I believe VT was going to be more expensive than GT. But PSU Honors will be much less than GT and PSU is also closer than GT. Hope i’m remembering that correctly?
Actually, GaTech became much more selective than in the past. They do something very different than most public schools (they do not prioritize illegal immigrants or first generation, or URM etc).
- They fill school first with tippy-top Ga residents. They many times openly said that even with a holistic approach, they will not take underrepresented minorities if they do not meet top academic requirements of GaTech.
- The rest of the class is filled with absolutely top-ranked OOS and International.
- Once attrition will happen after first year, transferred will be pulled first from top first generation and Pell kids, and legacy kids (who absolutely know what to expect).
As a result, GaTech got homogeneously top kids in the school even though it is public school.
That translated to much higher average GPA than 20 years ago.
However, it did not become easier school by any means with all students getting A. No way.
https://www.gtalumni.org/s/1481/alumni/17/magazine-pages.aspx?pgid=15663&gid=21&cid=34951
Were those the deciding factors - cost and distance - in choosing Ga Tech over PSU?
I personally think - and others may disagree - but those two schools are really so similar - but if cost and distance to home were inputs, then yes, that would change the equation. Good points.
According to GT’s common data set, ethnicity and first gen status are still considered. I believe the state also mandates the percentage of instate applicants the school is required to admit.
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Absolutely correct. And I listed above how they do it. I do not remember exactly but percentage of accepted Ga kids is 60% or even higher. Here is also some interesting info:
In-State Tuition
Georgia Senate Bill (S.B.) 492, signed into law on May 14, 2008, requires the state’s undocumented students, including DACA recipients, to pay out-of-state tuition.
Georgia Board of Regents Policy 4.1.6 prohibits undocumented students from enrolling in any University of Georgia institution that did not admit all academically qualified applicants in the two most recent academic years, save for cases where the institution rejected the student for non-academic reasons. The policy effectively bars undocumented students, including DACA recipients, from enrolling in some of the state’s most prestigious public colleges and universities, including:
- Georgia Institute of Technology,
- Georgia College & State University,
- University of Georgia.
A federal appeals court upheld the validity of Policy 4.1.6 in March 2019.
Georgia House Bill (H.B.) 444, signed into law in April 2020, allows students, regardless of their immigration status, to participate in dual enrollment programs at no cost.
My kids all vetoed schools where you walked into the main dining hall and saw the silo’s-- the “Asian Table”, the white preppy looking kids, the kids with funky clothes and hats… one of them said “There’s a Sorting Stick at the door telling people where to eat lunch”. Is this an accurate view of the entire campus? Of course not. But a college where everyone sticks to their own little island- they weren’t interested in that kind of experience.
I don’t know if that takes ten minutes or 20 minutes-- but it doesn’t take long to rule out a college come April!
OP-I think your kid will feel a real difference on both campuses. Whether he cares or not? Who knows. Good luck!!!
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You seem driven by rankings but I can tell you having spent a decade at a mid-western Fortune 50 company that primarily hires engineers for product development, nothing superseded co-op experience. There were several schools that matriculated a high number of engineers because of their robust co-op programs that we knew led to the skill sets we valued the most in our project teams. I suggest if you are truly trying to gather info that helps your son make a decision beyond which one you feel brings the prestige you feel matches his valedictorian honor that you begin to explore the co-op programs between them. Is the co-op built into the program of study such that it provides a lengthier and more meaningful experience or is the student just using summer break to gain experience? Does the university lead matching students with co-ops, is the student entirely on their own, or somewhere in between? The depth of experience an applicant brings to the table leads to not just a more likely hire but a higher starting salary…rankings do not.
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Also, look at common data set for 2021-2022. First time first year: white - 1,336; Asian -1,023; Hispanic - 292, Afr. Am -290. Non-residents 334.
About Asians. There was an interview somewhere. I think GaTech president was asked at commencement why there were so many Asian kids there. He answered, those are all first-generation Americans from Georgia. Now you know why there is so high GPA at GaTech :).
