New admissions program for Atlanta Public School students

[MWT89]

New Transfer Program Offers Path to Georgia Tech for Atlanta Public School Students | News Center

Georgia Tech is invested in the students, teachers, and families of the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) system through a variety of outreach, tutoring, and other support programs, including those sponsored by CEISMC and Constellations.

www.news.gatech.edu

This is effectively the same program as the Conditional Transfer Pathway for alumni children (something I'm familiar with). The transfer requirements (courses, grades) are not a huge hurdle for above-average kids, so basically any motivated kid from APS is *guaranteed* a place at Tech.

NOTE: This program is different from the Atlanta Public Schools Scholars program where valedictorians and salutatorians are automatically offered admission and given a full scholarship.

Does any other school have as many special admission and transfer programs?

1. Atlanta Public Schools Scholars
2. Atlanta Public Schools Pathway Program
3. Arts & Sciences Pathway Program
4. Conditional Transfer Pathway Program
5. Dual Degree Engineering Program
6. First-Generation Pathway Program
7. Regent's Engineering Pathway Program
8. Talent Initiative Pathway Program
9. Veteran's Pathway Program

 

[Jim Prather]

Has anyone ever seen any statistics on how many people actually take advantage of these transfer programs? I'm curious because, statistically, students who would qualify for one of these programs don't tend to transfer.

 

[MWBATL]

Anecdotally, I know at least two kids who took advantage of the transfer program....

 

[GTBatGirl96]

Has anyone ever seen any statistics on how many people actually take advantage of these transfer programs? I'm curious because, statistically, students who would qualify for one of these programs don't tend to transfer.

My son, currently a freshman at Purdue, should be sending in his transfer application any day now. He had to answer some essay questions, which was surprising since we thought he just had to have the course and hour requirements. Hopefully those are inconsequential and just to weed out students that aren't serious.

 

[herb]

My son, currently a freshman at Purdue, should be sending in his transfer application any day now. He had to answer some essay questions, which was surprising since we thought he just had to have the course and hour requirements. Hopefully those are inconsequential and just to weed out students that aren't serious.

Good luck

 

[MWT89]

Has anyone ever seen any statistics on how many people actually take advantage of these transfer programs? I'm curious because, statistically, students who would qualify for one of these programs don't tend to transfer.

From GT Admissions:

In terms of data on pathways, I can tell you that 54% of our 2020 transfers entered via pathways vs. 46% “regular transfer.” We do not collect SAT/ACT for transfer students (nor do any USG schools).

All pathway students must have a minimum college GPA of 3.3 or higher and 30+ transferable hours. Last year they averaged 36 transferable hours and a 3.81 GPA.

 

[Jim Prather]

From GT Admissions:

In terms of data on pathways, I can tell you that 54% of our 2020 transfers entered via pathways vs. 46% “regular transfer.” We do not collect SAT/ACT for transfer students (nor do any USG schools).

All pathway students must have a minimum college GPA of 3.3 or higher and 30+ transferable hours. Last year they averaged 36 transferable hours and a 3.81 GPA.

Thanks... That doesn't give absolute numbers, but we can infer from the percentages that it was at least 50 people. I've got a nephew applying this year and looking at transferring to Tech after his first year if he doesn't get accepted. He's got a good application. He has the triple whammy against him, though, so I'll be surprised if he is accepted...

 

[MWT89]

Thanks... That doesn't give absolute numbers, but we can infer from the percentages that it was at least 50 people. I've got a nephew applying this year and looking at transferring to Tech after his first year if he doesn't get accepted. He's got a good application. He has the triple whammy against him, though, so I'll be surprised if he is accepted...

Tech had 3436 transfer applications for fall 2020. 41% admit rate.

 

[TechPreacher]

He has the triple whammy against him, though, so I'll be surprised if he is accepted...

Straight White male?

 

[Jim Prather]

White, male, child of GT alum

 

[MWT89]

White, male, child of GT alum

Bingo! We have a winner. Ask me how I know. (Though the almost guaranteed acceptance via the Conditional Transfer Pathway is unique.)

 

[LibertyTurns]

White, male, child of GT alum

Bingo! We have a winner. Ask me how I know. (Though the almost guaranteed acceptance via the Conditional Transfer Pathway is unique.)

