Article by Autumn Siebold

In spite of travel limitations and other challenges presented by Covid-19, Georgia Tech welcomed 7,026 new graduate students in August. This year’s new graduate student enrollment breaks the previous record of 6,461.

“Thanks to flexibility in application deadlines, the availability of our online master’s degree programs, and other innovative options, we were able to offer admitted graduate students the choices they needed to feel comfortable committing to Georgia Tech,”  said Bonnie Ferri, the vice provost for Graduate Education and Faculty Development. “I want to thank the faculty and staff across campus who helped us make our enrollment goals a reality. And I want to welcome our incoming master’s and Ph.D. students as they begin their graduate program journey. We’re excited to have you!”  

Vice Provost for International Initiatives Yves Berthelot agreed that although the pandemic presented certain obstacles to getting graduate students to Atlanta, Tech did its best to accommodate students wherever they were. 

“The pandemic challenged us to look for new pathways for international students who were unable to obtain visas to study in Atlanta this fall,” Berthelot said. “For example, we were able to accommodate them on the Lorraine and Shenzhen campuses, where they can take live, hybrid, or remote classes while interacting with their peers in a campus environment.”

Here are a few things to know about this year’s incoming graduate students:

• 6,527 are master’s students (with 4,946 in online degree programs), and 499 are Ph.D. students.
•  4,328 are from the United States, with 613 being Georgia residents.
• About 32 percent are international students, coming from 105 different countries, with the largest numbers hailing from China.

For more resources and news related to graduate education at Tech, visit grad.gatech.edu.