If we can’t make the Gold carpet day, is there anything big we will miss if we just come for one of the Admitted Student visits? My son is on spring break the week before the Gold Carpet day, so we were considering scheduling a vist then.
We did Gold Carpet Day and it was a good event, well organized with lots of good info. That being said, I can’t imagine there is anything that is truly critical that you wouldn’t also hear about on an Admitted Student Day.
The biggest thing is to get a feel for campus life and what it will be like to be a student there.
I think you will be just fine.
My son and I just came home from the Gold Carpet Day held yesterday. We were very disappointed. We were expecting to get much more detailed information for “admitted” students, but honestly, it felt no different from a “prospective” student visit. What really threw us for a loop was the lack of engineering information. We went with the expectation we’d receive detailed information on the engineering program expectations, facilities, example schedules, what to expect, etc… Only in the student only section did an engineering student appear on the student panel for questions. Most sessions talked about their business school, pre-health programs, etc.
I kept asking myself, when are they going to speak of engineering?? Figured it would be during the break-out sessions. Well, the engineering session was super short (time for a couple of questions) and didn’t tell us anything more than we could have found out online. Again, disappointing.
Despite a beautiful campus and great reputation, their presentation wasn’t helpful and my son has accepted an offer elsewhere.
I would maybe go on a day where you can get a more personalized experience. This was just our opinion and experience. I’m sure others feel differently and I’m totally ok with that! 
Thats really too bad. Our son is at GaTech, and we are very pleased with their engineering and computer science programs. GaTech is a very good price for an education similar to MIT. We had a great visit to GaTech in his 11th grade year, and never bothered with accepted student days, as we were convinced with the first visit that it was his best choice. However we know a lot of engineering students so we went directly to them, and asked questions. GaTech is easy to get information, just ask. I don’t know exactly why parents use these visits to judge a school. Some are poorly organized, and sorry to hear that Gold Carpet is a big waste of time and money. But GaTech is WORTH EVERY PENNY.
All the Ga Tech engineering majors have the course maps online for getting their degree in four years. It states exactly what classes which semester and the progression. In terms of what to expect no matter your major, you will have hard quantitative classes relative to many other programs. Most math and science classes have one rectitation a week with a smaller number of students. Credit hours do not neccessarily correspond to work load. There are tutors for many class offerings and its up to you to take advantage. The dorms are nothing to write home about, nor the food but the learning that goes on and the opportunities available are what you make of them. If you want job experience or research experience before you get a degree this is a great place to go. If you are independent and will seek out opportunities and are ok with not acing an exam its a great option. I think visiting a campus is more to get an overall vibe. GT is not really giving a shiny sales pitch showing off gorgeous dorms which it does not have, but more about showing off their research, coop program and their travel abroad programs and how their grads have influenced the world around us. I think this laid back approach sold both my kids who loved the profs presentations of their research.
@hsr596 we did end up going and were there yesterday also. I can understand if you were looking for detailed specific engineering course information how you could come away disappointed but as scubadive mentioned most of that is available online. My son had not visited yet and we wanted to get a total feel for the school. We came away generally impressed and my son felt it was the place for him. We put his deposit down yesterday. We also liked the no nonsense approach they had with their presentations.
We had just come from the VT admitted student day on Sat where they did have an Engineering break out expo where you could go to a booth for each major and get information and talk to people. I agree that could have been a good idea for GT to do. Though we did get turned off at one of the VT booths after one of the professors asked my son where else he was looking at schools and after he said GT the professor started bad mouthing GT with the standard " cut throat students sabotaging each other" gossip. My wife and I thought that was very poor form. They also gave the don’t pay attention the rankings speech (which I don’t entirely disagree with) while the major booth next door was proudly displaying their high ranking.
I wonder if we bumped into each other yesterday? I was wearing a blue NASA tee shirt and was on the 1:25 campus tour.
GaTech is a very cooperative school. My son works with others on harder problems sets, and studies with other computer science students. No one is cutthroat at Gatech. Its like a lot of fine engineering colleges, the cooperation is taught in class because group projects are required to get any degree at GaTEch. So in computer science, that might include group programming projects, or in ethics, which is required to get a GaTech degree, a group presentation. Every GaTech freshman takes a resume writing class, that introduces the student to his or her department. Also GaTech allows undeclared engineering majors in that group of majors. Computer science has its own school with two majors, Media and CS bachelors degrees. Computer science students get a good dose of engineering, as one would expect at a techy school. The Computer science programs have some curriculum choices that overlap greatly with EE and ECE, like the devices thread, and the computer architecture threads, etc.
Also science departments are small at GaTech which gives students more attention.
And the policy and world language classes are strong.
There is no English department at GaTech but English 1 and 2 are required for any degree, and there are about 10 to 15 options for each of those classes. An IB English HL score of 5,6 or 7 will place a student out of English 1 at GaTech.
Gatech undergrads can take graduate classes starting in junior year. Class Registration gets easier as the student progresses though the bachelors of science program. Most degree programs have a choice of a senior project OR a research project of three semesters. Two of those semesters need to be with one professor, and GaTech professors take that very seriously and meet the undergraduate once a week. Some students do all three semesters with one research group and publish a paper with the professor and/orgraduate students.
Virginia Tech struggles a little to get students given its very rural location and rank thats lower than most of the surrounding flagship engineering programs like Rutgers U, SUNY, Penn State, and U of Maryland. ( GaTEch and U of Maryland are about the same caliber, and thus NJ students often choose U of Maryland too )
Virgnia Tech is somewhat less rigorous than many of the flagships, and , also because it competes with some of the better privates like Penn, Carnegie Mellon, and Johns Hopkins which gives fabulous financial aid, they may really need to find a marketing twist.
Also George Washington U is getting stronger in engineering, so Virginia students have a LOT of choices.
UVA is also pretty good in engineering, and a much better overall ranked school than Virginia Tech.
@hsr596 Yes, we felt the exact same way! It’s almost as if they feel kids will accept based on their reputation. D is choosing between GT and a great uni near the beach in CA. She’s spending the entire weekend there right now and is being wined and dined. I wonder what she’ll pick?
We attended admitted students day yesterday and found it very informative! There was a intro session, campus tour, dorm tour, engineering specific session and then last was civil and environmental (my sons choice) info session and lab visit. He was able to register for these sessions to be sure he saw everything he wanted to see.
Our visit was very informative in 2015. But we did not go for the “marketing weekends”. I don’t think any school does a good job on the student weekends, from a parent perspective. Campus Preview Weekends are social events for 17 and 18 year olds. Its much more about getting to know fellow students, and much less about academics, because what do 18 year olds focus on? !
I would say that GaTech has no need to advertise their academics. Its very clear for anyone in the field, and also anyone who studies their websites, or has worked in a technical field, whats offered there. For people outside of engineering,that may seem off-putting, but GATech does not care, and neither would MIT or Caltech. Yes, they really can rest on their reputation and still pull in an outstanding class.
The websites are very clear though, if you care to dig in.