OCHS is Georgia Tech pipeline

A student from each of the past five OCHS classes attends the Atlanta school

  • Elizabeth Palmer (second from left) receives a trophy for being the valedictorian of the OCHS Class of 2022. She’s shown with salutatorian Myles Oliver (from left), former OCHS Principal Susie Johnson and honorarian Ella Mason. (Jack Casey/The Oglethorpe Echo)
    Elizabeth Palmer (second from left) receives a trophy for being the valedictorian of the OCHS Class of 2022. She’s shown with salutatorian Myles Oliver (from left), former OCHS Principal Susie Johnson and honorarian Ella Mason. (Jack Casey/The Oglethorpe Echo)
  • Nathan Wilson, who will attend Georgia Tech this fall, was chosen as a finalist for the 2024 Questbridge scholarship. He hopes to intern with Microsoft while at Georgia Tech. (Jim Bass/The Oglethorpe Echo)
    Nathan Wilson, who will attend Georgia Tech this fall, was chosen as a finalist for the 2024 Questbridge scholarship. He hopes to intern with Microsoft while at Georgia Tech. (Jim Bass/The Oglethorpe Echo)
  • Aidan Abrams, the salutatorian of the OCHS class of 2023, is majoring in electrical engineering. He might do research or go into the design industry. (Submitted Photo)
    Aidan Abrams, the salutatorian of the OCHS class of 2023, is majoring in electrical engineering. He might do research or go into the design industry. (Submitted Photo)
  • Elizabeth Palmer was the valedictorian of the OCHS class of 2022. She is in a co-op program with Delta and is working in propulsion engineering this summer. (Submitted Photo)
    Elizabeth Palmer was the valedictorian of the OCHS class of 2022. She is in a co-op program with Delta and is working in propulsion engineering this summer. (Submitted Photo)
  • Jacob Mixon was the OCHS STAR student in 2020 and transferred to Georgia Tech after attending Kennesaw State. He would like to work for Nvidia. (Submitted Photo)
    Jacob Mixon was the OCHS STAR student in 2020 and transferred to Georgia Tech after attending Kennesaw State. He would like to work for Nvidia. (Submitted Photo)
  • Kyle Nguyen, OCHS class of 2021, originally attended Georgia, but then transferred to Georgia Tech to study electrical engineering. He plans to graduate next May. (Submitted Photo)
    Kyle Nguyen, OCHS class of 2021, originally attended Georgia, but then transferred to Georgia Tech to study electrical engineering. He plans to graduate next May. (Submitted Photo)
  • Nathan Wilson, who was the honorian of the OCHS class of 2024, might go into video game design. He plans to major in computer engineering at Georgia Tech. (Submitted Photo)
    Nathan Wilson, who was the honorian of the OCHS class of 2024, might go into video game design. He plans to major in computer engineering at Georgia Tech. (Submitted Photo)

    Oglethorpe County High School is on a streak of academic excellence. 

     

    Not only did its graduation rate increase from 94.2% in 2022 to 95.8% for 2023, but five recent OCHS graduates — one from each of the past five classes — are students at Georgia Tech. 

     

    Jacob Mixon, who graduated from OCHS in 2020, Kyle Nguyen, who graduated in 2021, Elizabeth Palmer, who graduated in 2022, Aidan Abrams, who graduated in 2023, and Nathan Wilson, who graduated in May, are pursuing degrees at the Atlanta school. 

     

    Georgia Tech’s acceptance rate for in-state students was 33% for the 2024 cycle; 13%  of students accepted in 2023 came from rural counties in Georgia.

     

    OCHS Principal Bill Sampson said preparing students for prestigious academic institutions is a community effort that starts with the students and parents and continues with the school system and teachers.

     

    “First of all, those students have just tremendous drive, they’re very ambitious and they have great support from their parents,” he said. “So coming into it, they’re already ahead of the game, but I think we’ve done an excellent job here of providing students with teachers who are well equipped to prepare them for those opportunities.” 

     

    Jacob Mixon

     

    Jacob Mixon graduated from OCHS in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

     

    He wasn’t offered a spot at Georgia Tech, his dream university. Instead, he was offered a first-generation student pathway to attend Kennesaw State University his freshman year and then transfer. 

     

    “Georgia Tech, that’s where I originally wanted to go, but they offered me a pathway if I went to KSU and got a certain GPA, then I could transfer in,” Mixon said. “So that’s what I did.”

     

    He said his parents were excited when he was accepted to Georgia Tech.

     

    Mixon, who is from Crawford, said he enjoyed his computer science classes that he took through Georgia Virtual School, which offers online classes to high school students.

     

    Mixon will graduate in December with a degree in computer science. He said he would like to work in software engineering and his dream job would be with Nvidia, a software company. 

     

    Kyle Nguyen 

     

    Kyle Nguyen chose Georgia Tech because he wanted to attend the best school for his major.

     

    “I want to become an electrical engineer, and Georgia Tech is definitely one of the best colleges in the nation, definitely in the world, for electrical engineering,” Nguyen said.

