Re: Tech\'s identity crisis
My intent was not to paint the entire student body with that brush, though I guess it may have seemed that way. I thought I had made it clear I was talking about a small faction of students, but apparently that was not the case. In no way was I trying to imply that Tech harvests an environment that does not support the sports programs. Georgia Tech is a far cry from the types of things that have been happening at Vanderbilt.
I am a senior with a 3+ GPA. Having spent some time with the CS department, what I speak of regarding the nature of students in its lower level classes is often true. I acknowledge that is less so the case for other majors. My views are strongly slanted against the CS department because I know what goes on there and that's why my rants have mainly focused around that department. I have tried to not apply that to the rest of the student body, but the voices and the sentiments of those students who have been though the CS department, even just for introductory CS (everybody), are still widely known on campus.
All the core CS classes through sophomore year are cutthroat classes because they are considered weed-out classes. Were you aware of the cheating scandal in 2001 where over 100 students were caught cheating in the lowest-level computer science class? Were you aware that the main CS2130 professor, probably the most notorious professor in the whole department, was let go because he failed too many students? That is a case of a professor who has been reprimanded for failing too many students. Do you have knowledge of cases where the converse is true?
I have tried to make the point that this type of sentiment does not apply to most of the students on campus, but those who have a chip on their shoulder will always make more noise than the ones who are content. Now, I doubt that disgruntled students would make themselves available to talk to potential recruits, especially when those who I speak of aren't in Management, the most common student athlete major.
Tying this back to how this affects a potential recruit, it really doesn't because as I've already said, Tech won't recruit athletes who can't carry their weight in the classroom. Georgia Tech will always have a reputation for being a bigger player in academics than in athletics. However, that most definitely affects recruiting on the bigger scale and affects the type of success that this school will have in athletics. While we do a better job of it than many other schools that are forced to deal with this balancing act, just winning isn't a simple solution to the identity crisis that was brought up at the start of this thread. I am not advocating a dumbing down of the academic program and I am in fact strongly opposed to it. However, the sports culture at Georgia Tech is not as strong as that of the Florida States and Miami of Floridas to do what's necessary to establish a strong and consistent marketing identity. The non-sports people have a bigger voice here than they do at those schools and thus there isn't the same all-out effort to get the Georgia Tech brand established. There is most definitely a problem with the marketing of Georgia Tech athletics, and that can easily be seen in all the complaints people have had about the way GTAA does things.