Want to get into UGA or Tech? Start planning in middle school.
The competition to get into Tech and UGA will not subside any time soon. (AJC file)
Parents of current high school students will not be surprised by today’s AJC story on the rising caliber of students admitted to Georgia’s top public campuses. Most parents have a story about a great candidate from their local high school who was rejected by UGA or Tech. And there are many alums of both schools who admit they would never be admitted under today’s tougher standards.
Applications for UGA’s freshman class have increased by more than 50 percent since 2003. Tech’s applications have increased by 48 percent over the last four years.
As the competition for spots at the premier campuses has intensified, students are upping their academic games, enrolling in more AP classes. Parents of high school freshmen and sophomores ought to advise their children to read today’s AJC story so they better understand the risks of waiting until their junior year to get serious about their high school studies.
In fact, according to the story, middle school students ought to read the AJC story as well.
College admission pressures will not subside in Georgia, which will continue to see an increase in high school applicants. According to AJC reporter Laura Diamond, undergraduate enrollment in Georgia grew by 77 percent from 1999 to 2009, compared to 38 percent nationally. She reports that Georgia’s high school graduates are projected to increase by 22 percent over the next decade, compared to 10 percent for the nation.
She says: High-schoolers have to set goals and prepare earlier than ever if they are to have their choice. Some public and private middle school counselors begin talking with students and parents as early as sixth grade about what courses must be taken in high school to be attractive to competitive colleges.
This year’s freshmen at the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State and Georgia College & State universities shattered records for SAT scores and high school GPAs. That continued a steady rise that has altered the state’s higher education landscape, making a slot at Tech or UGA hotly competitive and fueling huge growth and higher standards at other public universities.
Georgia Tech’s freshmen earned an average 1378 on the math and verbal SAT — up almost 50 points from five years ago. They took more than three college-level Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses by the end of junior year in high school and three more during senior year.
“It’s getting a little ridiculous,” said Rick Clark, director of undergraduate admissions at Georgia Tech. “The caliber is going up but the number of students we admit isn’t.”
The rising quality at top colleges has caused a trickle down effect. Enrollment at Georgia Southern and Kennesaw State universities has increased and the student talent has improved. Kennesaw State freshmen earned an average 1,074 on the math and verbal SAT — a gain of 52 points over the last decade.
Joshua Beane graduated from Grayson High in Gwinnett County with strong enough marks to compete for a spot at UGA. Freshmen there scored an average 1,254 on the SAT and had an average GPA of almost 3.8. But Beane didn’t apply.
“I just didn’t want to deal with it when there are a bunch of other colleges,” Beane said. “Smart people are going to those other colleges, too.”
He focused on less expensive campuses and those where he was likely to get in. He’s now a freshman at Kennesaw State.
The state’s HOPE scholarship has caused much of the rise. Prior to this fall, the scholarship paid all tuition at public colleges if students maintained a 3.0 GPA. The rules changed this academic year and now 10 percent of recipients get a full tuition award. The rest get a scholarship that covers most of tuition.
Before HOPE started in 1993, less than one-quarter of students who scored 1,400 or higher on the SAT stayed in state for college, according to the University System of Georgia. After, about three-quarters did.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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111 comments Add your comment
William Casey
August 29th, 2011
4:46 pm
I loved teaching A.P. American & A.P. European histories. The A.P. Exam is the great equalizer. Does not matter who you are or where you went to school, a FIVE was a FIVE. I found though, that almost every AP Exam grade correlated with the grades achieved in my class.
One aspect of the AP discussion I haven’t seen mentioned here is whether the quality of AP TEACHERS has been maintained with the vast expansion of AP class offerings. I taught AP from 1981 until 2006. Teaching an AP class is very demanding. True, there are no discipline problems, but the fast pace of the course and depth of content preparation are difficult if done properly. I had the advantage of having great undergrad preparation with no education courses until grad school. Big plus. I just wonder if the teaching pool has been diluted by “open enrollment” for AP as the student pool has. I hope not.
Nat Turner
August 29th, 2011
5:01 pm
@Really– You didn’t need to say anything about me pulling the race card. It is tired, and irrelevant. But it speaks volumes that you had to toss that in.
I agree with the poster that said that very few black students are being admitted. That is exactly what I stated. Out of 450 black students, the bulk are females. And the same with the latino population.
And to cover their bases, you better believe that they make sure that the minorities are up to par with the other students, so that the students don’t have to hear what I heard at UGA:
“What are they (pointed at black students) going to do now that they don’t get free and reduced lunch?”
Toco Hills mom
August 29th, 2011
5:08 pm
Megan Hayes-Golding: My daughters are/were at a private school where one AP was “suggested” for sophomores, 2 for juniors, and not more than 3 for seniors. My 2011 grad took 4 AP’s her senior year and did well on them all (including Calc and English). The suggestions were flexible and since it was a small school where the faculty knew the students fairly well, my older daughter had no problems getting the 4 AP’s. She was accepted to Tech (but is not planning to go there for completely other reasons than quality of the school). We were invited to a meet-and-greet event for other potential freshmen there, and I struck up a conversation with another parent, who told me his son had 20 AP’s!!! I believe the family lived in Cobb and the son attended a public school, but I was flabbergasted. What hard work, discipline and dedication that kid must’ve had!
It makes a difference (public vs. private or large vs. small): how many AP’s are available (there aren’t even 20 offered at my daughters’ school), and how much variety (i.e. if a history teacher loves doing AP’s there may be more history AP’s on offer than, say math or science).
