A good read.... yes, believe it or not, from the AJC (Link)

[DeepSnap]

I normally wouldn't bother with an AJC article, but since the legacy issue has been raised in this forum on many occasions, here's a very good answer for "Have we gotten too big for our britches?"

And I love the line: "Conversely, Tech could become even more elite/MIT-like, and forget the practical part. To which I will remind them, as always--"Engineers put planes on flight lines, PhDs put unread papers on library shelves.""

Link

 

[herb]

I couldn’t get the link to work, so trying it again. Maureen has been at the front of this for a while. She seems to get it. Rick Clark and his 20 something age admission people DO NOT

https://www.ajc.com/blog/get-school...tatus-come-with-price/X3EIocuu9mZbKizrtswT2L/

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I didn't make it all the way through. There is a lot of butt hurt in that article. People saying Tech should be this way and that way and easier to get into and my little Johnny should get in because I did. Well life is not fair. I made Tech's reputation because of how hard I worked to stay in school and graduate, and how hard I worked after I graduated. Now people that come after me are smarter than I was, the school is harder to get into, and my degree is even worth more. Yippee. My son could go to Tech and he wants to (he's 13). My wife and I met at Tech and we want him to go to Tech. But if he doesn't get in we'll be sad. BUT SO WHAT. There are other schools in the world. Its not worth taking 20 AP classes and ruining high school to try and get in. Life is about more than burying yourself in books. Go to Clemson, NC State, MIT, Duke - there are dozens of other good engineering schools. The level of entitlement some people have about themselves is crazy.

 

[herb]

I didn't make it all the way through. There is a lot of butt hurt in that article. People saying Tech should be this way and that way and easier to get into and my little Johnny should get in because I did. Well life is not fair. I made Tech's reputation because of how hard I worked to stay in school and graduate, and how hard I worked after I graduated. Now people that come after me are smarter than I was, the school is harder to get into, and my degree is even worth more. Yippee. My son could go to Tech and he wants to (he's 13). My wife and I met at Tech and we want him to go to Tech. But if he doesn't get in we'll be sad. BUT SO WHAT. There are other schools in the world. Its not worth taking 20 AP classes and ruining high school to try and get in. Life is about more than burying yourself in books. Go to Clemson, NC State, MIT, Duke - there are dozens of other good engineering schools. The level of entitlement some people have about themselves is crazy.

There is a lot of butt hurt, perhaps, but s lot of truth.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

There is a lot of butt hurt, perhaps, but s lot of truth.

We had 9,000 undergrads when I was there. There are what 15,000 now - it’s almost doubled in the last 25 years. And I suppose the alternative they’re looking for is to keep the acceptance rates 30%-40% by having 25,000 undergrads. That’s certainly 1 viable option. Would the BOR approve that? I’m guessing not. If they would have to approve that and wouldn’t then the bigger problem is we’re all complaining to people who aren’t even at fault. You’d need 40% more housing and all the challenges that would come with finding that space and the capital cost. And so on.

 

[herb]

We had 9,000 undergrads when I was there. There are what 15,000 now - it’s almost doubled in the last 25 years. And I suppose the alternative they’re looking for is to keep the acceptance rates 30%-40% by having 25,000 undergrads. That’s certainly 1 viable option. Would the BOR approve that? I’m guessing not. If they would have to approve that and wouldn’t then the bigger problem is we’re all complaining to people who aren’t even at fault. You’d need 40% more housing and all the challenges that would come with finding that space and the capital cost. And so on.

So, I have been through this recently myself, so the butt hurt may be strong. Mine is in, good luck to the rest of you. Just wait, you’ll see. But a lot that is in there rings true. Especially if you have a boy

 

[WhatsTheGoodWord]

I worked in admissions for a dozen years with two Top 25 rated US News schools. I have met with butt hurt man syndrome many times, usually from alums who feel something is owed them. Usually the ire is directed towards admitted students of color, but I've met with the legacy butt hurt men and women as well. I would be surprised if this butt hurt man ever liked GT in his life, he is just using this column to spew his dislike. College admission is difficult for top tiered schools. Many more students attend college than when butt hurt was applying. His entire argument is faulty, as Tech still enrolls 60% of in-state students, the "20 something age admission people" (admission people in all schools are typically 20 somethings because no one values their job and they are poorly paid) are doing a good job keeping many of our best students in-state.

