Why this matters

Many students choose Georgia Tech's MS ECE program specifically because of its year-long digital tapeout course (ECE 8804): the rare opportunity to design and fabricate a real chip during a graduate degree. For years, any student who enrolled in the course could take it.

This year, without prior notice to admitted students, ECE introduced a new competitive assessment as a gate into the course. Roughly 300 students took the assessment, competing for only about 30 graduate spots and 20 undergraduate spots, an acceptance rate around 10% for graduate students.

Many of us learned about this new requirement only after we had already accepted our offer of admission to Georgia Tech and committed to the program, a decision that is not one we could reasonably reverse once informed. For those of us who chose Georgia Tech specifically for this opportunity, that change came too late to factor into our decision.

We are not opposed to the university improving how it manages a resource-intensive course. But we believe the transition was handled unfairly, and we're asking ECE leadership to address it.

What we're asking for

1. Grandfather current students. Students who were admitted to Georgia Tech before the assessment policy was announced should not be subject to it, or should receive priority placement, for at least this transition year.
2. Publish the real constraint. Tell students clearly whether the limiting factor is fabrication cost, faculty/TA bandwidth, lab capacity, or something else, so we can evaluate whether other solutions (below) are feasible.
3. Explore ways to expand access without doubling cost, such as:
   • A two-track structure: all interested students take the design/verification portion of the course, while only a subset proceeds to actual fabrication (the most expensive step)
   • Phased capacity increases over the next 1-2 years
   • Staggered cohorts (e.g. fall and spring intakes) to spread cost and faculty load across the year
4. Give future applicants fair notice. If an assessment or capacity limit is here to stay, publish the criteria, prep materials, and historical acceptance rates before students commit to attending Georgia Tech, not after.

Who this affects

This isn't a complaint about losing a spot to someone more qualified. It's about a core reason many of us chose this program being restricted after we had already made an irreversible decision to attend, with no transition plan for those caught in between.

We're asking ECE leadership to sit down with student representatives, review this year's process, and commit to a fairer path forward for current and future students.

 
If you support fair access to Georgia Tech's tapeout program, please sign and share.