Financial aid - Out of State

@ProdParent3S He did. I had the FA advisor check to make sure everything we needed to have filled out was done. She said it was and that it was the weirdest thing that the award letter wasn’t done. She really couldn’t explain why and just said they would get it done as soon as possible. So, we wait I guess. Thanks for the suggestion though.

@ProdParent3S Good to hear that and best wishes.

Just want to mention that GT is not too generous in giving much scholarship at least to the OSS. My son only got $7K and also it needs to re-apply every year while he has been offered with a full-ride tuition + fee scholarship ($13K/yr) from UCONN (instate) and $26K/yr from Case West, which are all automatically renewed for 4 years.

Money-wise, as the parent, I wish my son would not go to GT, But he is determined to go there, which I have no choice but say, OK.

Another thing bothering me lot is the 4 year graduation rate in GT, which is less than 40%. Do you have any idea why it has such low (horribly low) 4 year graduate rate?

@prodParent3S Four year graduation rate for GT is lowered by the co op program, as i understand it. So students are getting payed to work during some semesters and choosing that. The 4 year graduation rate has gone up since the mid 1990s.

Here is some data across many different states, I think GT is in the ball park for a public university:
http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/professionals/four-year-graduation-rates-for-four-year-colleges.pdf

As GT takes more and more well prepared students, this rate will go up.

@ProdParent3S The other thing about the grad rate which I thinks factors in is that most of the in-state students at GT are on the Hope or Zell/Miller Scholarship (and I am jealous of them). These scholarships are not need-based, but awarded by Georgia to in-state residents. Students are eligible up to seven years past high school graduation and if I understand the scholarships correctly, pay up to 127 units of credit at GT. Therefore based on my conversations with in-state GT students, they can spread this benefit over the course of their time at GT. I believe it allows them to extend the time of their education at GT without a financial consequence (e.g. be able to take four classes a term instead of 5-both full-time loads).

Additionally for some majors- GT requires more credits that the typical full-time level of 120 units. (e.g. ME requires 129 units). If a student wants to do research (which many GT students do) it can be difficult to carry five classes and a research project at the same time while still getting a great gpa. Thus some students (my DD included) will drop down to four classes plus research) which means an extra semester.

GT has never purported to give great aid to OOS. In fact I think you are pretty lucky to get the $7K from GT this year. How they make it affordable for OOS is through study abroad and co-ops/internships. Plus when you look at the ROI- GT always ranks high on the lists published by different organizations. Comparing it to public universities of similar repudiation it cheaper than those schools for an OOS (UNC, Michigan, UVA, the UC’s). With the exception of Michigan (and again that is limited) none of those OOS provide financial aid or even great merit aid to OOS.

Comparing UConn to GT is like comparing apples to oranges- colleges go up the USNWR rankings by attracting very smart students to their schools and they accomplish this by awarding very generous merit scholarships to them. I know because my oldest child received $750K in merit scholarships including two full-rides from OOS public institutions. He ended up at Ohio State with a full-ride and Ohio State ended up going up higher in rankings because they spent a few years giving out big awards to students similar to my son to entice them to attend. And guess what- some of the scholarships Ohio State awarded to my DS are not longer available because they don’t need to spend that kind of money to attract top students anymore.

As far as Case Western, even with the scholarship your son was awarded, I don’t think it makes it cheaper than GT with his scholarship. Plus those kinds of awards do carry a gpa requirement and trust me I have seen many students who were very smart in high school lose their scholarships once they get to college. This is especially true for engineering students. I know for me if would have been hard to find an extra $25K in the budget to cover a lost scholarships. My DD who was at GT gave up anywhere from a full-ride to generous merit scholarships in order to attend GT. However before she started applying to colleges, we had an understanding with her that GT was the one school we would be willing to pay up to $30K for her to attend. She knew she had to hustle to cover the gap through co-ops/internships and private scholarships. We were willing to pay more because GT was a much better engineering school for our DD than her other options and so far GT has not disappointed our DD or us and in fact continues to exceed it many times over.

Finally- have your son look into getting the research option on his degree. It may help him with graduate school acceptances. http://undergradresearch.gatech.edu/research-option Many of the engineering degree programs have the acclerated combined masters program at GT so that could be another source of saving you both time and money. Here is the link for the one through ME http://www.me.gatech.edu/undergraduate/bsms

@ProdParent3S, did you get your answer to the GPA requirement for the $7k merit scholarship?

It might be quite high, which would be challenging for engineering students to achieve at GTech.

@mommdc Yes, the required minimum GPA for this scholarship is 3.0 at the end of each semester as well as accumulative.

@itsv Thank you for all the good advises. Interestingly, so far this year, in our area, there are 6 kids (including my son) accepted to GT and we know their parents. All of them got some big or full-ride scholarship from multiple other schools but got nothing (2 of them) or just a few $K (4 of them, ranging from $5K to $8K) from GT. Three parents told us that their kids would not go to GT because it was two much financial burden for both the family and the kids. Two have decided to go (paid the deposits) and one has still undecided yet.

You are absolutely right that a low ranked school will like to offer big merit based scholarship to the top students. As its rank goes up, the size of merit based scholarship decreases accordingly.

@ProdParent3S I agree with @itsv assessment. My older son is at CWRU on scholarship. (GPA requirements are not that high to keep that) Younger son got an even better CWRU scholarship and GT for full cash price and we are going for GT full cash price for him. Reason: older son is studying math and physics and CWRU is strong for that, younger son is studying math and CS and GT is super for that. CWRU is a great school, you can read about 30 posts by me about it. Yet, even with all my enthusiasm for Case , GT is better for my younger son. If you want to discuss it, privately message me and I am happy to tell you more about CWRU, and what we believe about GT, we are not as familiar with GT but feel very strongly after our visits that its more entrepreneurial, more dynamic campus and a better high tech city, Atlanta, compared to Cleveland. Yet, my older son is very happy in Cleveland, and also getting exactly what he needs. CWRU is fabulous for an undecided student who will probably get a PhD in something. Thats my older son. Younger son? No, he will go find an industry job very soon, he is a coding type of guy, with robotics background. GT is the fit for him. And its worth it for that fit, the full cash price of GT. We are OOS. Got no scholarships and no grants, but totally was expecting to pay full cash price for GT.

@ProdParent3S CWRU is NOT a low ranked school! Its top 50 in the nation. So really its pays to visit CWRU, if your son got a great scholarship but see my other note about how one son chose GT and one chose CWRU. CWRU is better than GT for nursing and premedical studies, perhaps. GT does not offer nursing! CWRU is better for music majors, English, and many other majors, that GT does not offer. CWRU is a much more well rounded option. CWRU is a smaller private college with students from the midwest and northeast. GT is a large pubic university with students form all 50 states, but majority Georgia kids. Because CWRU is VERY well endowed, thus many students get very very generous scholarships, including both my sons. Yes, Atlanta and GT costs more. GT is a TECHNICAL school focused entirely on engineering, math and science, with a smaller business school and a public policy program and some departments for economics and communications and Media with a CS twist. Good luck.