Survey reveals 2006 freshman class trends

The Office of Assessment has released the results of the 2006 Cooperative Institutional Research Program's Freshman Survey, which studies incoming freshmen at Tech and other universities across the nation.

Tech has participated in the study since 1966 and the survey report compares Tech's results to those of peer public institutions of high selectivity and private institutions of very-high selectivity.

With a response rate of only 40.6 percent, the report warns that the results should be taken with some caution. Last year the survey polled 47 percent of the freshman class.

Among the surprising results found in the report is that Tech students are deficient compared to their peers when it comes to their high school biology education.

When asked whether they had taken two years of biology, only 37.7 percent of incoming Tech students responded that they had, compared with 53.0 percent of peers at public schools and 54.6 percent at private ones.

Tech respondents were slightly more likely than peers at public institutions to spend 11 or more hours per week studying and doing homework in high school, with 21.0 percent responding affirmatively compared to 17.6 percent of students at public schools. But private peers answered yes to that question at a rate of 44.5 percent.

The incoming Tech students also were less likely to spend three or more hours per week partying than students at the public and private peer institutions, with affirmative response rates of 28.7 percent compared to 40.2 percent and 35.1 percent, respectively.

Tech students could spread their time over many activities, but video games appear to have been a diversion of choice. Of male respondents, 30.4 percent reported spending six or more hours per week playing video games compared to 20.8 percent at public peer universities and 16.6 percent at private peer institutions.

Aside from profiling student backgrounds, the survey also asked why students selected to go to Tech. 75.7 percent of respondents chose getting a good job after graduation as a major reason for coming to Tech, compared to 51.3 percent of students at public peers and 65.8 percent of students at private peers who chose their schools for that reason.

The full results of the report can be found on the web site of the Office of Assessment, www.assessment.gatech.edu.