@amyandscott are you in state or OOS?
@jym626 OOS white male.
To be completely honest, I would not attribute his rejection as a result of affirmative action. As an African American male who was accepted with a 35 ACT, 1550 SAT, 3.952 UW, 4.595 W, and 15 AP classes, I feel as if the discourse you are creating only diminishes the accomplishments of qualified URMs. You have to realize that many URMs are just as qualified as your son. Georgia Tech’s applicant pool was just extremely competitive this year. With that being stated, I commend your son’s accomplishments, and I am sure he will end up at a great university!
From Ron Clark’s blog: http://pwp.gatech.edu/admission-blog/2018/01/18/the-secret-sauce-behind-scholarship-selection-part-1-of-2/
And separately, onlyn19% of OOS students were accepted EA.
Did anyone get emails from Georgia Tech saying they are eligible for the honors program yet?
There’s an email about applying to “Living Learning Communities” today, which include Honors Program. It also says “You are welcome to apply to all Living Learning Communities.” There are so many choices. We should probably start another topic to discuss the pros and cons of each LLC.
Okay, now that a few days have passed…
OOS DS rejected, not tippy top stats but up there like one student a few pages back that was accepted OOS. Rejected from GTech, but deferred from MIT!!! Never expected that to happen!
I did want to comment on something posted earlier…It was mentioned that the regional advisor is your “lawyer”, your rep to the admissions committee. Wondering if anyone else had this experience with Gtech? If so, I hope some admissions are following along…
There were no local events(w/i 1-2 hrs) for a face to face in the Northeast. If there were we didn’t know about them and not for the lack of trying. No emails or mailers (not even 1). So DS asked a question via email trying to make contact, but was curtly referred to the CS department. That stung. Flew down anyway for a GTech Open House to demonstrate a STRONG interest. Asked for an appointment while there since OOS. “Too busy” was the reply. The amazing opening by Rick (Dir of Adm)-love his blog!) expressed how much the admission counselors are there for you - that stung even more. Not the type to need coddling, but our experience was none other than impersonal. Wrote that off, but don’t know what else DS could have done in this arena to show interest and stand out w/o being obnoxious via phone/email - not doing it. DS has had countless time on campuses, local sessions, overnight events, hackathons, all at MIT, CMU and Cornell and he’s had personal interviews with all 3. I expect that GTech will need to make some adjustments to their admissions in order to capture more acceptances of Ivy students.
We know the stakes are getting higher, that many admitted had GTech further down on their list after the Ivies. Yeah, yeah, I understand yield and that those with little intention of going were admitted. DS was seriously considering GTech and would have been an OOS full-pay, so, no, money wasn’t a factor being admitted (someone asked about this earlier).
We all know that colleges have institutional goals - I like to use that term instead of “holistic” - things like country/state/major/race/gender/oboe players, etc., it could be whatever and it likely changes each year. This is what it is so that’s why we’ve cast our net wide and so far it’s worked out well! Good luck to all the accepted and deferred.
GT does not offer interviews except where they require it of some internationals to demonstrate English proficiency http://admission.gatech.edu/freshman/interview
And GT doesn’t consider demonstrated interest https://www.irp.gatech.edu/sites/default/files/documents/CDS/cds_2016_updated.pdf
@jym626 DS didn’t ask for an interview, just an opportunity to meet/introduce himself to the person who was to be his representative in the admissions process.
DS applied to other schools that don’t offer an interview (large publics), so that wasn’t the concern. Large publics are mostly stats based and they state that upfront. We found that to be GTech as well.
The schools know the applicants want them. The art, and the challenge of all applicants, is in presenting an application that makes the school want the applicant.
@jym628 Certainly, that is the applicant’s job to present themselves well. There are many strong applicants with great applications who have done their job yet are denied admissions. That’s not in question here. “The schools know the applicants want them”. Sure there are more applicants than seats now that applicants are applying to many schools(usually 10+) - they are also “interviewing the schools”.