     

    Nguyen moved to Lexington from California in 2019. He graduated in the top 10% of his class in 2021. He attended the University of Georgia his first two years and transferred to Georgia Tech last Fall.

     

    Nguyen said it was a struggle to be accepted by Georgia Tech because he didn’t get in out of high school. 

     

    “I think my parents really pushing me to transfer really helped me to actually get in,” he said. “And yeah, in terms of actually getting in, I said in my essay that I am a rural student, and I feel like that was the big factor in me actually getting in.” 

     

    Nguyen said his favorite memory from his time at Georgia Tech was working with his robotics team late in the night before a competition.

     

    “We had an in-house competition, and we finally got it working the night before,” Nguyen said. “We were very relieved. I was pretty happy with that.”

     

    Nguyen is the electrical lead for robo wrestling, the electrical core chair for robo jackets and involved with eSports.

     

    Nguyen is scheduled to graduate next May and hopes to find a job in robotics in the Atlanta area.

     

    Elizabeth Palmer 

     

    Elizabeth Palmer knew she wanted to major in aerospace engineering before applying to  Georgia Tech.

     

    “Growing up in Oglethorpe, there's not a lot of lights anywhere, so you can just look up and see the stars,” Palmer said. “There was one time that I remember the International Space Station passing over. It would be cool if I could work on something like that.” 

     

    Palmer, who is from Arnoldsville, was the valedictorian in 2022. She wanted to attend Auburn, but the cost of out-of-state tuition sent her looking closer to home.

     

    She said her dual enrollment chemistry professor at the University of North Georgia encouraged her to apply to Georgia Tech.

     

    “He actually had a daughter that went to Georgia Tech,” Palmer said. “When I told him what I was interested in, he was like, ‘It's a really great school. I think you'd do well there.’ So that helped.”

     

    She applied on the last day the application window was open.

     

    “I think that sometimes there’s a stigma about being a rural student,” Palmer said. “Yes, Georgia Tech is a difficult school, but people from Oglethorpe are just as capable as anyone else,” she said.

     

    She has joined the fencing club, club soccer and Alpha Omega Epsilon, a STEM sorority. She is in a co-op program with Delta and is working in propulsion engineering this summer.

     

    “After graduating, I really just want to go into industry,” Palmer said. “Get a bachelor’s and then start working. Other than that, I don’t have anything else planned career wise, it’s really all up in the air right now. (I’m) still trying to just figure out what exactly I want to do, because even within aerospace, there are a couple different ways that you can go. So (I’m) just trying to decide if I want to go, the airplane route or the space route or helicopters.”

     

    Aidan Abrams 

     

    Aidan Abrams said his favorite classes in high school were physics and agricultural mechanics because he enjoyed building things and learning technical skills. 

     

    He had his heart set on electrical engineering when he graduated from OCHS as the class of 2023 salutatorian.

     

    Now Abrams, from Sandy Cross, is in his second year majoring in electrical engineering at Georgia Tech.

     

    “It was a big change from Oglethorpe, just because it’s a lot bigger, but I was expecting that,” Abrams said. “The classes were a lot more, were a lot harder, which I was also expecting, as it’s supposed to be pretty hard.” 

     

    Abrams said he thinks academic success depends on family support in rural areas.

     

    “My parents always pushed me to do the best that I can,” Abrams said. “There’s teachers who encourage us.”

     

    Abrams has plans to join O.A.R.S., a program that allows him to do research under a doctorate student, this semester. 

     

    “It will be a lot of learning about how to do research and reading papers, and learning about what our research will be,” Abrams said. “We’ll attend info sessions, and things like different practices, like how to write your research paper, write a research question and have different speakers from other companies come talk to us.”

     

    Abrams wants to participate in research opportunities to find a career path best suited for him.

     

    “I’m not sure if I’m going to do research for a career, or go do industry work to design things,” he said. “Maybe do a little bit of research and then go into a regular industry.” 

     

    He hopes to find a summer internship that will lead to a job and even cover the cost for him to go back to Georgia Tech for a master’s degree.

     

    Nathan Wilson

     

    Nathan Wilson said he hopes to go into video game development. 

     

    “For some reason, for the longest time, I just always had such an interest in doing game design,” he said. “Part of that might have been just because I had a group of people at recess who were just like, we should make a game, and I was all into that.”

     

    But Wilson, who lives in Winterville, said he would like to start his career in computer hardware development.

     

    Wilson graduated from OCHS as its 2024 honorian and will start his freshman year majoring in computer engineering.

     

    “I’ve always been looking for a computer based major,” Wilson said. “I was at first looking at Kennesaw for software engineering, and then Georgia Tech came up, and I heard from a family friend a lot of good things about Georgia Tech. According to my research into it, it seemed like a really good school.”

     

    Wilson looks forward to joining the marching band to play the sousaphone. He also hopes to study abroad.

     

    Wilson said he hopes to have an internship with Microsoft through a partnership with Georgia Tech.

     

    “The whole tech industry has grown over the past several years, and it might just be spreading towards the more rural areas now,” he said. “I mean, because Oglethorpe is relatively close to Athens.”