Tech releases '05 Freshman Survey

The Office of Assessment published the 2005 Freshman Survey Report this past month. The survey, given annually to incoming freshmen during FASET orientation, is part of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program survey given nationwide by the Higher Education Research Institute. Tech has participated in the program since 1966.

The report summarizes the survey and presents selected results, including comparisons to aggregated results from public high-selectivity institutions and private very high-selectivity institutions. Since the response rate of 47 percent was below the 75 percent minimum required by HERI standards, Tech's results did not factor into the national results.

Of the reasons for choosing Tech, the most common, given by 89 percent of respondents, was that it "has a very good academic reputation."

The second most common reason was "graduates get good jobs." Female students were more likely, at 86 percent, to choose this reason than were male students at78 percent.

The third most common reason, "graduates gain admission to top graduate/professional schools," was given by sixty-three percent of females compared to just forty-eight percent of males.

Half of respondents indicated a very good chance of participating in the Cooperative Education program, with a further thirty percent indicating there was some chance that they would participate.

Following a nationwide trend of political polarization, the percentage of Tech students identifying their political orientation as "middle of the road" reached its lowest point in over thirty years. Thirty-nine percent of respondents characterized themselves as conservative or far right, compared to twenty-three percent identifying as liberal or far left.

At Tech's public peer institutions thirty-eight percent identify as liberal or far left and only twenty-one percent as conservative or far right. At Tech's private peers where the figures are forty percent as liberal or far left and twenty-three percent as conservative or far right.

Thirty-four percent of Georgia Tech respondents rated themselves above-average in public speaking ability, compared to forty-nine percent from private peer institutions. Tech freshmen were much more confident in their mathematical ability at eighty-three percent and computer skills at fifty-five percent compared to those from the private institutions (seventy percent and forty-two percent, respectively).

Georgia Tech students rated themselves higher in religiosity at thirty-nine percent compared to students from other public institutions at twenty-eight percent or private institutions at thirty-one.