Back to the topic of my original post…my question was a follow-up to a previous comment regarding how to make yourself stand out from other applicants within your state - ie your admissions rep is your advocate. I wanted to share our experience to see if others had a similar experience, were they able to connect, other than through submitting their application. GTech was the only school (public or private) to which DS applied that remained impersonal.
All of the posts have been informative. Does anyone have an opinion as to the rational of a non-legacy international applicant being offered Pathways for second year transfer? I understand this program for Georgia residents and for legacies. It would seem to me that deferral to RD and then the Pathways offer would be the logical sequence. Perhaps, within the pool of applicants, they knew RD would not happen and they wanted us to move on. Does anyone know if this is common for OOS and International?
@CSinPA I am sorry you had less than a positive experience in interacting with GT’s admission office. My DD and I have always had a positive experience (return of emails, phone calls, willingness to meet when in town). In fact one of the admission reps has become like family to my DD. My students who have applied to GT have had similar positive experiences with the admissions office. Rick Clark, the admissions director, is very approachable. I usually am a parent rep at admitted students events so I will try to mention your experience when I meet with my regional admissions person.
Just a side note, I disagree with your comment that GT’s admissions is mostly stats based. Rick Clark rights a lot about the admission process and the fit with the school and an applicant’s potential are very big factors in admissions. I know many GT students who do not fall into the 35 ACT and 4.5 GPA type of student who were accepted and attend GT (including my own DD). Progress and Service are GT’s motto and the type of student they accept fits very well with that motto. An applicant really has to do a good job expressing themselves in their application to fit within GT’s missio statement including having teacher recommendations and counselor reports support those concepts.
I am sorry your DS did not get accepted to GT. I know how that feels with my own children (talking to you UVA which is the only school to reject both my children). I have had one child not get accepted to any reaches and another child get into a lot of their reach schools, but at the end of the day both were/are very happy at their chosen colleges and thankful for their college educational experience.
@itsv I completely agree! My DS was denied admission to GT distance math program (which is 100% stats based) but he was accepted EA! 2 totally different admissions reviews between GT distance math (not holistic) and freshman admissions (holistic) and DS is proof of the different outcomes of these 2 types of admission review policies.
On the Common App, Georgia Tech is listed as requiring mid-year grades. I have yet to see a statement anywhere on the portal (it’s not on the checklist) or ds’s acceptance letter that indicates that mid-year grades are required for EA admits. I emailed admissions and haven’t received a response. Do we follow instructions on the portal or Common App? We homeschool, so I am the one who would be submitting the mid-year transcript. Thanks!
@itsv Thank you for sharing our experience with admissions.
@itsv I saw that you kindly responded to another disheartened declined student by saying “Although GT says demonstrated interest is not a significant factor, I really think it helps to at least create a dialogue with their regional admission rep. I just feel it is harder to turn down a student when they can place a face to a name.”
THIS is what DS was trying to do… 
On the demonstrated interest front, I’m convinced that even colleges that say they don’t care about interest, care about interest. Remember 3 years ago when we had that crazy bitter winter? My kid and a friend were due to fly up to uChicago for a tour…they were high school seniors…they got into chicago on literally the last flight into the city…in the morning, they couldn’t find a taxi and walked the 5 blocks to the school…they were one of 8 kids on the tour (there should have been a couple of hundred), and then afterwards (as conditions worsened), they brought the 8 kids into the admissions office & located a shuttle bus to bring them back to their hotels. Both my D and her friend got into Chicago and i wouldn’t be surprised if all 8 kids made it in. 
Our experience: DS has almost no contact with GT, except an email in the summer asking about OOS scholarship possibilities. He got a response back from a student worker in the admissions office. He has never set foot in the state of Georgia. He doesn’t even know who his regional AO is. So I do think GT doesn’t care much about “demonstrated interest” or personal connections.
IMO, it’s not a good idea to compare one’s stats with other applicants–wondering why one person got accepted while the other with similar or better stats was rejected/deferred. We can rack our brains on this but will not unravel the mysteries of college admissions. High scores and GPAs are qualifiers but there’s so much more to take in consideration (thus the holistic approach).
My OOS son was accepted and I believe it’s what he did outside of school (his interests/passions and activities) that differentiated him.