Tell me more… very intrigued.
We’re 98% leaning toward GT… there may be one “wild card” school which would be much lower ranked, but an Honors College that would setup for Med School very easily.
Absolutely a lighthearted comment at the wording choice (“tolerate”). 
I live about 20 minutes from GTech so I’m happy to answer questions about the area if anyone finds that helpful. My D also lived on the GT campus while interning in Atlanta over the summer (she attends a different college). And we know many current students.
I’m in agreement with much of what has already been shared about the campus and immediate surrounding area. Congrats on having great options!
Edit: GT is very convenient for air travel. There is a train from the airport to campus. In your scenario that seems like a big advantage. Personally we do love VA and the Blacksburg area is beautiful, but it is not as easy to access and not as easy without a car. GT is no problem without a car all 4 years. Just my thought on that piece.
My DS is a 2nd year at GT, and it’s a 13 hour drive from us.
Atlanta vs Blacksburg are like night and day. Hopefully, visiting GT will solidify which your DS prefers. If he has a strong dislike of the GT campus, or just fell in love with VT, I wouldn’t push too hard towards GT just because of its reputation. We tried pushing our DS towards Cornell, mostly because of the closer location to us, and ‘Ivy’, plus I’m an alum, but thanks to some good advice, we ultimately let him decide, and are so glad that we did.
Given that he doesn’t have a strong preference, my recommendation for your DS would without a doubt be GT, but I’ll try and give you a few reasons why, beyond what everyone else has already said:
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Atlanta has a LOT to offer. We live in suburbia, and while we try and expose our kids to a variety of experiences, we always lean towards outdoor adventures. I think that DS experienced more ‘culture’ in his first year at GT than he had his whole life up to that point. Museums, theater, concerts, major sporting events, a huge variety of dining… it’s all at their fingertips, and often free or discounted for students, especially if they’re in an LLC ( I highly recommend checking these options out if you haven’t already).
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even if your DS doesn’t have a car, he will have friends that do. My DS has had a car since his 1st year, and there is a LOT to explore which is only accessible by car, but they will take trips with friends. You can be in the Georgia Mountains within an hour, and even Savannah within a few hours drive. So much to explore. There is also an awesome outdoors club that provides free/cheap equipment and planned trips for all kinds of adventures like rock climbing, camping, and white-water rafting, so if you want to be in nature, it’s very easy to get there, even without a car.
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Being smart is the norm. In high school, DS didn’t participate in any of the ‘school spirit’ events like homecoming or prom, because they were mostly for the athletes and ‘popular’ kids, not the smart kids. At GT, the kids are ALL brilliant, and many of the school spirit events are actually geared towards tech, so everyone participates. It’s awesome. Football games, homecoming, the Pi race, midnight bud, lots of silly traditions, but so fun… the list goes on and on…
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Clubs, teams, research opportunities: I don’t know if your son is interested, and I don’t know what VT has to offer, but the clubs/teams at GT are seriously impressive. Anyone can join a club/team, and there are many research positions that you can interview for. Since he got there, DS has had leadership positions in designing and building a battlebot with Robojackets, a 20 foot rocket that’s going to be launched into space with GTXR, an electric Formula1 race car in Hytech Racing, a drone-package delivery system in a VIP, and a Cubesat satellite with a research lab. Opportunities are endless, and they have incredible resources(makerspaces, labs, equipment) and funds(I’m pretty sure the budget for his rocket club is around $100k). They are sponsored by just about every hi-tech company out there. It’s seriously impressive. There is even budget to fly/transport the club members around the country/world to get to their competitions and events. What makes it all happen is all of the super-involved and motivated students that want to work on all this stuff because they love it. It’s amazing what they achieve on their own. Many students(mine included) spend literally over a dozen hours weekly working on all this stuff, outside of classes.
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I know someone mentioned this, but accessibility to the ATL airport is great. There’s a subway that costs like $2 that takes you right there. SO easy. I was really worried about him being so far from home, but with the airport so close, and some very cheap Frontier flights, it hasn’t been an issue at all.
