Ten years ago, the average student admitted to Tech had an average SAT score of 1334.
This year, that same average number, for the more than 5,000 admitted students in the early admission cycle, rose over a 100 points to 1483/1600 for a composite score of 2193/2400.
In addition, diversity was the name of the game, as the Office of Admissions accepted an incoming class with students from all 50 states and 42 countries.
“[This diversity] makes everyone’s experience better,” said Office of Admissions Director Clark. “Any homogeneous group is going to be worse if it doesn’t have diverse perspective.”
The trend shows that roughly 60 percent of the incoming freshman class is in-state, and 40 percent will be out-of-state; 10 percent of the overall population will be from abroad.
The high-school class of 2014 was also the first group to apply to this school using the Common Application, which 517 U.S. institutions of higher education use for undergraduate admissions.
“A number of the major public universities around the country have recently gone to the common application, namely University of Michigan, [University of North Carolina]—Chapel Hill, UVA [University of Virginia]. [They] who are all in the top 10 with us in terms of public [universities],” said Rick Clark, the Director of Admissions.
The switch to the Common App also allows Tech to enhance Tech’s name recognition beyond the state of Georgia around the globe among talented students without stretching its marketing budget.
“Now we can go to Madison, Georgia… but… Madison, Wisconsin… or Southeast Asia… are the places we’re not going to [recruit from]…but there are kids that either should ‘be here’ or at least looking at us and we don’t think they were,” Clark said.
For the last few years, the acceptance rate for both early and regular admissions has gone down due to the increasing number of applicants. In 2011, 3,000 applications for early action were submitted, and there were 9,000 applicants last year. However, 12,300 applications were submitted in this cycle for early action alone.
“We already have 23,000 applications for [this year]. Last year, it ended at 17,700,” Clark said.
The larger number of applications the process of admitting exemplary students more difficult than usual this year, according to Clark.
“Who are we to be judging these students?” Clark said. “I’m excited about what these students are going to become and where they’re going. It gives me hope for the future of our world.”
Online courses such as MOOCs (massive open online course) may also play a role in future undergraduate admissions. Universities around the country including Tech are rapidly offering college-level courses to anyone with an internet connection.
“I could definitely see a day soon where we’re almost expecting a kid would taken a MOOC before coming to Tech,” said Clark.
Some current Tech students are intimidated by these impressive admission statistics, but most are excited about the incoming class of bright students.
“These early admissions numbers reflect well on our school, and it’s improving the value of my degree,” said fourth-year BUS major Melanie Cols.
“Tech is on an unparalleled trajectory,” Clark concluded. “There has never been a more exciting time to be [here] than right now.”