This sentence is completely laughable: "I predict an eventual lessening in the general quality of the Tech graduate, as an engineer, because the school is admitting people good at putting applications together, versus people simply good at math and science by nature. They are training the future corporate engineering managers, not the future engineers." I realize he hates Tech, but has he spoken with any recent grads? Has he attended a Capstone Expo held in the basketball arena at the end of every semester?

Sure, the PhD is funny line. What does that have to do with undergraduate admissions?

 

[herb]

I worked in admissions for a dozen years with two Top 25 rated US News schools. I have met with butt hurt man syndrome many times, usually from alums who feel something is owed them. Usually the ire is directed towards admitted students of color, but I've met with the legacy butt hurt men and women as well. I would be surprised if this butt hurt man ever liked GT in his life, he is just using this column to spew his dislike. College admission is difficult for top tiered schools. Many more students attend college than when butt hurt was applying. His entire argument is faulty, as Tech still enrolls 60% of in-state students, the "20 something age admission people" (admission people in all schools are typically 20 somethings because no one values their job and they are poorly paid) are doing a good job keeping many of our best students in-state.

This sentence is completely laughable: "I predict an eventual lessening in the general quality of the Tech graduate, as an engineer, because the school is admitting people good at putting applications together, versus people simply good at math and science by nature. They are training the future corporate engineering managers, not the future engineers." I realize he hates Tech, but has he spoken with any recent grads? Has he attended a Capstone Expo held in the basketball arena at the end of every semester?

Sure, the PhD is funny line. What does that have to do with undergraduate admissions?

I guess we will agree to disagree, not the end of the world. But it certainly isn’t the minority population in this case that any sane person would have a quibble with. Tech is what 6.5% African American? Way low in a state that is 31%. I encourage everyone to go and have a frank discussion with the caravan when it comes, it is interesting.

 

[WhatsTheGoodWord]

UGA has 8% African Americans, but I don't hear anyone calling them elitist. People who do not do admission to high end educational institutions do not know the challenges.

 

[yrp]

Yeah, I disagree with the article too. It's becoming a way better college and that ~20% acceptance rate is also coming from the increased number of national and international applicants that have a very low chance of getting in. In-state students aren't getting left out to get more "elite" students from across the country/world since they're keeping it at 60%

In fact, during my time, they reduced international students from 15% to 10% to get the in-state number up.

I'd chalk this up to them trying to find a reason to explain why they didn't get in instead of admitting that they didn't make the cut and that Tech standards have shot up.

 

[LibertyTurns]

I guess we will agree to disagree, not the end of the world. But it certainly isn’t the minority population in this case that any sane person would have a quibble with. Tech is what 6.5% African American? Way low in a state that is 31%. I encourage everyone to go and have a frank discussion with the caravan when it comes, it is interesting.

There’s way more than 6.5%, more like 20% but minorities are not degrading the quality of education at GT. That’s laughable.

If anyone wants to complain about anything it should be that GT did not start growing earlier and fast enough. There’s extremely high demand for top engineers, mgt grads, etc and GT grew but too slowly. We could be dominating at much higher levels right now under the proper leadership. Not sure why we have this fixation with only “Einstein” level kids.

The fact we’re turning away highly qualified kids and our enrollment is not 50k or more is a missed opportunity, but more importantly it’s missed opportunity for those that are climbing the ladder against the odds because there’s not enough open doors so they can compete. Mr Butthurt’s kid probably should have been a slam dunk, but what about the kid that had no real advocates and we made GT too hard to get into? Where’s the Libs on this issue?

 

[slugboy]

Here’s demographics I could find on GT: https://www.collegefactual.com/coll...nt-life/diversity/chart-ethnic-diversity.html

6.9% African American and about half Anglo/Caucasian.

We have only so many classrooms and instructors. Maybe we could and should expand to 40k or more. The state could use that much STEM talent. I just don’t think we can do it overnight.

I also think it’s harder to grow staff and teaching infrastructure like that and maintain quality. We’ve tried with the MOOC to scale larger.

I suspect if we could grow and maintain our academic reputation, the BOR would be fine with that.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[herb]

Y’all may be right, and the system works just fine (I really, really don’t think that is the case). Perhaps you and your friends aren’t of the age where this matters, but I can tell you that from personal experience and reports from people I trust, the decisions were at best arbitrary and capricious, especially in comparison to other top schools. And let’s be honest, the admissions team hasn’t shown the best judgment in the past, example #1 the whole instagram supporting Uga post. But hey, I don’t have to worry about it anymore, as I said mine that had any interest in going is in and good luck to yours.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

There’s way more than 6.5%, more like 20% but minorities are not degrading the quality of education at GT. That’s laughable.

