<p>watch your emails.</p>
<p>We will notify you by Tuesday, February 3, of your status in the President's Scholarship competition via this email address.</p>
<p>Good luck to all!</p>
<p>definately panic time now! eep...</p>
<p>Is it really that big of a deal? If you're qualified enough to get this far in the process, you'll get into the school and you should get at least a half scholarship from your local alumni association. </p>
<p>It's obviously a nice thing, but it's not the end of the world. Good luck, but don't panic if you're not selected.</p>
<p>PSP Semi's are already accepted into GT</p>
<p>Semifinalists have already been admitted. Where are you getting your numbers on the alumni association scholarships? I find that hard to believe. Half of what? Total costs? If you didn't know semi's had been admitted, how do know about the alumni scholarships? I think many of the clubs don't even have scholarships, much less ones worth 'half'.</p>
<p>It's based on experience, both as a student and as a person on a scholarship committee for an alumni group. Tech distributes money to the alumni associations to provide scholarships. Some use that money to provide a small number of full scholarships, most provide a larger number of half-scholarships, some provide a still larger number of $1000 - $2000 scholarships.</p>
<p>Which club did you work with? Did they really give full rides (like $10,000+ per year)?</p>
<p>I got an email today from the Heart of Texas Alumni Chapter with an application for a $1000 scholarship that they give to one person in the area. I doubt that other chapters give half ride scholarships (in the neighborhood of $70,000).</p>
<p>A full ride is more than $20,000 per year in tuition and fees. Well, for out of state students.</p>
<p>Our association did not give full scholarships, we gave half scholarships of roughly $11,000 when I was involved. Who would we give them to? Think of it from our perspective: give a scholarship to a kid you never met or give a scholarship to a kid you interviewed for PS. Obviously, we gave scholarships to PS candidates that didn't make it.</p>
<p>We would give a half scholarship, and Tech would usually add on another few thousand from one of the general scholarship funds. All-in-all, most students would have a 75-100% scholarships even without PS.</p>
<p>The "half ride" is generally just tuition. The $35,000 per year figure from the university is tuition + fees + books + housing + cost of living. And, yes, it's up to the discretion of the alumni association. If you get $40,000 per year (let's say, it depends on the size of the alumni association and the fund raising from that association), then you can give 2 full scholarships, 4 half scholarships, or 20 $2000 scholarships. Do you want to make a few people really happy, or a lot of people somewhat happy?</p>
<p>I would question your area's "one" award. They might have a dozen or more scholarships each named for a different person. So even though you might be the only "Marshall Scholar", for example, doesn't mean that you're the only scholar. Even if they only give one $1000 scholarship, they could also award one $2000, one half, and one full scholarships. </p>
<p>To only have $4000 per year to distribute would make them a very small group.</p>
<p>This is what the email I received said:</p>
<p>The Georgia Tech Office of Undergraduate Admission has informed me of your application to Georgia Tech. As a member of the Georgia Tech Alumni Club of Austin-Heart of Texas, I would like to thank you for considering Tech for your college career. Our club is dedicated to the future excellence of Georgia Tech and is committed to helping deserving students afford a Georgia Tech education. This year our club will offer a scholarship of $1000 to an outstanding incoming freshman attending Georgia Tech from our local area. </p>
<p>You could be right, regardless it doesn't sound like they have a ton of money to give out.</p>
<p>Hopefully I'm wrong. :)</p>
<p>They're a decent size club. They likely have a range of scholarships and more than just one of the $1000 scholarships. </p>
<p>I wouldn't read too much into the wording of emails like that.</p>
<p>Being OOS the PS scholarship, whatever level, is very helpful because of the huge OOS tuition fee. However, what sets GaTech aside as a candidate in our eyes is more than the money, it's the PS program in general, coming in as part of a ready made smaller group, knowing that you'll have the mentoring and everything else that goes along with being a scholar. This idea of not just being 1 in a crowd of ~~14,000 people on campus is appealing. There are intangibles involved with the college experience, not just the engineering rankings, and for our d ... she'll probably be deciding between Ga Tech (8 hours away from home, in a city, with no one she knows going to the school) and UF (2 hours from home, a very good engineering dept., less than $10,000/year and friends from church and several high schools in this area creating a ready made base of friends to help with the transition) So ... yeah, finalist is the deal breaker in our situation. D's decided she'll go to FL (assuming she gets in there) if she doesn't get finalist, regardless of other financial aid that might come down the pike.</p>
<p>zebes</p>
<p>The PS community really isn't anything special. In fact, it's often a difficult thing to deal with because of the increased competitive nature of the group. I don't think the mentoring aspect of the program adds a tremendous amount of value. There are mentoring groups in the freshman dorms, in individual majors, etc.</p>
<p>I think PS tries to sell itself as an "elite" program. It's really not treated that way on campus unless you're talking to other PS students. PS students take the same classes as others, take the same majors, and have the same opportunities to succeed and fail (in fact, some PS's lose their scholarship because of grades). </p>
<p>As far as being part of a smaller community and not "1 in a crowd of ~~14,000", there are plenty of opportunities to find communities at Tech. It's often more rewarding to find a community based on her interests and not on some exogenous decision process facilitated by the Institute. If she's worried about being a "big name" on campus, Freshman Counsel is a good community to join (and much more valuable than PS). If she's worried about mentoring, there are plenty of mentoring communities on campus. She'll undoubtedly be a part of her major community, and might join a community service / athletic / sorority, etc. community.</p>
<p>For industry bound students, there is a tremendous difference between engineering at UF and GT. I used to hire UF engineers at $15,000-$20,000 per year less to start, and as we all know, the starting salary dictates the progression of future salaries for at least 5-10 years. It's not that UF is a bad school, it's just that the philosophy of how to teach engineering is different, leading to a less desirable graduate (specifically UF teaches applied engineering, while GT teaches first principals). UF also has a lower student placement rate leading to less competitive recruiting.</p>
<p>If she plans to go to grad school, they I would consider UF as a good option. As long as she performs at the top of her class, she should have about the same shot at a top program.</p>
<p>Regarding club scholarships - one thing people might not know is that Tech matches almost all club scholarships. So if you get a $1000 scholarships, that's frequently $2000, etc.</p>
<p>Got the call from my sponsor today, i'm in!! now only thing left is finalists weekend in march!!! whoooo:)</p>
<p>congratulations, Ekb! :) We're thrilled for you!</p>
<p>and G.P.,
I probably shouldn't say for sure she won't go w/o PS (she's a teenager, after all), but it is a factor for her. No, she's not looking to be a big name on campus, hardly ... she just had a lot of encouragement from different people when we went to GaTech for Preview. And they did portray this group as a nurturing group ... maybe that's "hooey," who knows? We'll see how it all shakes out. Oh, and yes ... she is planning on going to grad school. So one option is UF followed by Ga Tech, too.</p>
<p>We're praying the decision is obvious. We want a burning bush in the front yard. :)
zebes</p>
<p>Sounds like they've made decisions then. Maybe we'll hear tomorrow!</p>
<p>Congratulations btw! Mind posting your stats?</p>
<p>Does anyone know if Georgia Tech distributes merit aid other than the PSP scholarship?</p>