US News reports that Georgia Institute of Technology’s 4-year graduation rate is 41%. Why is it so low? About 60% students couldn’t graduate.
Is it academic difficulty? Hard to enroll the required courses before the graduation? Or students dropped from school due to the poor experience? Can anyone share some thoughts and experience? Is it worthy for a girl to apply to this college’s engineering program?
Thank you.
It actually has an excellent retention rate so dropping out from a poor experience is not the issue. Georgia Tech has a huge co-op program so that increases the number of students who graduate in five as opposed to four years. Classes are difficult so some students will take more than four years especially if you end up switching majors. Overall a great program and whether it takes you 4 or 5 years, the one things that is certain is you will have a top notch education and obtain the skills you need to be successful in whatever your next stage is.
I suspect co ops/internships. Eng also is onerous, just one slip and your course plan might need tweaking to take you to past 4 yrs. Look maybe at 5 yr or 6 yr stats.
I think their co-op participation rate is around 40%, so as others have said it’s likely the primary factor.
Can someone elaborate on the rationale behind co-op? Why not take 4 years to finish college, then go to work in the industry full time? What’s the advantage of studying 3 years, do co-op for a year, then come back to finish college?
The advantage is you will have a better understanding of some of the things you learn in the classroom having had experiences outside the classroom. Both co-ops and internships are valuable parts of your education in any field. In education, you are required to student teach for most programs. MBA programs look for candidates with real work experience. Having the experiences along with the education will always be a benefit to you.
Thank you so much! Your explanation cleared my confusion. Co-op program increases the number of students who graduate in five as opposed to four years.Thank you.
Co-op allows you took earn money to pay for school, graduate debt free and get real world experience. A co-op is more hirable. A co-op will typically alternate work and school semesters. School, work, school, work… Also co-ops will typically work and house with co-ops from other universities and work in other states… which is fun. Co-oping can add a year and a half to graduation time.
Also, Georgia has something called the “hope scholarship” for nearly all the instate students. You can only keep the scholarship if you have good grades. Many GT instate students take only the minimum amount of hours (12) to keep their grades up and not lose the scholarship. “Hope” can add a year to graduation time.
So co-op/internships, hope, and engineering is hard are the reasons that it takes most students over four years. The 6 year graduation rate is something like 85%.
http://www.news.gatech.edu/2015/11/17/georgia-tech-reaches-new-heights-academic-success
How quickly you graduate is up to you. I’ve read more than one post from people who say their kid graduated in 3 years and didn’t think GT was that difficult.
From what I’ve read, getting your classes and switching majors at GT is easy.
Do Georgia Tech’s Co-Op graduates easily find jobs? I mean engineering major. Do most of its Co-Op graduates go to work directly or pursue master’s degree?
If you study Engineering, you’ll get a job after graduation, with or without co-op. Instead of work, study, work, study, you study, study, study, study, get your degree as quickly as possible and earn real money (rather than the puny co-op stipend.) Anyway, just my own experience many many years ago. Time may have changed.
Why so few graduate in four years?
1). Coops and Internships. Yes, they make a difference getting a job.
2). The number of credit hours required to graduate with an engineering major is more.
3) Many students take only 12 credit hours a semester. Yes, its that difficult and that much work.
4) Changing majors is not simplistic at GT. Many majors require prerequisites and approval from the department with min gpas after freshman year. Its not too difficult to mess up your GPA at tech. Many classes are on a bell curve. Current declared majors have priority for registering for those classes so it can be difficult getting a space.
From what I’ve read, co-op students can earn $20-25/hr (maybe more) during their co-op terms, where they’re working full time. That’s hardly what I would consider puny for someone that has yet to earn their bachelor’s degree. My understanding is that it’s not at all uncommon for co-op students to be offered jobs with the company they co-op for prior to graduation.