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Activities that aren’t tech related: The kids at GT are all techy, but they also have so many interests outside of tech. I wasn’t expecting this. Of DS’s friends, one is passionate about German culture, another is really into theater production, and a third is a nationally ranked golfer. There are clubs and groups for all these things, and many many more on campus. When they admit students, GT seems to do a great job of finding kids that are passionate about much more than just tech.
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Study Abroad: I don’t know if your son is interested, but if he is, GT has a campus in France where students can go for a semester and have their classes taught in English, by GT professors, with other GT students. Cost is the same as being at the Atlanta campus, plus travel expenses. My DS is there now, and it’s the experience of a lifetime. I’m not sure, but I think most other colleges have students study at a different university, or through a third-party program for study abroad. GT’s model really simplifies it a lot.
That’s all I can think of for now! LMK if you have any questions, and good luck!
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Parchment says students with this choice select GT 71% of the time.
If GT is somehow cheaper, if it were my kid I would be shoving him with both arms, not merely nudging.
I really appreciate your balanced approach. I couldn’t get my kids to apply to my alma mater - too cold 
I think on paper, it’s clear Ga Tech wins. But you still have to be there four years, day after day. It may be for this student - but it may not be and kudos to you for reminding of that.
My son would not apply to Ga Tech - his Ga Tech was Purdue - but even with acceptance he went another route - so every kid is different. So you can’t just say - you MUST go here. You have to visit and see.
What are the expected outcomes of biomedical? If I look up biomedical on their career report and it’s 3 years old, but it’s the second lowest with 59% placement (materials was lowest). Is grad school more a requirement for this field? The report from the last few years wasn’t populating.
What I’m wondering is -is the undergrad more important than the grad in this field? While Ga Tech is on another level, the truth is for most engineering - say mechanical - I’m not sure you can sat that’s true short of a handful of schools - and yes this is one.
I will disagree on the study abroad. I did this - I went to school in another country, taught by our faculty and with our students. Engineering is hard to do abroad - but if you go to school in another country, you should attend their school, with their students, and live amongst those students. Going to a US school with US students in another country is - like eating in a Japanese restaurant here run by Japanese people and thinking you are in Japan. OK - it’s a bit more that that but trying to bring a point. My daughter is going abroad next year. We still haven’t figured out where but her school offers school driven options in other countries - but that’s a hard no for her and after doing this myself I understand why. Study abroad should be immersive abroad. That said, engineering is a harder discipline to pull off and I can see why some would go this way as the Ga Tech student is.
Best of luck to the OP and I hope their student chooses the right school for themselves and not anyone else!!
Respectfully disagree with your comment about study abroad. For students in disciplines such as engineering who can’t afford to miss a semester of instruction in their major and who want to insure consistency in instruction for coursework that is cumulative in nature I think attending a program taught by the student’s home school faculty with school students is the best way to study abroad. Students can absolutely benefit getting wonderful experiences outside of class even if teachers/peers are from their college. We can certainly agree to disagree – in the end the OP must work with advisors to determine the best plan of action if the student decides to study abroad.
FWIW Another option, if affordable, might be to do a summer abroad, take classes outside of the engineering department, and not miss a semester at college. Any study abroad not done through the home college should be pre-approved by the school to insure the student will get credit for the coursework.
FWIW my opinion would be different for students studying subjects that are not cumulative in nature (ex. most liberal arts majors).
And now back to the OP’s question…
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These are both great, well respected schools for engineering. I would try not to get sidetracked by rankings, but focus more on cost, fit, vibe, and logistics. The Blacksburg area is no Atlanta, but never seemed to me at least to be in the middle of nowhere or as rural as has been mentioned here.
Good luck with the decision!
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Blacksburg absolutely has everything. It’s just hard to get to by air - Roanoke being the closest. It’s a great area !!
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Understood and noted - engineering is a different beast!!
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I adore Blacksburg! You’d be hard pressed to find a college town that’s more excited about its adjacent college! Game days in Blacksburg are not to be missed! Such a cute Main Street that is easily walkable from the campus with many local shops & restaurants with plenty of VT love everywhere you look. All the chain stores and restaurants are easily accessible in the next town over.
