@shortnuke: I can’t speak as to UF or FSU; however, the Common Data Set for Georgia Tech, here, https://www.irp.gatech.edu/common-data-set, states in Section C7 that academic GPA and rigor of secondary school record are “very important” admissions factors, and thus are given more weight by the institution than standardized test scores and application essays, which are characterized as “important” admissions factors. When I attended an Open House at Georgia Tech last year, the Admissions Director, Rick Clark, also emphasized that GPA means more than standardized test scores to the Georgia Tech Admissions Office.
@gandalf78 My thought is that even though people see this in the CDS, they don’t understand just how much the difference is between the relatively vague “Very Important” and “Important” weights.
Rick Clark wasn’t at the Admissions Tour that we went to, but the AO’s remarks make me question the “Important” weight of essays. She specifically cited examples of student essays that showed “intellectual curiosity” and how they were viewed as far more important that a student writing about general accomplishments along the lines of community service. I suspect that during the review process the essays are “Very Important”.
Georgia Tech is one of the top engineering schools in the United States. With so many strong applicants, perhaps it is important to show a passion for STEM in high school, above and beyond the classroom. To add onto what @shortnuke observed, I think that it is becoming more important for applicants who want to go into STEM/Engineering at the top engineering schools to have hands on, collaborative STEM focused extracurriculars in high school.
Take a look at the MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon results. Those kids are doing summer research, participating in science fairs, competing in ISEF, math and science olympiad, Science Bowl, etc - often with state and national awards. They are on robotics teams, math teams, physics teams. They are building apps, participating in hackathons, creating maker projects. They are AIME qualifiers. They are maxing out the math and science classes that are available to them.
Some of the students/parents posting in the GT threads note great ECs, scores, grades, and leadership in student government, sports, community service. But no STEM ECs. I wonder if this is having an impact on their application in an increasingly competitive applicant pool.
These are all private schools with single digit acceptance rates…
As a public university, Tech has a different mission. It’s much more similar to UIUC, Purdue, UCLA, and UC-Berkeley. While I’m sure they do look at STEM EC’s, they have to cast a much wider net (especially with in-state students) than the super selective privates.
Also, while a lot of schools have moved to holistic admissions, they all don’t put the same amount of importance on academic factors, as they do nonacademic factors. Comparing two schools, is often an apples to oranges comparison.
@Faulkner1897 The odd thing is that D was accepted for Summer term, but she didn’t have much in terms of STEM-focused ECs. She did drama and choir for all 4 years of HS plus NHS (Officer Senior Year) and NASA (Senior year only - maybe 5hrs per week max, so not a huge committment). Her stats were in range for GT, but lower than many students that were denied (1410 SAT, 7 APs, 4.0 UW GPA).
At some point, I think a school has to look at how well-rounded their student body is. Accepting 8,000 students who are Science Olympiad and/or Robotics club participants would not be beneficial to the aggregate student body, even though every one of the 8,000 students would likely have the passion, intelligence, and drive to be successful.
I think another reason @sweetest may have got denied is that GaTech instituted a new policy to automatically accept all valedictorians and salutatorians from Georgia High schools! This means that those two students from @sweetest’s high school were guaranteed admission, if they applied. This changed and increased the Ga applications to GaTech this year. GaTech cannot take too many students from any one Georgia High school, I bet they have rules that they have to take students from all over the state of Georgia. It may have been very competitive at @sweetest’s high school this year. She had a 3.9 GPA. The question is how many students had a 4.0 from her high school and how many applied and got into GaTech? They cannot take everyone who applies, there is not room.
I do think those that participate in robotics from Colorado get into GaTech at a much higher rate, and those students who are well rounded and play tennis with perfect grades and scores, are almost always rejected from our Colorado high school. Its a small sample size, though, so beware of drawing conclusions, just a bit more information, in how I see it from here.
MIT rarely accepts our FIRST robotics students, if they do not have another hook. MIT seems to prefer athletes from Colorado, and science fair winners, and also debate winners, with international wins get into MIT. Some robotics students do get into MIT, but they usually also have scored very high on national math exams, or have another hook to get admitted. Athletic talent is a big criteria now at MIT, a differentiator.
@shortnuke: The second paragraph of your post above is helpful, insightful &, in my experience, correct.
Ga Tech DOES NOT have a quota from any one GA high school. To say they “cant accept from any one
GA HS” is false. Acceptances (aside from th val/sal auto admit, IF the student applies) are based on the strength of the application.
@sweetest We toured Ga Tech recently. During the information session, the admissions rep stated that this year they initially went through the applications without looking at the test scores. They then went back and reviewed test scores. For anyone interested in Georgia Tech, I highly recommend the information session as they give you specifics on what they are looking for.
@jym626: I have no idea regarding high school limits or quotas, but a continuing rumor in Georgia revolves around the University of Georgia limiting admits by zip code. UGA addresses this false rumor on its website, but it still persists even among highly educated education focused folks.
Georgia Tech & the University of Georgia are both desirable & competitive schools.
FWIW the OP has not been on CC for over a month.
Are you in GA, @publisher?
Crickets…