The 4 year graduation rate is about 40% and jumps to 80% at year 5. Are the additional 40% of students participating in a co-op program and paying for four years of tuition? or paying five years of tuition and taking longer to get through the curriculum or get into required classed that were filled during previous semesters?
As engineering grad parents we understand the heavier load, but adding a year of OOS tuition and lost income makes a private university cost competitive.
My son wants to dabble in the robotics field; probably an ME degree with a minor or coursework in CS. Does anyone have a similar experience at GT? I see that IRIM is relatively new although I imagine that they are just designating a new home for research that GT has been doing for a decade. Do undergraduate students routinely work in these labs?
Northeast schools where he was impressed with the ME department’s flexibility (ability to choose many major electives) and where they play ball with EE and CS departments were WPI and UPENN. CMU student population was too eclectic for him. Did we miss any? His stats are high with good ECs and we have been through the selective college application process recently.
Co-ops and internships definitely play a notable role in the 1-2 semester delay. That said, it is also not uncommon for students to take more than 8 semesters of academic study to graduate. This is not a Georgia Tech specific issue, but something that is common for engineering degrees in general, which take more hours of study than the standard 120 hour undergraduate degree due to ABET requirements. Since an engineering degree essentially has an additional 12 hours, or one standard semester, baked into the curriculum, it shouldn’t be surprising that students at a predominantly engineering school often take an extra semester to graduate. The only marked difference that would exist between other engineering schools such as WPI or UPENN and GT would be the number of AP/advanced standing credits they allow or don’t allow. You should also note that if your son adds a minor, that will add additional requirements and potentially additional time. That said, many students (40%) still manage to finish their degrees in four years (including internships) and my freshman roommate managed to complete his degree in 3 years to minimize OOS tuition, although he essentially did nothing but study during his time at Tech. So if it is critical to your family that the degree not extend beyond four years and your son ends up being a committed college student, I don’t envision any trouble graduating “on-time.”
Georgia Tech has a very robust undergraduate research program. The principal investigator (PI/professor) leading each lab makes their own decision regarding hiring decisions, but I would imagine most labs have some undergrad involvement. Your son can look up lab websites (they usually list the people involved in research) to see if any undergrads are involved. http://www.me.gatech.edu/undergraduate/research
There are few things that impact the graduation timeline. As noted previously
Engineering majors at GT require 130-132 credits to graduate. That means, if you come in with zero credits, you are looking at 16-16.5 credits per semester, which can be quite taxing to do semester-after-semester. Full time status is 12 credits, but most students do fine with 14 credits or so. Yes, there are kids who can handle 17 credits per semester without breaking a sweat, but that is not the norm. GT courses are known for it is rigor.
If your student does a minor, add another ~15 credits
Co-ops delay graduation, but you don’t incur tuition expenses expect there may small fee to keep your status
Some students switch their major after the 1st year, and that can set them back.
On the positive side, there are few ways to control total costs/time to graduate
GT is fairly generous with AP/IB credits. Many students come in with 20 - 25 credits which effectively means they need to take ~14 credits/semester.
Students take classes (introductory level Math, Sciences, Social Studies and Humanity classes) during summer of freshman year at their local community college and they transfer it over to GT.
Study aboard program - tuition costs are same as instate tuition regardless of your residency. Student do this over the summer usually (e.g., GT Lorraine summer program).
CS had become over crowded at GT, and there may be challenges getting into classes for completing the minor in CS. They will prioritize CS majors if there shortage of space.
Mech engineering has minor in Automation and Robotic System. It will add ~15 credits on top the 131 credits required for Mech Engineering.
I understand the credits required, and we would not fund a degree that is not ABET certified. My husband and I have BE (not BS) degrees in ME(150 hours/credits, dipping into each engineering discipline before major specific classes jr. and sr. years). Steven’s Tech. gave students a choice of 4 or 5 years, and if they decided on the 5 year plan as a freshman, tuition for year 5 was free. Of course that was in the dark ages before the popularity of AP credits, co-op and concurrent BS/MS degrees. Any of these engineering schools will provide a great education; it’s just about fit.
@GaussPi100 Thanks for the tip about GT CS classes being at capacity; especially considering prerequisites for these upper level courses. He will want to take CS coursework with or without a minor.
The expected AP courses/scores for Calc BC, Chem, Bio, Physics C and History should chip away at the required credits; the rest will not likely transfer. Our experience with our oldest, a CBE major, was AP credits (except math) did not transfer well at top tier schools because everyone came in with them. Math tracks starts at BC calc and freshmen Chem and Physics include extensions well beyond any introductory textbook. Pro at a top tier school is the amazing student population and more even male female ratio, con is slugging through the basic freshman coursework.
We are trying to decide whether to highly encourage our son to visit GT this fall before making an ED/EA/RD plan. He seems happy to go without visiting before applying even if that includes applying ED to another top tier school. He wants to complete a degree in 4 years and I can’t tell how much the GT co-op participation rate lowers the 4 year graduation rate (similar to Northeastern?). Both WPI and UPenn are over 80% 4-year grad rate.