# Applicants?

Colleges and Universities A-Z California Institute of Technology
1

<p>According to the CollegeBoard's data, Caltech has 234 new freshmen and had a 20% acceptance rate, which means that about 1200 people applied. Is this true? That's really weird ... I'd think they'd have thousands upon thousands of apps, but apparently not. I recently found that many don't even know Caltech exists (<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=283735)%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=283735)&lt;/a>, but really ... 1200 applicants?!</p>

<p><a href="http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=4214&type=qfs&word=california%20tech%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=4214&type=qfs&word=california%20tech&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>In addition, I checked the past US News rankings -- Caltech's been in the top 10 for over 15 years. You'd think that'd bring in a lot of applicants ...</p>

2

<p>Caltech's applicant pool is strongly self-selected, and your math is wrong because you're assuming everyone that's accepted chooses to come here</p>

3

<p>It's usually more like 3000 applicants. According to Fiske Guide, only around 40% of those accepted go. I think.</p>

4

<p>Not really an assumption -- I'm wondering about it. If there are 234 attending (with the question that only 234 were accepted), then that's a 20% acceptance rate. If, however, there are 234 attending but more were accepted, then either there were few applicants or Caltech has a horrible yield rate.</p>

5

<p>"It's usually more like 3000 applicants. According to Fiske Guide, only around 40% of those accepted go. I think."</p>

<p>Ah, I see. Odd ...</p>

6

<p>Some schools make admissions decisions to boost their college rankings. Wash U, for example, waitlists applicants whose SAT scores are too high, because the admissions office knows they'll go to a better school. Thus their yield increases.</p>

<p>Of course, Caltech is too good for that sort of nonsense.</p>

7

<p>The statistics I saw read something like ~2500 applicants, of whom ~500 were accepted (but less than 250 chose to attend).</p>

<p>So yes, the yield rate does look to be pretty awful. (Possibly because a lot of kids who are accepted to Caltech also get into colleges like MIT, and I think anyone would have a difficult time deciding between those two!)</p>

8

<p>Errrrm. For the two years which I worked in admissions, the number of applicants was between 3000 and 3500, and closer to the second number. About 500 are admitted. You can do the math. Yield is between 40 and 50 percent. It should be higher, but we're trying to make it higher in legitimate ways -- not by rejecting people who would choose other places and other such trickery. </p>

<p>(I don't know why people think yield is the best thing ever. Virtually all top graduate programs have a ~50% yield rate because they do admissions closer to the way Caltech does undergraduate admissions, and nobody seems to think that's so terrible. Plus, Caltech -- especially its students -- send a clear message that people shouldn't come unless it's absolutely the right fit. Our goal isn't to get everyone we admit to come, but only the right people. We can judge if you're qualified to do the work, but only you can judge whether you want to.)</p>

<p>If you like yield, I recommend you visit the discussion boards of schools that have similar concerns.</p>

9

<p>I've restrained myself in the past but I'll add something here that's undiplomatic:</p>

<p>Yield is especially misleading when "some" schools have a habit of accepting part of the class on primarily non-academic grounds -- e.g. legacy, donations, athletics, etc. Thus, these students are near the bottom of the accept pool on purely scholastic grounds only. But that makes them more likely to come, especially if the signalling of going to a top school benefits them. Moreover, the lack of grade inflation at Caltech hurts it relative to other top schools because it makes it harder for the "softer" admits to attend. At other places, the lower end admits cushion life for the academic admits.</p>

<p>A couple of years ago I had to talk to an admitted applicant (I'm an alum Caltech rep) who eventually turned down Caltech for HYP because -- in his words -- "If things don't work out, I want to make sure I can still get a great GPA."</p>

<p>Much as it upsets others, I maintain that this makes other top schools "worse" from a purely meritocratic perspective.</p>

<p>But it definitely hurts Caltech's yield. Furthermore, even if Caltech were to practice non-meritocratic admission would anyone sane want to come?</p>

<p>I mean, let's face it. Imagine a student with very low (Caltech standards) Math SATs, no calc, under 700 on the Math 2, no Math/Sci EC, weak science background, and a 3.4 GPA in an average high school being admitted through "connections" who has ambitions to get an MBA eventually. Ask yourself, Would that person really want to take and be able to survive Core? At most top schools, it is possible to graduate without ever taking a Calc or tough math course. At Caltech you HAVE to do Baby analysis. You have to take Kinematics and QM. You have to do Chem. </p>

<p>And yet such people ARE admitted routinely to many top schools, either because their essays are "creative" or their parents are alums or they're fantastic athletes or they're hooked in some other non-academic way.</p>

<p>The major liberal arts type school that has some of the Caltech "feel" is Chicago. And there too, you see heavy self-selection and a low yield. Part of the reason is that lots of people don't want to deal with the heavy core, intense academics, and relatively deflated grades for a school without the generic name recognition of other places.</p>

10

<p>I love Caltech, but not everyone wants to go to a very small school with a very high male/female ratio.</p>

11

<p>
[quote]

The major liberal arts type school that has some of the Caltech "feel" is Chicago.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I agree. (10 char)</p>

12

<p>I've seen this "10 char" a lot -- wth is it?</p>

13

<p>Try posting a message fewer than 10 characters, and you shall understand.</p>

14

<p>wohohooooooo Chicago!!!</p>

15

<p>If your school has over 10 applicants to caltech per year and creates charts of who applies and who gets rejected, deferred or accepted. You'll clearly see the self selection process at work.
Last year at my school nobody applied with a weighted gpa lower than 4.2 or an SAT under I think 2100 if not higher perhaps it was 2250. Sorry, I forget after looking at so many charts.
It's nerdy aura also turns off those that just want to have fun and aren't willing to sacrifice some parts of life for a greater understanding of science and math. I know I for one was turned off initially until I delved in deeper. It's obviously not a great fit for everybody.
Great rankings also don't necessary translate into a lot of applications due to other factors. For example, I know a few that were turned off by how many supplements they had to write. Especially, because they didn't overlap with other schools.(The quirk essay,box, and honor code).</p>

<p>Just as numbers don't necessarily completely define a student, numbers don't define a college. Consider them in context.
And just for clarification, I don't go to Caltech. Take my words with caution.</p>

16

<p>Ah, reading the part about "caltech not inflating grades," it reminds me of the posts I saw on the other forums that HYPS and many other top universities inflate student grades. This brings me to the question: when a student from caltech applies to grad school, and he/she is competiting against those students from the other universities that received grade inflation, does that mean caltech students are naturally at a disadvantage? Or does the grad schools know about the grade inflations at different universities?</p>

17

<p>Grad schools in the science fields know the relative difficulties of grading at different schools, so a Caltech GPA won't be at a disadvantage there. However, if you're applying to something like med school or law school, they won't make an adjustment there and you must have a strong GPA anyways.</p>

18

<p>Ah... so very hard for caltech students to go to Business or Med School then?</p>

19

<p>I'd say Med School is most difficult. B-school is more forgiving, especially if you have high MCATs and some important work experience after Tech. I knew people with so-so grades at Tech who ended up at Harvard for MBA or Yale for Law.</p>