First off, I know that Georgia Tech is ranked 9 in CS while Ohio State is ranked 34. Here is my situation:
Georgia Tech: OOS no tuition. Parents would pay full cost of attendance of 44k a year, but I will pay them back once I get a job. Apparently the average starting salary out of the College of Computing is 85k for CS majors (97% already employed upon graduation). I do like this prospect.
Ohio State: got 2 scholarships. Total cost of attendance is around 19k per year. The CS program is pretty good and is half as expensive.
I would 100% go to Georgia Tech if not for the fact that I’ve read a good amount of very negative reviews about the school, namely on studentreviews.com. The reviewers constantly complain about difficulty, unfairness, and ungodly amounts of homework along with tests where one would say “when did we learn this?” and, as another poster had mentioned, unhelpful curves because most of the students there are very intelligent. I also haven’t taken physics at all and suck at chemistry mostly because of my insanely crappy chem 2 honors teacher. Literally, I’ve had elementary school teachers who would be able to teach chem 2 better.
One of my main concerns is the low average GPA of Tech students. I would be completely screwed out of luck if I decide to go pre-med and apply for med school. I really don’t know if I could keep up at Tech, despite the amount of work I put in.
Here are some of my academic stats in the case that any first year student with similar stats can give an opinion or insight.
ACT:34(took multiple times) E:34 M:35 S:32 R:33 highest scores all sittings E:35 M:36 R:33 S:34
[ *] SAT II: 770 math 2
[ *] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0):4.0
Weighted GPA: 4.67 ish
[ *] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 2/465
[ *] AP (place score in parenthesis): AP Gov:5 APUSH:4 AP English lang:4 AP Psych:4 AP comp science:3(don’t worry about this score. I took the class as an underclassmen and didn’t really care that much at the time lol) AP music theory:3 AP chem:3
[ *] IB (place score in parenthesis):NA
[ *] Senior Year Course Load: AP Macro, AP English lit, AP calc bc, AP Euro, AP Bio
[ *] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.):NA, minor award: AP scholar with distinction
It’s not like I’m working insanely hard right now but I usually have a decent workload. Please, anyone who has had the same apprehensions, give me some insight.
I am currently a student at GT and I want to comment on all those “horror stories.” I had similar scores/courseload to you and I was outright terrified of the stories people would tell me. However, now that I am at Tech I have found that those who complain the most are those who have been used to breezing through classes without work and who are unable to adapt to being in classes that require work (primarily in-state students who got into elite schools, declined them for monetary reasons, and thus underestimate the difficulty of Tech).
As a public school that also is very nationally competitive, Tech is forced to have a model of providing surprisingly difficult courses and lots of work in order to ensure that those willing to work (even if not the brightest) will be set to get a good job after college. This is necessary without the “small class full of all-stars” approach that most elite private institutions have but again its a result of being required to have a larger accepted class.
Ultimately though, I do not think that you, with the information that you have provided, would experience these horror stories if you are willing to put in some work. It is definitely not an easy school, but a good GPA is possible (I know many graduating seniors with 3.7+ GPA’s so it can be done). One worry you might have is Physics/Chemistry because if you do not exempt them then they are still required (also they are both parts of the MCAT so understand that you’ll have to learn them eventually!) and they are notorious for being difficult. However, I also personally know people who got into good med schools (Emory, Johns Hopkins, etc.) from GT and who attribute a lot of their success on the MCAT from being so well-prepared for the Physics/Chem component of the exam from Tech’s courses. I cannot comment on your college decision, because ultimately that comes down to how much you value other factors like social life, money, etc. But just know that if you are able to put in effort and are willing to learn how you work best (without stubbornly holding on to “whatever got you through high school”) then there is no reason you shouldn’t succeed at Tech!
Just to add to this: historically, physics majors outperform most other majors on the MCAT’s. They always out perform all other majors on the Physical sciences portion.
@dagriff thank you very much for your insight! Yes I will work very hard regardless of the college. I’be just read some that some students only study and still make subpar grades. Thanks for giving me some solace haha.
@saismom I’m just speculating haha. I don’t necessarily want to be pre-med as of now, but, in the case that my aspirations change, I don’t want the choice of school to inhibit me.
Georgia Tech is not worth an extra $100,000 in total loans compared to Ohio State. It would actually be cheaper to attend OSU undergrad and then do GT for graduate school. I love GT. It is one of the best state schools in the country (for Georgia residents it is an amazing bargain), but is not worth that kind of money.
@NROTCgrad again, I’m not taking out any loans. My parents would pay for it and I would pay them back 40-50k after getting a job. Does that change your opinion?
So, out of a total of $100K extra, you only have to repay your parents half or less?
If that is true then, yes, maybe it is fine to choose GT. Just make sure that you and your parents agree on the amount that you pay back and at what intervals. You should set up at payment schedule – now! – so that everybody knows exactly what to expect.
Also, do you feel confident that your parents can pay the extra tuition without taking loans themselves? (You would not have gotten $100K in loans anyway, your parents would have had to take out the loans that I mentioned earlier). If your family is prosperous enough to afford to do this without loans, and your parents are willing to do it… then it should be fine.