I just don’t get GT’s leadership and their strategy. There’s tons of qualified Engineer candidates of all shapes & sizes yet we turn them away. Why doesn’t GT start an Honors Engineering Program for the truly brilliant, the creme of the crop we attract? The elite GT types can have their chest thumping academic paradise for the brainiacs & other regular smart kids can just be above average Engineers in the other regular Engineering colleges. Then double or triple the size of the existing Engineering Colleges and accept every qualified candidate or more if that’s not enough. If kids graduate it’s a win-win, we don’t have to pick winners before the game starts. You do the work & you graduate. We can dominate the nation in Engineering grads, I mean really really dominate. We don’t piss off alums with kids/grandkids that get blacklisted because we’re diversifying, we don’t discrimminate against kids that don’t have the country club background but will succeed by hard work & determination because their parents couldn’t afford better and they learned a different way, etc. We end up having tons more alums running around making our country prosper like GT grads do, maybe we fill up the library on Saturday & some of the kids who didn’t arrive early enough to study all day end up at Bobby Dodd to watch football as an alternative. Why do we need to make kids go to another school first? Why doesn’t GT just step up & satisfy the demand of the people wanting GT to educate them?

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I just don’t get GT’s leadership and their strategy. There’s tons of qualified Engineer candidates of all shapes & sizes yet we turn them away. Why doesn’t GT start an Honors Engineering Program for the truly brilliant, the creme of the crop we attract? The elite GT types can have their chest thumping academic paradise for the brainiacs & other regular smart kids can just be above average Engineers in the other regular Engineering colleges. Then double or triple the size of the existing Engineering Colleges and accept every qualified candidate or more if that’s not enough. If kids graduate it’s a win-win, we don’t have to pick winners before the game starts. You do the work & you graduate. We can dominate the nation in Engineering grads, I mean really really dominate. We don’t piss off alums with kids/grandkids that get blacklisted because we’re diversifying, we don’t discrimminate against kids that don’t have the country club background but will succeed by hard work & determination because their parents couldn’t afford better and they learned a different way, etc. We end up having tons more alums running around making our country prosper like GT grads do, maybe we fill up the library on Saturday & some of the kids who didn’t arrive early enough to study all day end up at Bobby Dodd to watch football as an alternative. Why do we need to make kids go to another school first? Why doesn’t GT just step up & satisfy the demand of the people wanting GT to educate them?

My son is going to likely fall directly into this. He's a white male, a double legacy (my wife and I both went there), we've given money every year for probably a couple decades now. He's only a Freshman so he's not old enough to have an SAT score (he had an 1100 on the PSAT as an 8th grader), but he's in the top 2% of his class. He just had a math test where he made a 98 - his teacher took off 2 points because he was unsure about his answer on one particular problem - he used another method to double check his answer and she wrote in all caps "YOU DON'T KNOW THIS YET! -2" LOLOLOL. He's a Tech man through and through. I highly doubt he gets in. Will he start out at Clemson or something and then transfer after a year? I highly doubt that too - why would you want to leave a place and friends you've started to build and start over? The transfer program is just a check the box offering that doesn't work for the vast majority of the people, but it enables them to cross their arms and say every legacy is guaranteed admission with just basic qualifications. You also want to be somewhere that wants you. My wife lived in Michigan in high school - Michigan wait listed her (she went back and got a double masters there later) and Tech let her in. She chose Tech even though Michigan was her dream school. But they wait listed her. When they called back to tell her she got in, she told them to go pound sand. They missed their chance.

You've been an advocate for those sorts of ideas for as long as I can remember and I love every piece of it. We need MORE STEM majors in this country, not less. If we doubled our school and the SAT average dropped from 1500 to 1400, WHO CARES. Georgia could be a massive STEM factory for the nation. We really lack drive and creativity. Its shocking because such changes would have a large positive financial impact to Tech as well. Go figure.

 

[forensicbuzz]

My son is going to likely fall directly into this. He's a white male, a double legacy (my wife and I both went there), we've given money every year for probably a couple decades now. He's only a Freshman so he's not old enough to have an SAT score (he had an 1100 on the PSAT as an 8th grader), but he's in the top 2% of his class. He just had a math test where he made a 98 - his teacher took off 2 points because he was unsure about his answer on one particular problem - he used another method to double check his answer and she wrote in all caps "YOU DON'T KNOW THIS YET! -2" LOLOLOL. He's a Tech man through and through. I highly doubt he gets in. Will he start out at Clemson or something and then transfer after a year? I highly doubt that too - why would you want to leave a place and friends you've started to build and start over? The transfer program is just a check the box offering that doesn't work for the vast majority of the people, but it enables them to cross their arms and say every legacy is guaranteed admission with just basic qualifications. You also want to be somewhere that wants you. My wife lived in Michigan in high school - Michigan wait listed her (she went back and got a double masters there later) and Tech let her in. She chose Tech even though Michigan was her dream school. But they wait listed her. When they called back to tell her she got in, she told them to go pound sand. They missed their chance.

