Whether you’re applying as a transfer or as a freshman applicant, the Georgia Tech essay prompts are the same. The only difference is that the Georgia Tech transfer application has one essay that is unique compared to the original freshman application one.
You may have figured out already that the Georgia Tech essays play a critical role in the admissions process. Here’s what the official website has to say about their holistic admissions process.
“Each year Georgia Tech must make fine distinctions among large numbers of highly qualified applicants. The ability to assess consistently all information presented in the application becomes increasingly important. Therefore, the Office of Undergraduate Admission employs a rigorous review process in order to provide an individualized and holistic evaluation of every application.”
Georgia Tech Official Website
Pay attention to the first part of that description. “Each year Georgia Tech must make fine distinctions among large numbers of highly qualified applicants.” This is critical to your admissions process.
Let’s say you’re applying to Georgia Tech with a 3.8 GPA. Can you get in?
The average student admitted to Georgia Tech has a 3.8 out of a 4.0 GPA scale. With an average acceptance rate of 32% for Georgia applicants and 14% for non-Georgia students, rejection is likely for students even if they have a 3.8 GPA. Hitting the average accepted student GPA means just that: average. If you’re going to secure your acceptance to Georgia Tech, you’ll need strong essays that are not only interesting but help you stand out amongst the rest of the applicants.
Today, we’ll cover how to do just that. Yes, it will take a lot of work. Yes, it can be quite painful doing rewrites over and over just to get it right? Is it worth it? Well, ensuring your hard-earned GPA doesn’t go to waste is quite worth it in our opinion. Yeah, okay. Sunk Cost fallacy aside, no one wants to write a mediocre essay that doesn’t match their high-performance transcript. You’ve gone this far, so you might as well write a strong essay that will maximize every % of the acceptance rate.
With that said, let’s get right to business. This article covers each Georgia Tech essay prompt for both regular and transfer students. It explains how to answer each one as well as strong example essays for you to use as inspiration.
Table of Contents
- Georgia Tech Essay Prompt for Freshman Applicants
- Georgia Tech Essay Prompts for Transfer Applicants
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Georgia Tech Essay Prompt for Freshman Applicants
“Why do you want to study your chosen major specifically at Georgia Tech?* (350 words)”
Georgia Tech Freshman application essay prompt #1
Students applying for Georgia Tech as a freshman will only have one question to answer. In some ways, this is both a blessing and a curse. The good news is that you won’t need to dedicate too much time writing a million essays. This gives you more time to write essays for other schools, which is important. When you’re applying for competitive schools with low acceptance rates, you want to diversify your applications by “casting a wide net”, maximizing your chances of acceptance into a good school.
Having only one question is also a disadvantage, though. The point of a holistic admissions process is to use the essays as a tool to discriminate which students are the best fit. Without enough essay prompts, the admissions officers looking over your application will not have much to work with. Therefore, it becomes infinitely more important to write something that stands out and demonstrates unique value in just 350 words.
That’s hard. So, how do we do that?
There are many ways of demonstrating value in a short amount of words. Personally, we like to think of scenarios like these along the lines of Roman Laconicisms.
That is, think of your reasons for transferring not in the literal way that you would answer the question. Instead, answer it with a metaphor or a phrase that best encapsulates your experience. Here’s an example:
- Bad: I want to major in computer science at Georgia Tech because I know that the resrouces here will best prepare me for a future in artificial intelligence.
- Good: Georgia Tech is the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head. As someone working to develop a startup in bottom up Artificial Intellignece, the resources Georgia Tech has is exactly what I need to make this succeed. There is a lot to say about this startup; howeer, whether it even has a chance of success depends on my acceptance here.
Notice how the first example can be used to mean practically any other student? Why else would a student want to apply to Georiga Tech? It’s easy: they want to transfer for the right resources to help prepare them for a career in the future. Now, take a look at the second example. The reason the second one works well is that it provides a very strong reason why it is absolutely necessary for the applicant to enter. Because they’ve constructed a whole metaphor and reason why attending is vital, the admissions officers know that they’re serious about their application.
Let’s take a look at how this example would look as a whole essay.
GT Example Freshman Essay For Prompt 1
“Why do you want to study your chosen major specifically at Georgia Tech?* (350 words)”
“There’s a checklist for these sort of things.
One, investments from well-meaning friends and family; two, investments from venture capitalists; three, a team of workers and collaborators who have the same vision as you; four, the drive to make it work.
