My daughter was accepted Early Admission at GT and has received a constant stream of emails inviting her to all kinds of events. Everything from tours/presentations geared to specific majors to a football game, overnight stay with a current student along with planned activities, etc.
@SomniumCrepitans is right. OOS students are footing a large part of GTech’s budget by paying higher tuition. To increase in-state enrollment would mean higher tuition for in-state students. How would that go over?
As I’ve read through these comments regarding the desire to have more in-state Georgians admitted to GTech a few thoughts come to mind. When a state university/college moves up in the national ranks, many things happen with admissions:
-admissions doesn’t have to advertise to recruit (college fairs…)
-admissions won’t coddle applicants unless they really want them (high stats/legacy/donor parents/athletes/NMF). (Some students are given summer or spring admittance if their stats are lower so as to not affect incoming fall stats which affects rank. Admissions also plays with their yield number. The lower it is, the higher the college ranking as it represents prestige).
-admissions has an even tougher job now balancing tuition received along with meeting many quotas such as in-state/OOS/international/refugee/gender/race/economic status/orientation/top athletes/waning state funding levels, etc.
-admissions is challenged with maintaining or improving the schools rank - the higher the rank the more competitive the school is to receive grant and research money nationally which in turn attracts top applicants internationally
…and so the cycle begins again each new school year.
Higher education is a business now that has gone not only national but global. I can understand parents disdain when getting Johnny/Sally into the state’s flagship state school is not like it was when s/he applied to college.
Probably worth noting that the greatest increases in the admissions stats are in the numbers of applicants and the ACT lower end of the mid 50%. Many more applicants take the ACT now than in the past and those applying to Tech are strong on subject matter, which the ACT emphasizes. All things considered, these stats seem to reflect the greater number of applicants year on year more than anything else. It will be telling to see how the class actually entering in 2016 compares to that which entered in 2015. Average SAT’s were approximately 1450 for the 2015 freshman class.
A few more thoughts about GT. My son is a rising sophomore in the honors program, where he takes some courses in smaller classrooms and a few more diverse liberal arts offerings. He was an exceptionally strong high school student with 2300 on the SAT’s. With AP credits and the courses he took this summer he will be basically a year ahead going into second year. He has maintained a 4.0 average this far.
His comment about Tech is that it is an institute of technology and not a broad, diverse university as you might ordinarily think of one. He was a great classics student in HS so he has sacrificed that aspect, but absolutely loves his major and has two minor area of interest he’s pursuing as well, including anew foreign language. Tech is great for self motivated kids with a dedicated interest in stem, if they don’t mind missing some of the more diverse and far flung liberal arts curriculum and students you’d tend to find other places. But GT does have a lively LA program as well, but one which is focused (like MIT’s) on the societal aspects of technology.
As I’ve researched the school and its graduate programs, it’s become clear to me that much of its undergraduate focus is driven by the goals and needs of Georgia Tech Research Institute, which is the overarching institutional research organization that attracts much of Tech’s research funding. Tech offers its more successful undergrads a preferred track into most of its department’s masters programs, and will pay those students a full tuition and expense ride if they enter the thesis track (as opposed to simply a TA track). This ensures GTRI has a ready supply of research grade graduate students to assist professors within GTRI in research and augment projects with masters theses. Undergrads entering the masters programs may do so by declaring interest in the junior year, and often apply some if their undergrad coursework to satisfy some prerequisites in the masters program. (A number of other top engineering schools offer similar incentivized masters programs for top students). My son tells me that while these programs at Tech hold appeal for many, others view masters at other schools as a preferable way to diversify a CV, with a potential return to GT for a PhD. Apparently many GT undergrads go on to graduate programs at MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, etc.
In State Acceptance Rate for GT?
@dlee627 Last year, EA was 45%. Overall acceptance rate (both RD and EA) was 39%.
Source: GT news and website.
This is probably from long ago because the overall acceptance rate for class of 2020 was 26%, not 39%
Overall INSTATE acceptance was 39% last year.
OH OK @jym626