keep 3.5 overall and science GPAs, score 506 or higher on the MCAT and complete the program receive assured admission, applying only to UGA through an early assurance AMCAS application.

Does the school offer shadowing or clinical opportunities for premedical students?

No. The School of Medicine does not offer shadowing, clinical or research placements for premedical students. It recommends working with your college’s pre-professional advising office or career center and finding experiences through local clinics, hospitals, research programs and community organizations. UGA undergraduates can apply to the Athens Free Clinic’s competitive undergraduate volunteer program, which supports the clinic’s administration and outreach. Look for roles with direct, supervised patient contact that you can reflect on in your essays.

Related Medical School Guides

Georgia applicants usually apply to several in-state schools, and the right comparison depends on your residency, metrics, mission fit and budget. These guides are good next reads. They are not ranked by difficulty, and none is a “safety.”

• Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University: Georgia’s other public MD school, which ran the Athens campus until 2026; it charges the same USG tuition rate and has campuses in Augusta and Savannah and regional clinical campuses across the state.
• Mercer University School of Medicine (MUSM): a Georgia MD program with a strong focus on rural and medically underserved Georgia, useful for applicants whose goals match UGA’s rural clerkship and regional capstone.
• Morehouse School of Medicine: an Atlanta MD program with a community and primary care mission, worth comparing for applicants whose service experience centers on health equity.
• Emory School of Medicine: Georgia’s private research-intensive MD program in Atlanta, a different cost and research profile from UGA for applicants weighing both.
• Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine: a Southern public MD school built around regional and rural workforce needs, a useful comparison for UGA’s state-focused mission.
• University of Oklahoma College of Medicine: another public MD program in the South with a focus on primary care and underserved populations, helpful for comparing how state schools weigh mission fit.

For a side-by-side look at every program in the state, read our guide to medical schools in Georgia.

More medical school guides

If you are building a broader list, look for schools whose mission statements, location preferences and average GPA and MCAT figures fit your profile. Many share characteristics applicants value at UGA, such as a focus on rural medicine, service to underserved communities or strong research. Explore our guides to other medical schools:

• Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine
• Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
• Georgetown University Medical School
• Yale School of Medicine
• West Virginia University School of Medicine
• West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine
• Indiana University School of Medicine
• Des Moines University College of Osteopathic Medicine
• University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine
• Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine
• Meharry Medical College
• Howard University College of Medicine
• University of Kansas School of Medicine (KUMC)
• Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science College of Medicine
• Loma Linda University School of Medicine
• John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM)
• Kansas College of Osteopathic Medicine (KansasCOM)
• UC Irvine School of Medicine
• Nova Southeastern University College of Allopathic Medicine
• Johns Hopkins Medical School
• Touro University Nevada College of Osteopathic Medicine
• University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
• Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine (ARCOM)
• University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS)
• Tulane University School of Medicine
• LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine
• LSU Shreveport Medical School
• Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV
• University of Nevada Reno School of Medicine
• University of Arizona College of Medicine-Tucson
• University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix
• Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine (BCOM)
• The University of New Mexico School of Medicine
• Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine (ACOM)
• University of South Alabama College of Medicine
• University of Alabama School of Medicine
• FIU College of Medicine
• UCF College of Medicine
• USF Morsani College of Medicine
• Florida State University College of Medicine
• Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine (CUSOM)
• ECU Brody School of Medicine
• Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM)
• University of South Carolina Medical School
• Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
• Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM)
• Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine (GCSOM)
• Penn State Medical School
• CUNY School of Medicine
• SUNY Downstate Medical School
• NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine
• NYU Long Island School of Medicine
• Albany Medical College
• TOURO College of Osteopathic Medicine
• Norton College of Medicine at Upstate Medical University
• Jacobs School of Medicine at the University at Buffalo
• Hofstra Zucker School of Medicine
• Weill Medical College of Cornell University
• University of Rochester Medical School
• Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
• Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University
• Albert Einstein College of Medicine
• Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine
• Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED)
• University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
• University of Toledo College of Medicine
• Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine
• Ohio State University College of Medicine
• Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine
• Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine (HMSOM)
• Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (NJMS)
• Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
• Cooper Medical School of Rowan University (CMSRU)
• A.T. Still University Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine
• Saint Louis University School of Medicine
• University of Missouri Medical School
• Kansas City University (KCU)
• UMKC School of Medicine
• New York Medical College
• University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
• University of Wisconsin Medical School
• VCU School of Medicine
• University of Maryland School of Medicine
• Case Western Medical School
• University of North Carolina Medical School
• University of Florida Medical School
• Boston University College of Medicine
• California University of Science and Medicine
• UC San Diego Medical School
• California Northstate University College of Medicine
• Touro University of California
• CHSU College of Osteopathic Medicine
• UC Davis School of Medicine
• Harvard Medical School
• UC Riverside School of Medicine
• USC Keck School of Medicine
• UT Southwestern Medical School
• Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio
• University of the Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine
• UT Austin’s Dell Medical School
• UTMB School of Medicine
• McGovern Medical School at UT Health
• The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine
• UNT Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine
• University of Houston College of Medicine
• Texas A&M College of Medicine
• Baylor College of Medicine
• George Washington University School of Medicine
• Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
• St. George’s University School of Medicine
• Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (in Pennsylvania)
• Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
• Wake Forest University School of Medicine
• Western University of Health Sciences (in California)
• Drexel University College of Medicine
• Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University Chicago
• Perelman School of Medicine
• UCLA Medical School
• NYU Medical School
• Washington University School of Medicine

How International Medical Aid Can Help

Researching, applying and interviewing for medical school takes sustained work. At International Medical Aid (IMA), our goal is to help the next generation of medical students reach the schools that fit them, because more well-prepared students means more qualified doctors for communities like the ones UGA was founded to serve.