In some ways, this sounds like the preparation one would make for a highly-advanced AI startup. That’s exactly what I’m doing. Except, I don’t really have the luxuries of fancy VC firms, wealthy friends, and the greatest minds in the world to collaborate with.
Instead, I’ve managed to scrap up the meagar funds I could from working at Nest Tea House –a boba store– to build a fund for the coming 12 months. I would use $25,000 working on a shoestring budget and hiring both friends and freelancers abroad to make a bottom up AI software. I would then attempt to sell this software product to businesses in need of an AI-powered contnet marketing bot that works better than the market.
In other words: I’ve the Walmart version of a good AI startup project.
I do not however believe that all could go well in this startup. It’s not to say I have faith in my product; rather, it is that I can forsee that many obstacles that so often trip up other startups. Working on a shoestring budget has pushed my creativity in finding the right solutions; however, I believe I am limited in my capabilities. I believe being equipped with the right resources is the responsibility of the founder to ensure the success of their project.
Thus, I would love to attend Georgia Tech for its resoruces in bottom up AI. To have the resources Georgia Tech offers is the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head: if I could maximize my opportunity here, it would make or break my success as a founder. On that note, the inverse is the same. Should I attend another school, I will still maximize the resources there; however, I would not have had the maximum potential of fulfilling my aspirations that Georgia Tech can offer.”
GT Example Freshman Essay for Prompt 1
Georgia Tech Essay Prompts for Transfer Applicants
Disclaimer: The Georgia Tech Official website does not specify that the first essay is mandatory and that you must choose a second essay out of the last four. This may be because the official website was not updated to clarify this detail. So, it can be confusing for some. You MUST answer the first question for your first essay and choose ONE of the FOUR final essays for your second essay.
“Why do you want to study your chosen major specifically at Georgia Tech?* (300 words)”
Georgia Tech Transfer essay prompt #1
This transfer question is the same question they ask Freshman applicants.
The one thing we would say about this is that you should not be clueless about what you want to do with your future major and career aspirations. For students to have a good reason for transferring schools, they should know why the school they’re transferring to would be a good place to pursue their careers.
If you’re transferring for no reason other than a new environment, it may not be as strong a reason as someone who absolutely needs to transfer in order to fulfill their particular major.
For students looking to answer the Georgia Tech transfer why us essay question, they’ll need to think about how their future careers are impacted by the transfer admissions decision. They may even consider some of the other external consequences of such an admissions decision. If one were accepted to Georgia Tech as a transfer for computer science, will that help them fulfill some meaningful entrepreneurial desire? Will it help them revolutionize technology to further society? Will it have positive moral results?
Okay, now let’s look at the second Georgia Tech transfer essay. For the second essay, you can choose to answer one of the four prompts below.
“Essay Topic Options (click on one from the options below to select): No essay should exceed 300 words in length.
1. Describe a time when you were able to lead and inspire by example to solve a problem or project. What was the outcome?
2. Georgia Tech is a diverse campus community that seeks to educate and engage students with a wide variety of backgrounds, interests, perspectives, and talents. How do you see yourself contributing to the diversity at our institution?
3. Describe a challenge, setback, or failure you have faced and overcome. What did you learn from this experience?
4. Georgia Tech is committed to developing leaders to improve the global human condition. Tell us how you have made a meaningful contribution or transformative change in your community.”
Georgia Tech Transfer essay prompt #2
There are unique advantages to each of these essay questions. Answering the first of the four Georgia Tech transfer essay questions gives admissions officers an idea of both your leadership and problem-solving skills; thus, it’s a good question to answer for future founders and startup creators.
The Georgia Tech diversity question is useful for students who want to show how their attendance will be a net positive for the school’s untapped niches. This is good for students who have something special to share with the school that they believe the school may be lacking in.
The “overcoming challenge” question is a good question for practically any aspiring student to answer. It is useful since it shows the problem-solving process the student uses to address situations. However, it is also a great way to show positive character traits such as grit and determination that the university holds valuable.
The fourth question is good for visionary students who already show signs of making a positive contribution to a group or community. It’s also important to answer this question by looking at the metaphysical ways you’ve impacted your community, not just the surface-level ways. Although this question talks about “developing leaders to improve the global human condition”, you don’t need to be a world-changing individual to answer this question!
Let’s take a look at how these tips can be implemented in an example essay.