Many fly into either Roanoke or Charlotte and there is a 3rd party bus service that runs from both airports to VT during Thanksgiving & Christmas. There are also local Blacksburg Hokie parents who work for Uber and will take kids back and forth to the Roanoke airport.
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I am a GT alum and have visited Virginia Tech a few times. The campuses are like night and day different. I’d strongly recommend visiting both to see what your student likes.
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Awesome addition to this thread. That rocket club is amazing! I’ve been watching them on Instagram😂. My current high school senior who is headed to Tech is a mechanical engineer with an interest in space so he’s been fascinated as well. They really do the coolest stuff there! It was funny in the most recent recruiting email from Georgia Tech trying to persuade him to come, they mentioned the autonomous driving research project that his brother a Georgia Tech senior has participated in for three years. You can’t help but get involved!
Just a comment about the study abroad aspect. Engineering is virtually impossible to do abroad due to the different codes. If you do study abroad with a foreign university, you end up burning through your electives which are often needed to soften the blow during your regular semesters. The way Georgia Tech Europe is set up is it is a separate campus taught in English with a Georgia Tech Europe professors in Metz France. Classes are four days a week most weeks, with three day travel weekends. The navigation and travel planning that these kids do is pretty incredible. They end up seeing most of Europe on their own on their long weekends, with four days in the classroom. My kid got placed out of it twice due to Covid but it is an incredible experience! Best news is because it is a Georgia Tech campus you pay in-state tuition even if you’re out of state - which is a real cost saver.
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Unfortunately they have done away with the ‘instate tuition even if you’re out of state’ for GT Europe. Us out-of-staters now pay the exact same out of state tuition for GT Europe as we do for Atlanta. But… if we’re going to be paying crazy-high out of state tuition, might as well spend a semester in Europe!
It is awesome though - he’s taking three EE classes and statistics there. The EE classes only have five or six students each.
Even though it’s not immersive in the culture from a classroom perspective, these kids get to see all of Europe through their weekend travel. So far he’s been to Luxembourg, Paris, Strasbourg, Zermatt, and Malta. This week(Spring break), they’re going to Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples. Next weekend is Dublin, then London, then Amsterdam, then Interlaken, and Prague. I’m exhausted just typing it!
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Wait a minute. Med School? I would not go to GT for pre-med, unless your child is a super student that can always get As among very smart kids.
Biomedical Engineering… but with a slant to pre-health… to keep options open
If Med school is even considered, GaTech is a very bad option. It is too competitive and is a GPA killer. Do not use Engineering for premed unless you have a superachiever. I know several people who ruined their medical school options because they decided to go to GaTech.
If your student really wants to go to med school, pick from your child’s list the least competitive school and focus on premed without engineering. If your child wants to study BME at GaTech forget about premed. I know some people do it. But those are outliers.
If you want to keep (not your child) options open, then let your child drive knowing that premed will be very unlikely.
My oldest at GaTech studying BME (never even considered to be a doctor, she wants to be an engineer and she will be) and my youngest wants to be a doctor. Youngest does not have on her list very competitive schools (except state flagship as a safety that she will not attend even with a scholarship.) Your child should know as much as possible where are her interests to make the goal achievable.
Happens to be related to two BME that became MD… so…
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From GaTech? And they said that it was easy to keep GPA up? Yes, some students can do it, but you need to be a super student. If your child is a super student, then go for it… But you were warned…
VT has a million design build clubs as well. Went there last year for engineering open house and absolutely loved it. Son impressed with VT’s engineering facilities and loved the drone field. Middle of no where but great college town. I’m one that rather have kiddo immersed on campus anyway rather than off. That’s what makes college, college. But that’s just me. VT is one of son’s top choices but lack of merit will push it out of running.
Haven’t been to GT yet. I imagine you’ll find it’s much different if you find your way out of Atlanta’s airport! How much free time would there be to explore the city/culture anyway?! Plus no car.
GT has more recognizable name for sure. And for engineering they’re up there. But not sure that’s needed to get into med school? I think grades and MCAT score are more important. College is only four years so I think you look beyond that.
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