Georgia Tech is one of the top engineering schools in the United States. With so many strong applicants, perhaps it is important to show a passion for STEM in high school, above and beyond the classroom. To add onto what @shortnuke observed, I think that it is becoming more important for applicants who want to go into STEM/Engineering at the top engineering schools to have hands on, collaborative STEM focused extracurriculars in high school.
Take a look at the MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon results. Those kids are doing summer research, participating in science fairs, competing in ISEF, math and science olympiad, Science Bowl, etc - often with state and national awards. They are on robotics teams, math teams, physics teams. They are building apps, participating in hackathons, creating maker projects. They are AIME qualifiers. They are maxing out the math and science classes that are available to them.
Some of the students/parents posting in the GT threads note great ECs, scores, grades, and leadership in student government, sports, community service. But no STEM ECs. I wonder if this is having an impact on their application in an increasingly competitive applicant pool.