GT Example Transfer Essay For Prompt 1
“Why do you want to study your chosen major specifically at Georgia Tech?* (300 words)”
“Standing in front of me in the museum is an ivory carving of Mary carrying her dead son in her arms like in the famous Pieta. There’s also some old people in the background staring in awe. Some white light carved in too. Some clouds. It doesn’t matter.
What matters is the meaning carved into the curved white tusk. A woman brings a child into this world knowing he will be crucified, broken, and betrayed by the very world she released him into. It’s a sacrifice unto the world, and man can only peep about in awe at such sacred magnificence.
Is there more to it? Perhaps. Though, I’m not a theologist. I’m just an aspiring entrepreneur and computer scientist who’s an amateur student of religion. This moral virtue –the idea of brining one’s own most precious creation unto the world to be broken down– is the mindset that constitutes the very essense of every entrepreneur.
It’s hard. No. It’s painful being someone who creates software with blood sweat and tears only for it never to receive the love that I believe it deserves. I had a hard time In fact, I’ve suffered rejection and a lack of sales in my SaaS startup project many times already. I have a burning passion for computer science and entrepreneurship, but I don’t believe I can continue any furher in my journey without the help of Georgia Tech.At Georgia Tech, I won’t stumble blindly into as many mistakes in my startup. I can make use of resoruces such The Agency club to learn more about how I could implement artificial intelligence into my future plans for software products. The Design Club would also be critical to my future success, especially in developing the proper UX to optimize the sales funnel process in my startups and avoid a high bounce rate.
Georgia Tech is crucial to my future endeavors in giving back to the world. I can’t do that without making a big sacrifice. Perhaps with the school’s vast resources and opportunities, my sacrifice won’t be in vain.”
Georgia Tech Example Transfer Essay For Prompt 1
GT Example Transfer Essay For Prompt 2, Question 1
1. Describe a time when you were able to lead and inspire by example to solve a problem or project. What was the outcome?
“Passion is tempered with humility.”
It’s a principle that sounds cool on paper —perhaps as a knockoff “samurai quote” one would see in a tourist trap in Downtown Los Angeles’s Japan Town. Though, it wasn’t as if our startup didn’t take place in a tourist trap.
There were four of us: the artist, who had the skills to weave digital art into life; the coder, the one who prepared the last few months into conceptualizing the backend of mobile apps; the marketer, the loudest —and arguably funniest of all of us— person in the room; and me, the leader.
Like the other three, I shared an interest in game development. So, collaborating at a tourist trap boba shop was inevitable. There, I remembered to hearken the knockoff samurai!
“passion is tempered with humility.”
We had passion, perhaps too much. We were caught in a web of fantastic ideas, all valuable and vying for glory. As a leader, I had to temper this with humility. That means recognizing, as Sophomores in college, we weren’t as smart as we thought and had much to learn.
So, I led by example acting out one rule: “I will be a student open to learning.”
Throughout our journey, I let go of all attitudes which made up the stereotypical leader. I didn’t command. I didn’t order. I simply let go of control and allowed the petals to fly wheresoever the wind brought them —good grief, how stereotypical could it get?
Nonetheless, letting go of pride actually propelled our progress immeasurably. We agreed with one another much better and even completed our app 3/4 of the way —with just a few months left to refurbish it. In essence, I believe acting out humility as a leader helped us lead the charge in unison.“
Georgia Tech Example Transfer Essay For Prompt 2, Question 1
GT Example Transfer Essay For Prompt 2, Question 2
2. Georgia Tech is a diverse campus community that seeks to educate and engage students with a wide variety of backgrounds, interests, perspectives, and talents. How do you see yourself contributing to the diversity at our institution?
Entrepreneurship. Self-help. Self-care.
In some ways, self-care seems to work in opposition to the former two; or, at least, they seem to be from different worlds. It’s not to say that self-care doesn’t belong in entrepreneurship —it does! Yet, there seemed an invisible wall of incongruency between self-care and self-help with entrepreneurship. Perhaps it is self-help’s grittiness contrasting with self-care’s, well, “gentleness.”
As an entrepreneur who created their own AI-based article writing program, I always worked with both. Yet, the people I’ve observed how those fellow entrepreneurs I worked with were always had a bit of harsh severity to their self-help. When it came to having a balanced mindset and healthy relationship with work, that self-help would manifest in a driven attitude meant to “go get it! Yeah! Hustle toward the highest level of relaxedness!”
