[jacket3ree]

I went to Tech when the six-year graduation rate for all students was about 60% and the four-year rate was less than half of that. For some reason 25% sticks in my head. Not a degree mill that I recall. Among all the drinking of whisky clear, I remember it being a complete academic grind. I just looked it up. The average student GPA of my era almost uniformly across disciplines whether architecture, engineering, management, and science/liberal studies was 2.5. It also snowed a lot and we had steep hills to negotiate on the way to class that reversed grade when we went home.

Tech is so soft now. The four year graduation rate has almost doubled (call it 45%) and the six-year rate is 85%. The average undergraduate GPA is 3.3! So what, everyone is on the Dean's List now? They probably have free ice cream stands at every corner and flattened the entire campus for convenience too.

But (true story), we still had Saturday classes when I started in '81. I had chemistry lab Saturday at 8:00 in Lyman Hall, which sits right under the west stands of what was Grant Field. (Now Bobby Dodd Stadium at historic Korean car company sponsor field or whatever it is called.) I marched one year in band (long enough to learned they frowned on bringing in a flask to get blackout drunk, which was the only way to watch Tech football at the time) and we had those 12:30 and 1:00 games. So wake up early in my West Campus dorm, hike across campus to lab for 90 minutes and then run back to the band room on West Campus (basically across the street from my dorm), dress, and march back across campus to the stadium for the pregame. Then walk back home after yet another loss. 

Anyway, athletic GSR doesn't say a ton about the academic rigor at any institution at any point in time.

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And if you think that's rough, talk to my dad.  GT BCE '59.

[jacket3ree]

I went to Tech when the six-year graduation rate for all students was about 60% and the four-year rate was less than half of that. For some reason 25% sticks in my head. Not a degree mill that I recall. Among all the drinking of whisky clear, I remember it being a complete academic grind. I just looked it up. The average student GPA of my era almost uniformly across disciplines whether architecture, engineering, management, and science/liberal studies was 2.5. It also snowed a lot and we had steep hills to negotiate on the way to class that reversed grade when we went home.

Tech is so soft now. The four year graduation rate has almost doubled (call it 45%) and the six-year rate is 85%. The average undergraduate GPA is 3.3! So what, everyone is on the Dean's List now? They probably have free ice cream stands at every corner and flattened the entire campus for convenience too.

But (true story), we still had Saturday classes when I started in '81. I had chemistry lab Saturday at 8:00 in Lyman Hall, which sits right under the west stands of what was Grant Field. (Now Bobby Dodd Stadium at historic Korean car company sponsor field or whatever it is called.) I marched one year in band (long enough to learned they frowned on bringing in a flask to get blackout drunk, which was the only way to watch Tech football at the time) and we had those 12:30 and 1:00 games. So wake up early in my West Campus dorm, hike across campus to lab for 90 minutes and then run back to the band room on West Campus (basically across the street from my dorm), dress, and march back across campus to the stadium for the pregame. Then walk back home after yet another loss. 

Anyway, athletic GSR doesn't say a ton about the academic rigor at any institution at any point in time.

---

And if you think that's rough, talk to my dad.  GT BCE '59.