You've been an advocate for those sorts of ideas for as long as I can remember and I love every piece of it. We need MORE STEM majors in this country, not less. If we doubled our school and the SAT average dropped from 1500 to 1400, WHO CARES. Georgia could be a massive STEM factory for the nation. We really lack drive and creativity. Its shocking because such changes would have a large positive financial impact to Tech as well. Go figure.

This is bull****. Stop playing the victim. A large majority of students end up graduating from a school other than where they start. Transferring into Tech, if that's where you want to be is no big deal. It's not all about the numbers and no one ever said life was fair.

My wife and I are both graduates, as well as a sister-in-law, and a grandfather at GTRI. My son had a 35 on his ACT and didn't get in as a freshman. He had the opportunity to go if he wanted. It's not an excuse by the school, it's an avenue to pursue if GT is what you really want and you don't get accepted as a freshman.

 

[Jim Prather]

This is bull****. Stop playing the victim. A large majority of students end up graduating from a school other than where they start. Transferring into Tech, if that's where you want to be is no big deal. It's not all about the numbers and no one ever said life was fair.

My wife and I are both graduates, as well as a sister-in-law, and a grandfather at GTRI. My son had a 35 on his ACT and didn't get in as a freshman. He had the opportunity to go if he wanted. It's not an excuse by the school, it's an avenue to pursue if GT is what you really want and you don't get accepted as a freshman.

That's not true. After 30 seconds of googling you can find that it is about 1/3 of students who transfer, and it's usually the students on the lower end of GPA scale

 

[Jim Prather]

My son is going to likely fall directly into this. He's a white male, a double legacy (my wife and I both went there), we've given money every year for probably a couple decades now. He's only a Freshman so he's not old enough to have an SAT score (he had an 1100 on the PSAT as an 8th grader), but he's in the top 2% of his class. He just had a math test where he made a 98 - his teacher took off 2 points because he was unsure about his answer on one particular problem - he used another method to double check his answer and she wrote in all caps "YOU DON'T KNOW THIS YET! -2" LOLOLOL. He's a Tech man through and through. I highly doubt he gets in. Will he start out at Clemson or something and then transfer after a year? I highly doubt that too - why would you want to leave a place and friends you've started to build and start over? The transfer program is just a check the box offering that doesn't work for the vast majority of the people, but it enables them to cross their arms and say every legacy is guaranteed admission with just basic qualifications. You also want to be somewhere that wants you. My wife lived in Michigan in high school - Michigan wait listed her (she went back and got a double masters there later) and Tech let her in. She chose Tech even though Michigan was her dream school. But they wait listed her. When they called back to tell her she got in, she told them to go pound sand. They missed their chance.

You've been an advocate for those sorts of ideas for as long as I can remember and I love every piece of it. We need MORE STEM majors in this country, not less. If we doubled our school and the SAT average dropped from 1500 to 1400, WHO CARES. Georgia could be a massive STEM factory for the nation. We really lack drive and creativity. Its shocking because such changes would have a large positive financial impact to Tech as well. Go figure.

Yeah my sister and BIL have told him that he has to stay in-state, so if he doesn't get into Tech he will go to GA State and live at home. Effectively this will be year 13 of high school for him. LOL. Then he will transfer to tech after that.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Yeah my sister and BIL have told him that he has to stay in-state, so if he doesn't get into Tech he will go to GA State and live at home. Effectively this will be year 13 of high school for him. LOL. Then he will transfer to tech after that.

If you're in state, and especially in the wider Atlanta metro area, transferring in is significantly less disruptive. I know many people who went to Georgia State but roomed with Tech students the first year.

 

[forensicbuzz]

That's not true. After 30 seconds of googling you can find that it is about 1/3 of students who transfer, and it's usually the students on the lower end of GPA scale

When I said "a large majority," my intent was that the numbers are not inconsequential. 35% is what I intended when I used that term. I knew it was around 1/3. Sorry that I wasn't more clear. That still doesn't change what I said. If you want to go to Tech, as a legacy, you can. it may not be the way you want to do it, but they've made it possible for ANY legacy, regardless of their HS performance, to go to Tech. That's huge.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Yeah my sister and BIL have told him that he has to stay in-state, so if he doesn't get into Tech he will go to GA State and live at home. Effectively this will be year 13 of high school for him. LOL. Then he will transfer to tech after that.

I wouldn't go to Georgia State if I were going to transfer after a year. If he really wanted to prepare himself for Tech, I'd send him to Kennesaw State (former Southern Tech program for a year). However, I'd send him to the local CC for a year and then transfer. It's cheaper and the credits transfer. If he's living at home, that's the smarter move.

 

[Jim Prather]

I agree, but they live right down the street from one of the GA State campuses. From a logistic standpoint GA state makes sense for them...