Another option could be to stay near the perimeter and take Marta to Tech.
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This is very different than what we are seeing for our freshman and his friend groupā¦but I am glad that it is working out for yours!
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Your kids situation is more typical, as I am sure you realize from their friend group. And itās no big deal. Getting an internship after your first year is not expected and really makes no difference in your future employment. Had a long talk with my GT son about this this week. Also talked to a friend with a 3rd year at Emory in the business school. Same situation there. The song and dance about internships falling at your feet that Emory gave them was simply not true. Her kid has done really well but no internship after the first year, and took connections to get his second year internship. Third year one is it at fortune 500 company in Chicago but it certainly didnāt fall into his lap, even from Emory business school.
I am not here to be a cheerleader for Georgia Tech unlike others. It has some really good points but also some negatives and certainly not the right school for everyone. I am a firm believer in choosing a college because of fit. You only get to do college once!
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I keep reading this āfitā everywhere, and I must confess I donāt know how someone determines that within a day of college visit. What kind of student would be a good fit to Georgia Tech engineering as opposed to Columbia engineering or University of Maryland engineering? This is my oldest child, so pretty clueless here. (I have my Ph.D. in engineering from ancient times, so Iām not sure I fully understand how to measure the fit.)
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I also think āfitā is overstated in the case of DS but can certainly see that it would be crucial to some kidsā¦they are all different.
DS applied to a wide variety of colleges and I feel confident he would have been very happy at most of them. GT has been disappointing to date on the academics and counselling side (and internship), but he is really happy with his friends and is doing a good job of making it work from what I can tell. Overall GT is a good choice for himā¦from what I can tell though, they could be much better with small effort but I am sure there is more to it, at least I hope soā¦
Re internships/jobsā¦my daughter recently graduated in CS and companies were beating down the door to hire her (and she had no problem getting internships) and she is nowhere near the level of DS even taking into consideration she has completed her degree and he is a freshman. While she was at a different university, I think that without contacts it is quite hard these days for white/asian males in CS to get offers. So without all the info, it is hard to say why one kid gets an internship and some do not.
Why has GT been disappointing in terms of academics?
DS liked to do math competitions, etc and so was accelerated in some STEM subjects. GT only allows one to test out through advanced placement tests up to a max of 9 hoursā¦the result is that he is repeating courses for which he already knows the material. He met with the relevant GT personnel to try to get a waiver and still take the same number of hours, just take a higher level class but they are pretty inflexible and IMO never articulated why they do this. It seems simple to me that if someone knows Multivariable Calc, etc and can take the final exam and make X% they should not have to repeat the course, but sadly they make you repeat it.
I am sure he will get challenged once he is able to take upper level courses but so far not much new and it is busy work. He has loaded up on the hours he is taking to accelerate getting these classes behind him.
He has not always been the most organized person, and a positive result of taking so many hours is that he has gotten much better at organizationā¦so he is learning something.
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Wow, that is surprising. I understand the disappointment. Good luck to your DS.
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I am really to surprised to hear this as this is not our experience at all. GT has been the most accommodating with AP and dual enrolled classes than a lot of other colleges. My dd that is there has not had to repeat any class that she has AP credit for granted she did dual enrollment at GT. She is now a senior by credit though only in her second year. I guess everyoneās experience is different but when you look at their transfer equivalency page, you can see a lot of classes that transfer. The only issue I have seen is that GT does not like students to take online math classes and may not give credit for that although they made exceptions during Covid but they are back to the policy now.
I agree with Educatormum - my DS had no problem transferring his AP and DE credits, and came in with close to 50 credit hours. However, we looked very carefully at the process, rules, and requirements of transferring in credits before he made his decision to attend GT. He also reached out to the GT advisor for his major, specifically laid out what credits he wanted to transfer in, and asked to be assured that GT would accept them all. He got a quick response back, telling him exactly what would be accepted. There was one DE class that wasnāt already in the transfer database list, so DS submitted an application to have the class be recognized, and it was approved - we were thrilled!
When comparing colleges, getting specific information about which AP and DE credits will be accepted is a very important part of the process - donāt assume all schools will be similar -there can be huge differences which can make a big impact on the decision making process.
