State of the Georgia Girl Report

The State of Georgia Girls

Girls in Georgia are living a life, divided. She is the most academically ambitious, most college bound, most goal-focused generation of Georgia girls on record. She is also the loneliest, and that feeling reaches far below adolescence. The principal goal of this report is to follow that arc through the differences observed between girls and boys in areas like academic achievement and rates of mental health challenges. This research proves one undeniable fact: girls and boys have largely different experiences growing up in Georgia . In elementary schools, half of girls already report being left out by other kids. By middle school, that early exclusion lives alongside growing academic pressure and hardens into stress and anxiety. By high school, an increasingly complex social life, balanced between her in-person relationships and digital persona turns into depression and self-harm. Across five dimensions of wellness - physical health, digital presence, academic success, emotional wellbeing, and social connection - the findings honor both sides of her story. Georgia girls graduate from high school at higher rates than boys and enroll in college in higher numbers within sixteen months of graduation. They take a larger share of Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment courses. Their parents describe them as more engaged in school than the national average. This hard-earned progress is worth celebrating. The emotional infrastructure that should hold up that progress, however, is thin. More than half of high school girls in Georgia report symptoms of depression in a given month. Twice as many girls as boys report intense anxiety. One in five has seriously considered harming herself in the past year. When she looks for the adult who can help, she often cannot find one: two in three high school girls lack a caring adult to talk with about their feelings, and half of parents cannot access mental health care for their daughter even when they seek it. Neither truth cancels the other. The girl who is rising and the girl who is struggling are the same girl. What she is asking of Georgia - of every adult who cares about her - is the recognition that both belong to her, and both start earlier than we think.

90% of Georgia girls graduated high school in 2025. Five points higher than boys and up nearly seven points in a decade.

2 in 3 high school girls lack a caring adult to talk with about their feelings.

58% of upper-school girls in Georgia experienced signs of depression. Compared to 39% of boys.

1 in 5 middle and high school girls has seriously considered harming herself in the past year. Girls cite family reasons and school pressure as the primary drivers of self-harm.

6 THE 2026 STATE OF THE GEORGIA GIRL REPORT