Georgia Tech Offers New Admissions Option For Some Students
Georgia Tech recently announced changes to its spring 2021 academic calendar, including a delayed start date and a no weeklong spring break.
Alison Guillory / WABE
High school seniors who’ve applied early to Georgia Tech will find out Saturday whether they got in or not. This year, there could be a silver lining for some students who aren’t accepted.
About 160 applicants who aren’t admitted will be offered the chance to transfer if they meet certain requirements.
“What we’ve created is a pathway, where a student has the opportunity to go elsewhere for a year, take a specified set of courses and earn a certain GPA, in this case a 3.3, and then transfer into Georgia Tech after a year,” said Rick Clark, director of undergraduate admission for Georgia Tech.
All of the students have to be eligible to receive a Pell Grant, a form of federal financial aid. The idea, Clark says, is to increase socio-economic diversity in the student body.
“We feel like that adds a ton of value to classroom conversations and to what’s happening in the dorms and just around campus, but also ultimately to the type of student we’re producing,” he said.
The program is called the Talent Initiative Transfer Pathway, which is one of a few pathways for transfer students at Georgia Tech. The effort is also part of a broader program called the American Talent Initiative, which is a collaboration between more than 100 universities to increase the number of college graduates from low and moderate-income families.
“It’s another doorway to ultimately go across the same stage, and I think that’s what public schools should be thinking about right now, especially schools like us,” Clark said.
Georgia Tech anticipates an even bigger group of students will get the same opportunity during spring admissions in March.
“We anticipate … that we may even double this number of offers,” Clark said.
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