Not sure what all the deciding factors will be. But OP did say he was pulling for PSU Honors over Georgia Tech because it was half the price and closer to home. VT was more expensive than Georgia Tech, Georgia Tech was higher ranked, and I don’t believe son got Honors at VT . Gotta eliminate schools somehow! Sounds like down to 2 unless some later acceptances come through.
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There are pros and cons to both Co-ops and summer internships. My kids just had engineering summer internships and were both offered full time employment to start after graduation. Lack of doing a co-op did not hurt them or their careers. But, yes, co-ops can give important work experience and benefit employers.
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If you like playing with data and numbers this is a great site for GT. You can pretty much figure out GPA trends down to major and even lower.
not a fan of co-ops 
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Co-ops are a tool. Nothing more, nothing less.
It’s like not being a fan of hammers. Sure- if you need a hammer, don’t use a blow-torch. Wrong tool.
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Well, they are proposed as being so good that they are better than mother’s milk and steak dinners :-).
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Just a tool. Internships are a tool. Paid jobs are a tool. Coops are a tool. Research positions (paid or credit) are tools. Writing an honors thesis or doing a capstone project is a tool. Fact-checking a professor’s book, verifying citations for an academic publication, conducting the regression analysis on someone else’s research to insure that the conclusions are statistically valid… all of these are valuable. I agree with you that assuming any single one of these is inherently more valuable than something else is absurd. So I guess that I, too, am not a fan of anything which gets elevated as the be-all and end-all of a college education!
Not mother’s milk and not steak.
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As a hiring manager for my company, I agree 100% on co-op experience (and the ability to effectively communicate that in an interview) over school attended or GPA. Co-ops offer a deeper/broader experience than an intership and also set up well for a future job at that same company. Tradeoff is time, but who wants to rush out of college in retrospect lol. Another consideration is location. We hire alot from Penn State and Ohio State over a GT because they are from our general area and are more likley to be stay and be developed over time. I’m sure companies in Altanta consider the opposite to be true on location of GT.
The great thing about interns or co-ops though is - they are a tool to later success.
Those who intern and co op seem to have a much easier time getting full time work - at least anecdotally.
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Georgia Tech absolutely gives weight to underrepresented minority, gender, first generation, etc. In fact, they have an institutional goal to increase all three of these categories and have published for the last several years data showing their focus. The admit rate for females for example is 1.5 times higher than the admit rate for males. I’m not saying they’re admitting unqualified students. The demand for Georgia Tech both in-state and nationally along with their small freshman class size means that they can easily satisfy these diversity goals while also demanding top-tier academics. They’re just too many qualified kids to choose from.
My admitted son got an email yesterday that also went to me talking about their focus on diversity initiatives beginning in 2020. This is in contrast to UGA, which does not look at race, ethnicity, gender, etc. This was just answered again on the UGA admissions blog where people were questioning why are there so many women at UGA someone compared it to surf city – two girls for every boy 
The answer was we are looking for the best students and we don’t look at any of that.
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Would love to see evidence of “much easier time”.
I’ve hired thousands of new college grads over my career (for large, multinational companies). Some of our hires had coops. Some had internships. Some had research experience. Some had collaborated with a faculty member on a publication- sometimes editing, fact-checking, verifying claims independently. Some ran large initiatives for non-profits - developing a new lab-based science curriculum for schools in a disadvantaged city, and providing training for staff on how to teach the new curriculum effectively. Some volunteered for NGO’s during the summer. And some wrote a knock-out senior thesis, and spent their summers at their old HS job.
It’s all valuable. Employers don’t use the CC “point system”. We want to see initiative, the ability to do a deep dive on a topic, the ability to learn and teach new skills, working well with others. Depth and breadth. An evidence-based, fact oriented approach to problem-solving.
There are MANY ways to demonstrate this. There’s no silver bullet. There are lots of low value coops out there.
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Are we voting here? If so…I first say…the top choice should be the one the kid wants to attend, because after all…the kid is going to college.
That being said…many premed wannabes either never apply to medical school, or don’t get accepted if they do. I would vote for Georgia Tech…because this kid has a high interest in mechanical engineering, and GT has a great program.
I think the big difference is…does this kid want to be in a city, or out in cow country? These campuses are very different.
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