Steven
August 30th, 2011
7:43 am
>> ” @Steven, I never said anything about BLACK! Re-read my comments! ”
OK. I will re-read your comment.
>> ” Diversity and female applicants weight more than caus. males. ”
OK. I am sorry… but doesn’t “Diversity” include Blacks? I thought that Diversity was a synonym for ethnic minorities. And Blacks are the largest ethnic minority group in the country.
The point I was making in my previous post is that there is a misconception that “Diversity” groups like Blacks are being given favored treatment for admissions at UGA. I know from first-hand experience (my own son) that is not true. My son (who is Black) took AP classes – scoring 3’s & 4’s – had a GPA higher than the UGA admissions average, and had an SAT score around the UGA admissions average… and was not accepted. The idea that Blacks are being unfaily admitted is bogus. Further, just take a look at the sheer number of “Diversity” persons that are being admitted. The numbers are truly small.
I am not complaining. To me, what happened with my son is evidence that UGA is treating admissions fairly. Unlike your comment that “Diversity” applicants are getting more weight than caucasian males. That simply isn’t true.
GTmom
August 30th, 2011
11:51 am
Our SAT scores are getting higher, no doubt about that. But what about the kids graduating college. Do they seem to be that much more ahead than the kids that graduated 10-20 years ago. In my husband’s company and in my engineering company, everyone is scared to hire a college graduate. They come in and play on Facebook or on their Iphone all day. And then there are the ones that do want to succeed but they end up bothering experienced workers all day with questions. Engineers are supposed to think out side of the box and on their own. Upper management discusses this problem all the time. I swear that my co-worker (19+ years) ended up sitting in a new hires cube for almost a year. The new hire was let go just recently. He graduated highest honors at GA Tech.
If our high school students are so smart, why are they having a hard time in the real world? Something is not working. I have seen my own son learn to read a novel in pre-school. He stresses about his school work (in first grade). All of this early knowledge will help him in school later on and on tests but will he be able to hold down a job.
KMHSmom
August 30th, 2011
12:53 pm
@catlady: Anyone here ever heard of social and cultural capital?
I have read many of your comments on this blog – I know you are liberal, but you hit the nail right on the head sometimes (from my conservative viewpoint). So it seems that the only way to break the chain for kids without cultural capital is to work to change their culture. But then the so-called black leaders get up in arms about maintaining their culture. Remember the attempt to declare “ebonics” as a regional dialect? What are we to do? How can we reach in a change the culture?
old ways not always bad
August 31st, 2011
11:16 am
The formula used to determine the number of students taken from regions within our state or from out of state unfairly punish kids from the metro area. You have a better chance of getting into UGA or Tech if you are from a southern or northern county and it doesn’t matter what your GPA is or how high your national test scores . There are children in the metro area with high GPA’s and high SAT/ACT but they are waitlisted or denied while kids from other parts of the state get accepted with lower scores.
OldTech
August 31st, 2011
4:11 pm
I realize I am coming late to the discussion and have not read all of the other comments. But middle school planning is starting late. When my sons kindergarten teachers told me they had talent, I laid down the ground rules. They did not have to attend Ga Tech, but it could not be because they could not win admission. We started then supplementing their lessons from school with extra vocabulary. We stressed that all homework was to be completed, even the “extra credit” homework. Teachers laughed at us for requiring our children to do “extra credit” when their grades were already in the high 90s. We encouraged our sons to read and trips to Books-A-Million became expensive, as the children had their lists of books they wanted and their release dates. Trips to the library were promoted. Sports, TV and video games were threatened when homework was late or sloppy. We took the time to review our sons’ work and review any issues, including discipline, with their teachers. I have 2 sons attending Ga Tech now and a 10th grader who is hopefully on track.
I say all of this because of a meeting my wife & I attended when my oldest son was completing 8th grade. The counselor who called the meeting for parents of students preparing to enter high school said, “Your students need to start doing their homework and studying for their tests”. What were the first 8 (really 10) years of school? Study habits and the desire to learn should be taught from an early age, not crammed into 4 years of high school. Especially if sloppy work and haphazard studying are already instilled in the student.
Prepare your children from the very start. Read to them as toddlers, teach them to ask questions and wonder. Help them with their homework. (I can’t tell you how many times I have attended parent meetings at the beginning of a school year when parents have stated that they wanted little to no homework sent home with their children. “If you can’t teach it by 3:00 don’t bother.”) If you prepare them academically for Ga Tech and they decide to attend dance school, so much the better. But if they decide they want to study at Ga Tech and miss the opportunity because they thought they could wait until high school to “get serious”, that is a shame.
To Old Tech from Good Mother
September 1st, 2011
11:34 am
Very well said.
I do all you recommend and look forward to more sage advice from you. Keep bringing it to the blogs.
GM
hardworkingteacher
September 4th, 2011
12:48 am
OK- NAT- I know for a fact that several minority students who scored below many of the white male applicants on SAT, ACT, had lower GPA’s with AP and other academically rigorous courses were NOT ACCEPTED TO UGA! If you do not think reverse discrimination is alive and well at UGA and GT, then you are drunk on the government Kool-aid. I know because I see it every day! UGA/GT are losing and have lost some of the most academically talented students to UA, UT, LSU, OU, CLEM-
hardworkingteacher
September 4th, 2011
12:51 am
Really folks- you are sadly mistaken if you think your white male children get a fair shake applying to UGA/GT… and Maureen, comparing William and Mary’s applicants to UGA/GT is pointless.