Changing majors is not simplistic at GT. Many majors require prerequisites and approval from the department with min gpas after freshman year >
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That’s a whole lot easier than Washington, UIUC, Berkeley, UTexas… where it is impossible to transfer into engineering.
It wasn’t easy transferring from hard science degree with many engineering type classes to engineering major. No matter what you major in its stats and calculus.
Thank you so much for your sharing! Are co-op companies local in Atlanta? For engineering major, can you name any co-op companies? Where do most of Georgia Tech’s engineering students get hired after they graduate with Bachelor’s degree? One counselor prefers Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute over Georgia Tech. How do you compare these two colleges? Thank you.
@smlcgw That’s a lot of follow-up questions! If you haven’t done so already, I’d look into scheduling some department tours. All the engineering departments offer them, although the availability varies significantly.
We did the general Engineering session along with the Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering Dept tours. From what we gathered, there are a lot of companies in Atlanta that participate in the co-op program. Other positions are available at other locations.
We never looked at RPI, although I hear its a great school. GT is tough to get into for OOS students. They had an 18% OOS acceptance rate last year. RPI looks like it’s a bit easier to get into with an overall acceptance rate of 42%. As a private university they may have better financial aid options.
@smlcgw My DD is a 4th year ME major at Georgia Tech and really loves it. She has both co-oped and interned at three different companies all over the U.S. (by her choice) in her time at Georgia Tech. I will try to answer your questions:
3.GT students get hired after graduation from a wide variety of companies. My DD’s friends have worked at small start-ups in the Silicon Valley as well as Boeing, Honda, GE, Proctor and Gamble, BMW, NASA etc. There is no one place for GT grads nor a majority of companies. It all depends on the student’s major and interest, but one thing GT will do is prepare you in your engineering education- you will get a great education which employers value.
Hope this info helps you.
I question the benefits of longer term coops. Shorter term internships may well give a young person insight as to
reality of a career they consider. That is a great benefit. But longer term coops, while you learn more in the field, either lead to delayed graduation or summer school. Most colleges don’t have great summer course offerings, so in effect this delays graduation. Personally I did all I could years ago to graduate early (3 years) so I get get a full time higher paying job with benefits, than delay the day I could get such a job. Financially it makes more sense. Academically it can make more sense. Some people get burned out from tests, term papers etc, and ultimately delaying graduation can have a negative effect.
RPI is starting a new program to try and improve their summer school to the point you can do a coop, take a good selection of classes in the summer, and then still graduate on time. That said, it’s a new program and the jury is out.
My 2 cents, not a reason to avoid GT, nobody would force you to go on a coop if you want to graduate in 4 years.
Agree with @blevine, the faster you finish college and get a real job, the better. Salary + benefits + stock options/awards. Anyone remember what’s Amazon’s stock price was last year? Why do you want to delay joining the company?
We toured RPI in the summer and I was surprised by the move. They now FORCE you to take a summer quarter class, an FORCE you to co-op in the Fall semester. The cynical explanation is that they don’t have enough housing, so came up with this arrangement.
I disagree with @blevine and @bogeyorpar. Students doing a co-op can finish in 4.5-5 years while gaining a full year’s worth of experience and earning a pretty significant salary while on co-op. Students still take (and pay for) the same number of semesters as their traditional peers. I don’t think it takes a whole lot of planning for a student to arrange their schedule so that a summer semester term keeps them on track.
Co-op experience generally translates into more interviews, job offers, and a higher starting salary. Ohio State for example claims that student’s completing a co-op program receive starting salaries that are on average 9% higher than their traditional peers.
I imagine that what becomes even more important is that the co-op graduate has experience that the traditional student doesn’t, giving them an advantage over their traditional peers on the job at the starting point of their career. This can affect future promotions, bonuses, and merit increases.
The way I see it, co-op is an investment the student is making. They forgo earning a higher salary for 6 months to a year in the hopes of gaining a positive return based on the experience they gain and the opportunities they may otherwise not get.