Colorado University at Boulder

G.P.Burdell
Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:06:30 +0000

I have heard that many undergraduate level classes are taught by TAs and that the first two years at Tech, they try to “weed” out students.



Both comments are wrong.

First of all, the “classes” taught by TAs are recitation sessions, which are not classes and are optional. You will have a professor teach in a lecture environment on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, then on Tuesday and Thursday you have a TA work through practice problems and interact with students in groups of 20. The only departments that really use recitation sections extensively are Math and Chemistry for Freshman courses. When you progress to major courses and upper level Math / Chemistry courses, the classes are smaller and there are no longer recitations.

And I should add that most major public universities do this. The freshman classes are 100-200 students (at Tech - UGA has classes that get into the 300-500 range), so these are a way to allow for personal attention while still not having to offer Calculus I 120 times a day (which the department can not handle).

In terms of graduation, Tech used to be a “weed out” school, but has since greatly improved. Now, Tech is one of the top large schools in the country in terms of retention. For comparison: Tech’s retention rate for freshman last year was 93%. CU-Boulder had a retention rate of 83%. For Freshman-to-Graduate, Tech had an 80% retention rate. Colorado had a 68% retention rate.



What are your thoughts about CU at Boulder for engineering and physics vs. GA Tech??



Georgia Tech is a Top 5 engineering school. Colorado is a 2nd tier engineering school. Georgia Tech is free with the HOPE scholarship, Colorado is $25,000 per year out of state.

Unless there’s some compelling reason to go to Boulder, you’d be paying $100,000 extra to go to a substantially worse school. Maybe he has a reason (likes the campus, likes skiing, etc.) but academically and financially, at first blush it doesn’t look like a good decision at all.