Unless there is a decent chance he will want to change majors, I’d lean toward GT.
This is definitely a tough decision though.
“Georgia Tech has much fewer students in total, so 11% of GATech is much smaller than 9% of UMich. Moreover, Georgia Tech’s CS faculty is larger – CS being a separate college (At Michigan it is an EECS department).”
Indeed, 9% of Michigan’s student body is larger than 11% of GT’s, but you are incorrect in assuming that GT has a larger CS faculty. Michigan’s CS instructional faculty (including lecturers but not research faculty or post docs) stands at 106, compared to GT’s 99 (also including lecturers but not research faculty or post docs). Regardless, I doubt you will see a significant gap in class size, especially in intermediate and advanced level classes.
“The data is for class of 2017 – class of 2022 may look very different at a place that does not have mechanism to control number of CS graduates.”
Michigan has announced recently that it will not allow enrollment to exceed capacity. They will limit enrollment in CS if necessary. This trend is becoming quite common for CS majors at universities across the nation. Like I said earlier, Pomona College has recently announced the same thing.
“At GaTech, are plenty of girls to date, last few classes,2020, 2021, are 45% girls , no one notices the lack of girls at GaTech anymore”
Coloradomama, according to GT’s CDS, female students have made up 41%, 41% and 43% of the freshmen class in the past three years. 59-41 to 57-43 is a significant gap, no matter how you slice it. But that does not capture the full extent of the gap. Women make up less than 30% of the transfer class. Overall, women make up 38% of the undergraduate student body at GT today. That is not a problem for all men, but it is a concern for some men, and should not be downplayed. To say that the male to female ratio at GT is not noticeable seems oversimplified.
“…in fact, Michigan’s Engineering college is much more male dominated than GaTech’s departments. The girls at Michigan 'are not in engineering classes so much, although they try like anywhere to recruit girls.”
I am not sure I understand your point here. Engineers do not live in a bubble. Well, not at Michigan anyway. Engineers live with, socialize and date men and women from other schools within the university. The dorms at Michigan do not segregate engineers from the rest of the student body. Besides, Engineers spend most of their first and second year taking classes in the College of LSA, where women make up 52% of the student body.
Georgia Tech is an exceptional university, and in Engineering and CS, it is second to none…well, maybe to MIT, Stanford and Cal! 
But Michigan is exceptional too, only Michigan is also more well rounded. If cost is not a concern, I will usually recommend Michigan. It is just a more well rounded university.
GaTech has a method to handle crowds in CS, which is that it funnels students into 8 different paths, that have somewhat different requirements. So, for instance, the scientific computing thread uses faculty in Industrial Engineering/operations research. The Theory thread uses math faculty. CS students in the devices thread at GaTech take some significant coursework in ECE and EE.
I would guess that U of Michigan does the same, as CS is so interdisciplinary, so its VERY hard to compare faculty and get an average class size. As I said my son’s classes are very small as he is in the theory thread at GaTech
and thats half math classes, and thus he is getting a very personal education at GaTech. I would ask a current Michigan CS student more questions, to get more clarity, and since OP lives close to Ann Arbor, they can just
drive over and verify class size if it even matters to them. As another poster commented, Stanford (and MIT) get
upwards of 1000 students enrolled in the very hot new machine learning classes, or a class in quantum computing or any hot area, Stanford and MIT rarely limit class size. People can stand in the back and listen, they simply do not limit
at the very best private colleges!
However I sympathize with public schools, who have to have some order and don’t want overflowing recitations classes for every single CS class. It truly gets prohibitive. But at a place like MIT, no hand holding listen to the lecture, do the homework sets, and learn it on your own, is how techy schools work. Yes there is some hand holding for freshman though, but class size in tech schools was never a measure that matters in the 1970s.
We had huge freshman class sizes at MIT and we broke them down into smaller recitations. Its not too important,
class size for techy students. They learn when they do the problem set, write the code, or design the product.
How many students or other faculty sit in on lectures is a total don’t care. This is NOT high school!!!
What you want to look for in a techy school is good CURRICULUM. Both Michigan and GaTech have that. Almost identical in fact, and you want smart students, to learn from, both Michigan and GaTech have that too. Its mostly just a personal choice after that.
Parents get confused about class size, because the Socratic method, a method of arguing to learn, (this is the teaching method at say Williams College), which does require small groups, is not really that useful to learn some subjects, that require a lot of problem set practice, solving or proving an answer, or coding assignments. Engineering is somewhat different because students learn by DOING the math, deriving the equation, solving the proof, building a circuit, using x ray equipment to study the piece of composite material etc. . However, its nice to be able to talk to professors, you can do that at Michigan or GaTech, so again thats about equal. Both schools will allow one on one time, if the student signs up for that. Research credits and senior thesis are offered at both schools, I believe. So students will get one on one time, if they want it. They will get small group projects if they want it. The size of a lecture does not correlate to the amount of one on one time with professors at any good technical college.
Thank you everyone for your responses. This has been very helpful. It was a difficult decision. After all pros and cons consideration, he has decided and accepted Umich offer.
Congratulations to your S! <:-P
Thanks for the update Umich2022. I am sure your son will have a great time at Michigan.
@Umich2022 We’d be happy to celebrate the good news on your S’s decision! Please consider posting your S’s acceptance to the final decisions page.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/2060628-official-class-of-2022-final-decisions-hs-class-2018-p1.html
I am sorry to be late in this thread, which school actively look for girls who are mathy and have prior industry experince in computer science. Will apprecaite it. Finanacial aid is a concern for us. But duaghter has excellent GPA, and scroes and leadership’s positions in STEM and non STEM fields.
Thanks for the update Umich2022. I am sure your son will have a great time at Michigan.
Thanks for the update Umich2022. I am sure your son will have a great time at Michigan.
@infinityprep1234 I’m not sure that this thread is going to get you the specific information you’re looking for, so maybe consider starting a separate thread?