Advanced Academy of Georgia  The Advanced Academy of Georgia was a joint high school and early college entrance program at the University of West Georgia in Carrollton, Georgia. It was established by Dr. Beheruz Sethna in the 1995–1996 academic year. It stopped accepting new residential students during the 2015-2016 academic year, and the program was phased out in May 2017. The Advanced Academy did not focus on a specific discipline, and therefore required a minimum GPA, minimum SAT and ACT scores, and that its applicants be on the College Preparatory track. The program traditionally accepted students during their high school junior and high school senior years, though younger students considered to be exceptionally gifted have been accepted. While enrolled, students were free to pursue whatever discipline they wanted, provided they met the credit requirements for graduation at their high-school. Because of changes to the College Credit Now program, one 3-4 credit hour college class "counts" as a full unit of high school credit. Therefore, students earned a full year of high school credit in one semester at the college level. Students were housed in Gunn Hall, a residence hall on the south-eastern corner of the Carrollton campus. Previously housing both young Academy students and typical college-aged honors students, Gunn Hall was for a time dedicated solely for housing Academy students and support staff, but shrunk to one wing of the building in Fall 2014. Since the students were housed together, they often formed strong relationships during their time in the program. The administration of the program encouraged this sense of community, providing activities such as Thursday Night Dinner, at which guests came and spoke to the students of the Academy on a variety of subjects, and regular events in Gunn Hall and around the campus specifically for the Academy students. Several events for Academy students became yearly traditions. Among these were prom, a collaborative poetry and music performance called "Coffee House", and "The Decathlon". The last of these was a very significant event for many current and former Academy students, in which two teams drawn up from both current students and alumni competed against each other in many different events, which included sports, board games, a scavenger hunt, and an engineering contest, known as the "Challenge." The Decathlon would tend to inspire a great deal of camaraderie among the residents of a floor, while creating drama and competition between the floors as a whole. The Decathlon always took place on the weekend immediately preceding Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January and served as a time of reunion for former students and housing staff, who often came and stayed in Gunn Hall for the weekend and participated alongside current students in the competitions.