Average GPA at caltech?

Colleges and Universities A-Z California Institute of Technology
1

<p>Hi all,</p>

<p>Does anyone know the average GPA at caltech? More importantly, a lot has been said about caltech's intense workload, so i would love to know approximately the percentage of students who attain GPAs of 3.8 and above?</p>

2

<p>From an old CC post citing a statistic from early 2007:</p>

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<p>And, if I may ask, why does your tag say “Caltech '15”?</p>

3

<p>thanks! well i was accepted by caltech this year, but i will be deferring my place for one year due to national service (army) obligations. :)</p>

4

<p>I’ve heard that going to Caltech means goodbye to good grades unless you are EPIC. That being said grad schools / med school typically add 0.7 onto a Caltech GPA (at least they do in Harvard Grad Schools) to normalize it in comparison to other schools</p>

5

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<p>Chris Hirata would have had an adjusted 4.9 GPA. :)</p>

6

<p>I have no idea where you got your .7 figure. If I had to guess, I’d say for grad school in EE, going to Caltech vs. some state school maybe gives .2-.3 at best. From what I’ve heard/seen regarding med school, the difficulty of Caltech is not greatly taken into account at all (meaning Caltech students still need very high GPAs to get into med school). Because of this, Caltech is a very difficult place for premeds.</p>

7

<p>^ Didn’t think of med school when I said grad school lol… And I got the 0.7 figure from my uncle who is a grad school adcom at Penn.</p>

<p>And silverturtle Chris Hirata is a legend he could’ve had a 4.9</p>

8

<p>Plz to be filling us incoming students in. Who is Chris Hirata?</p>

9

<p>He’s a physics genius who entered Caltech at 14, and then went to Princeton for his PhD, and is now back at Tech as a professor. Here is an [url=<a href=“http://pr.caltech.edu/periodicals/336/articles/Volume%201/06-21-01/hirata.html]article[/url”>http://pr.caltech.edu/periodicals/336/articles/Volume%201/06-21-01/hirata.html]article[/url</a>] about him.</p>

10

<p>That 2007 post is way off base. Things have gotten ridiculously grade-inflated here over the past few years. A 3.8 is pretty easy if you pick the right classes (or are a EE).</p>

11

<p>I agree. I personally know at least five EE’s with 4.0+ gpa’s and multitudes with 3.8+. Honestly, it is a joke.</p>

12

<p>EE is easy due to a large number of project based classes in which it is hard to get below an A (EE51, EE52).</p>

13

<p>I’m pretty sure there aren’t multitudes of EEs with over 3.8s, mainly because I know who all of them are (at least the seniors). As for your comment that there are a “large number of project based classes in which is hard to get below an A in”, EE52’s median grade is not an A (fewer than half of students generally finish on time at all, meaning their highest grade is a B+). The 2007 grade distribution shows 9 As, 2Bs, and 10 Es. The Es are by definition Bs, Cs, Ds or Fs, so that means 9 As and 12 non As. </p>

<p>But I guess this is all irrelevant. I myself have a 3.7. Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, Cornell, and UIUC apparently all thought this GPA in a “joke” major was enough to offer me funded admission to their PhD programs. ;)</p>

14

<p>excuse my ignorance but what is “EE”?</p>

15

<p>^ Electrical engineering.</p>

16

<p>To #4:</p>

<p>That’s not quite true, it is not hard to get a B in most classes, but you will work for your A’s (and A+'s).</p>

17

<p>How do you get a GPA above 4?</p>

18

<p>^ I believe that A+'s are 4.3 at Caltech.</p>

19

<p>Precisely why I don’t mind having been deferred.</p>

20

<p>Hey, I’m entering Caltech at 15 =o</p>