According to mu guidance counselor, GeorgiaTech’s ranking has only recently improved to such an extent. Apparently, about 4-5 years earlier, it was ranked in 30s in the US (USNEWS rankings), but now it is around #9.
Is this true? Does this mean that its ranking can fall just as quickly as it rose?
“For more than 16 years, Georgia Tech has been ranked among the top ten public universities in the United States.
— U.S. News & World Report”
Perhaps your guidance counselor is confused.
Georgia tech has been fairly stable in the ratings and will likely improve with continued declines in acceptance rate. Last year it was ranked 35 out of national universities. It was also the number 7 public university. (ahead were UCLA, UC Berkely, UVA, UMich, UNC and William and Mary). Their ranking is held back somewhat due to the graduation rate. Due to co-ops and internships it can take longer than 4 years to graduate.
@Stilltay
Could you explain in some more detail why GaTech’s graduation rate is so low?
Almost all universities have co-ops and internships, then why only GaTech’s graduation rate low?
With the coops, etc many dont graduate in 4 years.
Techs admission rate dropped after joining the common app.
I understood that without AP credit it was almost impossible to graduate in 4 years for some of the engineering programs. My D is a non engineer major at GT and will graduate in 4 years.
She has lots of friends that have changed majors. I wonder if there is a high rate of students switching out of engineering that impacts the 4 year grad rate?
@jym626, the acceptance rate had already dropped from 55% to 41% for the Freshman class of 2013 (no common app). It further dropped to 33% for the Freshman class of 2014 (first year of common app). It is expected to be in the low 30s again this year.
http://www.admission.gatech.edu/life-tech/class-profile
http://www.news.gatech.edu/2013/05/14/freshman-admission-switches-common-application
OP, I think you maybe interpreting incorrectly what your counselor is stating. Also, one number refers to the overall rank (in the 30s), the other the public univ rank (actually #7 currently). Someone had actually posted a link of the top 50 univs for USNWR rankings for 30 years or so in CC, wish I had bookmarked it.
@ determined2300 I did not mean to imply that students don’t eventually graduate because they do. The six year graduation rate is somewhere around 80%. One of the reasons for this is that many students do co-ops which are semester long (or longer) jobs in the students field. Students will often do more than one during their school career. Yes, it takes longer to graduate, but you gain valuable experience and oftentimes a job. These experiences are not required, but are very popular.
Secondly, as stated above, many majors are time consuming requiring more than 120 credits. My D started out as a BME major which requires something like 133 credits. It would be very hard to complete that degree on time without AP credits. (she changed because she realized that would be a terrible major for pre med)
The rankings use 6 yr graduation rates for that very reason, so GT’s ranking is NOT pulled down by its co-ops, internships, etc
Here is the methodology from US News, for example.
@ TV4caster…not to split hairs but they are ranked 50th in graduation and retention while the schools around them are mostly ranked better in this metric. (directly above them is Brandeis @29th in this metric and directly below them is UCSD @ 35th) This would seem to prevent them from being higher, but what do I know. In the long run is not a very important metric for a school like Tech. Also, their freshman retention rate is excellent ~95%
“Almost all universities have co-ops and internships, then why only GaTech’s graduation rate low?”
Thirty-five percent of Georgia Tech undergraduates at some point alternate their on-campus semesters with three semesters on the job as part of the largest voluntary co-op program in the country. So since more kids do co-ops at GT than at other universities it’s going to take longer on average for them to graduate.
Here you go… GTech has moved up from the #40s (in the 90s) to the mid-30s now…