If anyone wants to complain about anything it should be that GT did not start growing earlier and fast enough. There’s extremely high demand for top engineers, mgt grads, etc and GT grew but too slowly. We could be dominating at much higher levels right now under the proper leadership. Not sure why we have this fixation with only “Einstein” level kids.

The fact we’re turning away highly qualified kids and our enrollment is not 50k or more is a missed opportunity, but more importantly it’s missed opportunity for those that are climbing the ladder against the odds because there’s not enough open doors so they can compete. Mr Butthurt’s kid probably should have been a slam dunk, but what about the kid that had no real advocates and we made GT too hard to get into? Where’s the Libs on this issue?

Mmmmmm, but do we want to be another NC State or Purdue or whatever that has good engineers, but not elite? The kid who has no advocate who is trying to climb the ladder of opportunity can still make their way at all those other schools.

I give back to GT, my wife and I both went here, and I love it with all my heart. When the band plays and the team takes the field, I get tears in my eyes. My son will probably be one of those with a 1400 SAT, 4-6 AP classes and a 5.0 GPA that doesn’t get in. (Oh such first world problems.). It will be sad but we’ve already started talking about his high school options (he’s in 8th grade next year). Do we want him to bury himself to try to get in? NO! Excel at academics but have a life. Whatever happens happens.

Such great problems to have (our school is too hard to get into). I will always love Tech no matter if anything changes in this area or not.

 

[gthxxxx]

Low acceptance rate with high graduation (i.e. grade inflation) rate vs high acceptance rate with low graduation rate (i.e. weed out). Personally, I would pick the latter (and that's how it was when I went to GT) since there's too much variance and inconsistency in admission metrics derived from high schools and the maturing ability and ambition of teens, but the admin have chosen differently.

 

[MWBATL]

Low acceptance rate with high graduation (i.e. grade inflation) rate vs high acceptance rate with low graduation rate (i.e. weed out). Personally, I would pick the latter (and that's how it was when I went to GT) since there's too much variance and inconsistency in admission metrics derived from high schools and the maturing ability and ambition of teens, but the admin have chosen differently.

It's been swept up in the liberal academic standards...the old "our standards are so high to get in that everyone who comes here is so smart they ought to be able to pass" thinking

 

[LibertyTurns]

We can’t have normal engineering college courses for the basic GT Engineer and some Honors Level type courses for the massively intelligent elite Engineers? It was hard enough making it thru GT back in the day before you practically needed to saw off your leg to get in the door like it is now.

 

[Animal02]

Low acceptance rate with high graduation (i.e. grade inflation) rate vs high acceptance rate with low graduation rate (i.e. weed out). Personally, I would pick the latter (and that's how it was when I went to GT) since there's too much variance and inconsistency in admission metrics derived from high schools and the maturing ability and ambition of teens, but the admin have chosen differently.

The admin chose that direction because graduation rates is factored into college ranking by all the rags. (Some journalism major decided that was important)
I thing sink or swim is better, having gotten my second degree at a university that did the low acceptance / high grad rate........too many bozo's slipped in and they did everything to keep them.

 

[yrp]

You don't have to fail people out to be a good school.

The value of all of our degrees is going up because Tech is more elite now. Be thankful and donate some money

 

[gthxxxx]

You don't have to fail people out to be a good school.

The reason I offered a binary choice (edit: more of a spectrum) is because there's finite resources so there exists tradeoffs.

The value of all of our degrees is going up because Tech is more elite now. Be thankful

I doubt there's been a significant change in the relative value of Tech degrees or its eliteness. I am thankful for the overall effectiveness of the returns I gained based on my inputs (i.e. money, time) back when I attended GT as undergrad and grad. To me, the degree was the least valuable return compared to the skill set, mindset, relationships, and experiences gained. I see higher likelihood that some of those more valuable returns will diminish in quality for new attendees with the present/future direction of GT. However, maybe I'm quibbling over minor nuances since relative to its competition, GT provides enough and the individual remains the significant differentiator.

and donate some money

I don't donate any money to GT, since there exist many closer to me that hold higher priority. However, I have contributed in sending some work attached with $$$ towards GT's way.