Clinical experience abroad. IMA runs medical internships abroad for pre-health students in Kenya and other sites. Interns work under the supervision of local physicians and nurses, taking vitals, doing patient intake and triage and helping with direct patient care. Our pre-med internships abroad are built for pre-medical and gap year students who want supervised, hands-on clinical experience and practice communicating with patients from different backgrounds. You can compare all of our healthcare internships abroad.

These experiences add supervised patient contact and reflection you can draw on in UGA’s Reflection and Career Celebration essays and in MMI stations about communication and teamwork. They do not replace sustained clinical work and service in Georgia, they are not affiliated with the UGA School of Medicine and they do not give any admissions advantage.

Admissions advising. If one-on-one coaching on your school list, AMCAS essays, UGA’s secondary or mock MMIs would help, our medical school admissions consulting team works with applicants through each stage. To decide whether you need that support, read medical school admissions consulting: how it could help you.

Next step: compare your record with UGA’s screen and class averages, then decide whether your next clinical experience should be local, abroad or both.

Final Thoughts and Sources

The University of Georgia School of Medicine is a new school with a long local history. It is accredited at the preliminary stage, admits its own classes and is designed around one goal: training physicians who will care for Georgia. For applicants, that means three things. Show a real connection to Georgia’s health needs. Show that you learn well in teams and serve consistently. And prepare for a closed MMI and four 300-word essays that reward specific, honest reflection.

If you meet the BCPM GPA 3.0 and MCAT 502 screen, complete the secondary well before November 15, 2026. If you are planning for a future cycle, start building direct patient care and service now, and consider whether Early Decision or a broader list fits your goals.

Source notes

Facts in this guide were checked on October 18, 2026. Statistics are labeled with their cohort or academic year in the text and tables.

• Admissions process, timeline for 2027 matriculants, prerequisites, screens, residency and tie-to-Georgia rules, Early Decision, interview format, secondary prompts and letters: UGA School of Medicine, Admissions Process; admissions policies (eligibility, deferral, transfer, technical standards, conflict of interest): Admissions Policies.
• Class of 2030 profile (64 students, more than 2,000 applications, 235 interviewed, 95% Georgia residents, average MCAT 514, average GPA 3.85): UGA Today, July 28, 2026.
• Accreditation: UGA Today, February 13, 2026; UGA School of Medicine Accreditation page; LCME Directory of Accredited Programs, updated October 14, 2026.
• Tuition, fees and cost of attendance by year: UGA School of Medicine Costs; 2026-27 USG Doctor of Medicine rate: Augusta University Tuition and Fees, Doctor of Medicine, Fall 2026 to Summer 2027. Loans, scholarships and FAFSA: UGA School of Medicine Loans, Scholarships and FAFSA pages.
• Mission, vision and values: UGA School of Medicine Mission. Student-to-faculty ratio: Why Choose Us.
• Curriculum: UGA School of Medicine Pre-Clerkship Curriculum, Clerkship Curriculum, Curricular Threads and Education FAQs.
• Pathway programs: UGA School of Medicine Admissions Programs and the Georgia Grown Physicians and Dawgs to Docs program booklets (May 2026).
• Campus and facilities: UGA School of Medicine Our Campus; UGA Today coverage of the 2024 groundbreaking and the inaugural White Coat Ceremony.
• Clinical partners: UGA School of Medicine Clinical Affiliates and Internal Medicine Residency training sites; Piedmont Athens Regional and St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital location pages.
• People: UGA School of Medicine directory and team profiles, Office of Student Affairs, Executive Leadership and Visit and Connect pages; UGA College of Veterinary Medicine profile (Mochel); UGA Today Match Day coverage for 2020, 2021, 2024 and 2025.
• Research and One Health: UGA School of Medicine Student Research and Scholarship; UGA Research (FY2025 R&D); UGA Today coverage of the Precision One Health Symposium and of Cushing’s and One Health.
• National admissions data (median MCAT and GPA, applications, interviews, offers and matriculants, all not yet available for this school), estimated new entrants, interview invitation date, interviewers, waitlist, deposit, update letters, MCAT score policy, prerequisite deadline, background check, start date, and aid and debt reporting: AAMC Medical School Admission Requirements (MSAR), University of Georgia School of Medicine profile, 2026 edition (2025 entering-class data), accessed October 18, 2026.
• Service-based funding: National Health Service Corps Scholarship overview (HRSA); Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce loan repayment programs.