With a nod to the special number pi, Georgia Tech Admissions released regular admission decisions on March 14 at 1:59 p.m. These admissions brought the grand total of admitted students to 7,984 for the Class of 2024.
According to Rick Clark, director of undergraduate admissions, this year saw some marked increases in a few areas, including more in-state, female and first-generation admits than before.
“There’s been a lot of conversation around serving our state and ensuring that we are continuing to enroll more students from Georgia,” said Clark. “As a public university that’s certainly a goal, and that’s our role as well. We’re pleased with that.”
Admissions isn’t exempt from the chaos caused by COVID-19. Clark predicts Tech might enroll more in-state students than it would have otherwise, and fewer international students.
“Things may look really different in two weeks,” Clark said. “But because we’re in this little time frame leading up to May 1 when students are depositing, we just have a lot of questions.”
The Institute grows and changes every year, so admissions priorities must change accordingly. Among one of the goals every year is a greater balance both in gender and in students admitted to Tech’s different colleges. President Ángel Cabrera also has some ideas for what he wants the Tech of the future to look like.
Increasing access to the resources and education that Tech can provide is one of Cabrera’s biggest goals. Some of this comes down to simply adding seats. The admissions department is aiming to have the incoming undergraduate class land somewhere around 3,250. In addition, adding online degree programs might be a possibility in the future.
Clark says that one way Tech could improve would be to offer a more competitive financial aid package to potential applicants, and he indicates that efforts to improve this are in the works.
Even for students who weren’t admitted, a denial is not the end of the road, says Clark. There are several transfer pathways that students can pursue if they don’t get in the first time around. Eight percent of applicants were offered a transfer pathway.
Such pathways include the Georgia First Pathway Program, which offers transfer admission to in-state students who are the first in their family to go to college. The Talent Initiative Pathway Program is part of the larger American Talent Initiative, which offers transfer opportunities to students who are from low or moderate income families. Both of these pathways are relatively new to Tech.
The admissions department has other programs in place as well in order to ensure Tech gets the top students from the state. This was the third year of the Georgia Tech Scholars Program, which automatically admits the valedictorian and salutatorian from every high school in the state. Clark said with the help of this program, Tech enrolls more of these students than any other school in the state.
When asked what he would say to freshly admitted applicants struggling to decide between good options, Clark said that high school seniors should be trying to get as many opinions as possible.
“I would tell them, ‘You should be looking at the school newspapers online. You should be looking at the alumni magazine,’” Clark said. “I always tell students to check the social media accounts of some organizations. They’re not trying to recruit you, they’re just telling you what life is like.”