@NROTCgrad well they said that they don’t care whether or not I pay them back or not. They just want me to do well in college. But, I will pay them back at least 40k and most likely 50k. I am 100% sure that my parents would not have to take out loans.
@chardo well it’s not a loan because my parents aren’t forcing me to pay it back but I will. Plus, there will be no interest accruing over 4 years. Read my previous post
Then pack your bags for Georgia Tech. In the subjects you are interested in GT is head and shoulders above OSU. My niece graduated from GT (in state student, majored in business) and so did her father (masters in electrical engineering). Amazingly good school. If there is any “grade deflation” then med schools and all other graduate programs know how to adjust. These universities know all about one another.
@IamStruggling : There is really no grade deflation. It is just that naturally, at a STEM school, you are going to have many students with lower grades because most of their courses are science courses that grade lower than humanities and social sciences (it is like this everywhere). Students at elite non–STEM schools have higher GPA’s because it is balanced by many non-STEM courses (maybe as required because of GenEd requirements). However, STEM grades at Tech are really not much different from other very selective (public and private) schools in STEM, especially at the intro. level. Like general chemistry has a mean between 2.7-3.0, typical at elite private schools (where I went, Emory was about 2.8 across all sections, and the eams of most instructors were more difficult than the Tech counter parts). Biology is similar with 2.7-3.2, again typical at elite institutions (except maybe Brown, Yale, and Stanford which have additional grade inflation-but in general, intro biology tends to be tougher at these schools. The tough instructor Dr. Choi is a cakewalk in comparison to many of the instructors for biology at many of these places, but that just makes sense because their are many more bio/pre-med nerds at these elite private schools whereas more math/physics/engineering at a place like Tech). The anomalies are the service courses for physics and mathematics (like 2211/2212 and the 15series for math). These are much more difficult at Georgia Tech than many non-STEM schools and have much lower grading for the most rigorous instructors. It seems the key to doing really well in the beginning is to do solidly in these two courses. With careful instructor selection AND/OR hard work, you can probably do it. The general chemistry and biology series there is really manageable. Ochem is as well (this is another course where many elite privates and some publics like Michigan are often on a completely different level on average). From what my friends show me, the upper level courses are doable at Tech but do have demanding workloads so much more than impossible exams, so you actually have to keep up and do the work (p-sets or projects) well enough while also finding time to prep for the exam.
When you compare a place like Tech, MIT, or other STEM oriented schools, to elite privates or other non-engineering entities, you are comparing apples and oranges.
As for MCAT performance of physics majors. That just makes sense. Any major that integrates a good helping of physics and applied math will result in higher MCAT scores because the MCAT, while Multiple choice, is application/problem solving based. Unfortunately, many biology curricula don’t emphasize that as much and are full of low level multiple choice/short answer examinations. One would also find that, generally, neuroscience and BME majors tend to far outperform biology majors, but there is also by default a sample bias because biology tends to be the default major of many/most who run around calling themselves “pre-med” whereas often the other majors are more self-selecting. Like a physics/BME major is already more inclined toward problem solving from the get go and is also less likely to be pre-health than a biology major so the pools for that category (physics and pre-med) are much smaller and often much stronger at science and math to begin with.
@Iamstruggling, lots of good posts here. I too will recommend GTech over OSU, especially if your folks can pay for it. Last year, my D2 received the Buckeye and Prominence scholarships (= full tuition) from OSU. However, pretty early she eliminated OSU from her shortlist, which comprised of GTech, UCB and UMich. She is a Yellowjacket freshman now, planning to major in ChemE.
Both schools are really good. I would follow your heart in which one you think you would thrive better at. If your parents are giving you a loan and you like GT better than I would say go there. I was unaware of the website you went to see the horror reviews studentreviews.com. To me I would not look up schools on that site. It is kind of funny that people who are negative post on sites like that. Unfortunately when people are happy they don’t post but when it negative they do. So you truly will not get the correct opinion of the schools. Given that these schools are in top 35 says it all. Good luck, I am sure you will pick the school that you are meant to be at!
@college67 Thank you for your input! Yea I was reading up on the reviews, and it just seemed overwhelming to me. But, you make a good point about the reason for the excess negativity haha
@bernie12 you made a lot of strong points. I saw this on another GT thread. Any comments on it? Especially the grading curve one.
A few quotes for you from the 2015 Fiske Guide:
-Grading on a curve creates hypercompetitive situations because your absolute grade is largely irrelevant.
Classes are big.
-Students are generally stressed and tired.
-It’s common to spend 5 years getting your degree.
-It’s absolutely horrible for things like freshman math classes. You’re typically taught by TAs, maybe half of whom have only the slightest grasp of English.
This isn’t to say that it isn’t a good school for your son, but he needs to be able to handle the competitive and stressful environment and be a good independent learner. If he he is, and you’re willing to pay for 5 years of OOS tuition if needed, then he may thrive at Georgia Tech.