I agree that if you have AP credits or took courses at a college then there is little problem transferring these credits in. Some kids have knowledge significantly beyond AP and dual enrollment.
In our case, DS did math and computer programming competitions and in order to do well in these courses he took AOPS math. Additionally, his high school taught courses such as AdvancedJava Programming, Differential Equations, Multivariable Calculus, Grapth Theory, etc. Since it was a high school, there is no dual credit given and GT limits credits via advanced placement to 9 hours in total (a reasonable system whereby you effectively take the final exam and if you score well then you place out).
Many top STEM schools assess your level in subjects via placement tests and place you in a course where you will learn. GT does not and DS is retaking material and learning nothing except how to organize his time. His request was to not receive credits towards his major but if he demonstrated mastery of the subject through testing out of courses, just let him skip Multivariable or Diff EQ, for example, and take a higher level class. GT does not allow this and has not given any reason other than āitās our policyā which in my opinion is a poor explanation.
Ah I get it - I thought you were referring to AP credit when you said āadvanced placementā. I have heard about the ability to take an exam at GT and place out of a class if you score well enough - I see now that thatās what youāre referring to. Was the cap on allowable credits using this process something you looked into before committing? I would hope GT made their policy clear on their website, or at least answered your questions honestly and didnāt hide anything from you before your DS committed. If so, itās not really a āproblemā with their academics, more of just a potential differentiating factor between schools that should have been evaluated before making a college choice decision, especially given your sonās special circumstances. For the rest of our āaverageā kids (lol), GTās acceptance of DE/AP credits seems to be good, and in most cases, better than other top STEM schools.
I very well could have mislabeled what GT calls this system but I think it is advanced placement exams.
I have not looked too far back but I suspect all the info is out there and we did not think to look at it or for it. We merely saw GTs reputation, looked at courses, talked to a few students, etc and made a bad assumption and truthfully were very surprised that any college would even want you to retake a course for which you can pass the final before taking it. Once again, I understand they might not want you to get the credit but why would they not allow you to take a more advanced class?? Lesson learned.
As I mentioned, the remedy DS found is to just take a higher number of hours than he initially intended so that he can get these courses out of the way. While i am not crazy about this solution it is helping him with his org skills which were somewhat lacking.
Outside of the academics and internship opps, he is very happy at GT and we hope rigor will improve some time next year.
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Quick question- for GT, in the early action 2 round, what percentage of applications are deferred to RD? I read on the GT website that 1/3 students from EA are eventually admitted in RD, but they donāt have any other statistics.
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AP credit for math stops at Calculus 2 which is lower level math. I believe the frustration comes with kids whi took BC Calc early on in their high school careers and have also taken linear algebra, multivariable calculus, etc.
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My understanding is that 1/3 stat is from years ago and the website has not been updated. That was not the situation last year at all, as the acceptance rate for the regular decision round was 11%.
A dual enrollment for multi variable calculus should however get a credit correct?
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So I think if you visit the school and donāt have a good feel for the culture, you need to dig deep. Given the three schools that you mentioned I can give you my thoughts, although my son only applied to one of them. He did not apply to Columbia because he was not a fan of the common core curriculum so ruled them out. That would be a distinguishing factor in choosing Columbia over another engineering school.
Like Columbia, Georgia Tech is an urban school which my son preferred. He however was raised in the south, a fan of division one sports, and also interested in Greek life. Georgia Tech provides all of that, has amazing school spirit along with a top tier engineering education. When he applied, Georgia Tech was the number one civil engineering school in the country which is his major. It may still be. As we are in-state, he gets free tuition, plus all of the other benefits mentioned above that he wanted in a college. It checked all of his boxes.
Georgia Tech is very much a stem school which is a pro or con depending on your view. Georgia Tech definitely has a nerdy vibe (got same vibe from MIT) but not for everyone - I have one who said no way 
My son strongly considered UVA which I guess is like UMD - state flag ship with wide variety of majors. The kids we talked to who were engineers at UVA all said they went there because they loved the idea of being surrounded by non-stem majors and did not want a stem school. Different culture and worth exploring.
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Honestly, I donāt know the answer to that. Just from a transfer student standpoint, Georgia Tech does not take everything from every college. I would contact admissions and double check.
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