I believe a part of this may be tied to a toxic hustle culture that permeates the world of entrepreneurship. It’s not just amongst my circle, either; I’ve seen this spread into the entrepreneurship circles across many different communities. It’s an insistence that all “big boss men” or “boss babes” have to do everything with an iron fist.
Strangely enough, the more experience I’ve had developing my own business selling my SaaS program to small businesses, the more I started to transition from gritty self-help into self-care. I didn’t have to do everything perfectly. At Georgia Tech, I hope to share a more positive mindset with the entrepreneurial community that would help loosen it from extreme severity. Despite pushing 80 hours a week into my startup, I could still write romantic light novels for women. I could still play “Doom Eternal” if I need to take a break.
Most of all, as an entrepreneur and aspiring GT student, I can also be human.
Georgia Tech Example Transfer Essay For Prompt 2, Question 1
GT Example Transfer Essay For Prompt 2, Question 3
3. Describe a challenge, setback, or failure you have faced and overcome. What did you learn from this experience?
“As someone who was always given the ‘gifted child’ treatment, most teachers and peers expected my greatest challenge to be mountainous tasks: philosophical questions, esoteric knowledge, sophisticated engineering, etc. However, I’ve discovered my mind finds comfort in the complex. That is, I like to distract myself with difficult things and juggle multiple problems because it’s my mind’s safe space.
So, what is the true challenge?
After meditating on the issue, I’ve discovered my true kryptonite is doing nothing.
Since I could remember, my mind always exploded with ideas; it was impossible to keep my mind still as water. Calming down and focusing my mind was impossible. I’ve relied on a ‘gifted child’ brain to get me through school without developing the proper focus and calm of mind needed to perform at upper division work. So, I’ve worked on meditating and calming my mind to train my stillness.
“Hey, aren’t you a bit hungry?”
“It’s a nice day out, I should go for a run outside.”
“It’s a real shame, what’s going on in our modern politics.”
“blah, blah, blah.”
Over and over agian, I would sit with my thoughts in stillness unable to escape from passing thoughts. That is, until one day, I just let them pass. I let arbitrary thoughts pass through my head for a whole hour. It may be short to some, but for somone like myself who is always thinking, that hour felt like eternity and a half. However, I finally experienced a still mind; it was unlike anything I had ever had. For the first time in my life, my mind was relaxed and could breathe. Finally, I was at peace.”
Georgia Tech Example Transfer Essay For Prompt 2, Question 1
GT Example Transfer Essay For Prompt 2, Question 4
4. Georgia Tech is committed to developing leaders to improve the global human condition. Tell us how you have made a meaningful contribution or transformative change in your community.”
“Daa Maa Zoek. Or, to play Mahjong.
It’s a game where players gamble with tiles. Though, it’s more than that. The tiles and the chips are secondary. Who truly won the metagame was the person who had the smartest child. Last year, I was the subject of debate. “Christopher now works as a computer science tutor!”
Inexorably, I was summoned to elaborate on my work. “I try to help maximize self-esteem by basing off educational research and clinical child development,” to which they replied, “You young people are too easy on kids. It’s better to be stricter, that’s how it is with Asian parenting!”
I was recommended Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. It was the bible for parenting in our small Asian American community. It was also an opportunity to empathize with the Asian tiger parenting perspective with open eyes. “Her kids went to great schools and became successful!” “Before you go criticizing an entire culture’s parenting style, why don’t you read her book?” “Read a book for once! You’ll learn something!”
And read it I did. And learn something I did. Good grief, did I learn something.
I have never come across a text more narcissistic and deeply pathological than that book.
The statistics are clear: there is no justification for narcissitic filial piety; it’s also an impossibly difficult conversation to ask the parents of my students to rethink their perspective and even culture. But, I did. I spoke of the dangers of tiger parenting to family members, relatives, and the parents of my tutoring firm’s clients for over 3 years. There was less pressure. Grades improved. Students didn’t have panic attacks. Most of all, accepting empirically sound ways of teaching students ensured they were treated as human beings –and not another tile to gamble on.
Georgia Tech Example Transfer Essay For Prompt 2, Question 1
If you’re not sure how to write your essays and answer the Georiga Tech essay prompts, don’t be afraid to ask us for help! Consider scheduling a free college admissions essay consultation. We can discuss with you how to best approach the Georgia Tech essay prompts over the phone. We’ll also help you formulate ideas on how to stand out in your essays amongst the rest of the applicants!