Caltech And Stanford for UG

Colleges and Universities A-Z California Institute of Technology
1

<p>I was lucky to be admitted EA to Caltech and given an early approval
admission RD to Stanford and want to clearly sort out the relative
pros and cons. If you had the choice and equivalent financial support
which would you choose?</p>

<p>Any Techer and especially alumni like Ben Golub who are now at Stanford
your thoughtful response would be very helpful for me in the coming
weeks.</p>

<p>Thank you in the past for giving me the courage to apply EA in the
first place!</p>

<p>:)</p>

<p><a href="fyi,...I%20fully%20intend%20to%20spend%20some%20portion%20of%20my%20life%20at%0Aboth%20instituitions%20regardless%20of%20whether%20I%20attend%20UG">i</a> *</p>

2

<p>I was in a similar situation 4 years ago.</p>

<p>I haven't been following your posts closely enough to know what you're looking for in your undergraduate life, but I can outline why I came to Caltech.</p>

<p>Rigorous core curriculum that forces everyone to work hard together.</p>

<p>Emphasis on research and for undergrads to get involved. Talking to students at both places, the undergrads at Caltech are much more likely to know about the research going on and really be passionate about it.
Along these lines, Caltech provides strong preparation for grad school. The atmosphere and low ratio of students to profs makes it easier to get 3 strong letters of recs. For example, you have an academic adviser and if you do research, that's at least one more. By the upper-level courses, the classes get small enough (less than 10 students) that it's fairly easy for the prof to know you.</p>

<p>Potential for upperclass merit scholarships to reduce tuition.</p>

<p>Areas where I think S can beat Caltech:
Diversity (both from size of school and from admissions practices)
-For me, knowing that all my classmates came in on academic merit was important. I highly recommend reading Golden's Price of Admission for a discussion of admissions practices.
-The EC's offered here are sufficient for me and have the upside that there's basically no competition to get in. For example, anyone can work for the student newspaper, even if you have no high school experience. The clubs I'm in actually treat us pretty well. I'm in the Student Investment Fund, which offers a free dinner during a weekly 1-hour meeting, and there are no dues to join. Some schools require a heavy initiation due (eg $1000). The student newspaper offers free lunches during the staff meetings and pays students for submitted content.
-Girl/guy ratio affects people differently. For me, the ratio means I definitely do NOT want to stay any more than 4 years! But this number is widely publicized, so I knew what I was getting myself into.
-Writing this section has made me remember some other points that I almost forget about since Caltech's culture is so unique. At some schools, the students may stratify by socioeconomic classes with the wealthier students doing more expensive/exclusive activities together. At Caltech, everyone pretty much spends all their time working together (which you've already paid for in your tuition).</p>

<p>Opportunities outside tech fields
-If you are strongly considering business, I think S can offer opportunities that Caltech can't offer. For example, I read that they have business/consulting classes with actual projects that nearby companies are doing. Caltech generally takes a theoretical approach, and classes are focused on the math rather than implementations useful today.</p>

<p>Safer/Easier
-Easier to get A's at Stanford. More classes/majors are offered so you can protect your GPA more easily. Useful for pre-meds and pre-laws. Research easily trumps GPA for grad school, so this was not a huge factor for me.</p>

<p>I'm ambivalent about Caltech's UG housing system. Some people really enjoy it and feels it provides a close-knit environment, but I feel there are also some downsides (such as the perpetuation of childish traditions). S offers a huge range of housing choices (although they do have a really complicated drawing procedure to complement it).</p>

<p>You can AIM me with more questions at: webhappy00 (two zero's at the end).</p>

3

<p>Have you visited both campuses? The campus life is very, very different. I would strongly recommend you visit both if you haven't--I personally did not like the undergraduate culture at Stanford (although I might go there for grad school if I can get in) but I loved the culture at Caltech. Webhappy's post is a very good one and details many differences but I think for me the biggest difference was simply the environment. I feel at either school I could have had roughly equal opportunity in my field (EE).</p>

4

<p>Webhappy :) and Lizzardfire :) thank you very much!</p>

<p>I just found out today that I was admitted to Princeton as well and
am similarly looking at Princeton V MIT.</p>

<p>If you had a choice of 1) Caltech, 2) MIT, 3) Stanford, 4) Princeton and
were in a field equally well regarded at all 4 institutions where
would you go...</p>

<p>A. UG (1/2/3/4)
B. M.S& Ph. D (1/2/3/4)
C. Post-Doc ....</p>

<p>Though I have not received final word yet,it seems that fin aid will be
comparable for me at 1/2/3/4 for UG</p>

<p>(..and yes, I have been ecstatic about the research opportunities at Caltech
for a while now- especially the having your own keys do what you want
part ;))</p>

5

<p>I wouldn't worry about grad school and post-doc for now. Being a grad student is very different from being an undergrad- you will have very different experiences as a grad student as opposed to an undergrad. Also, while you may think you know what you want to do now, your idea of your future could change significantly during your undergrad years- you may end up not doing grad school at all.</p>

6

<p>Hi Arwen,</p>

<p>What is your field? Jdhutchin is right that you might not even exit undergrad with the major you're considering now, but if you would like advice about which undergrad programs are better, we'll need to know what department you would be in. You can talk hypothetically about a program that's equally rigorous at all four schools, but that is not going to be your reality, and quality of the program should be the major factor if you plan to continue in academia.</p>

<p>Also, your choice of grad school should be based on your choice of adviser. During your senior year, you'll interview at the schools where you've been admitted with potential advisers, hear about their open research projects, and see how they interact with their current students. We can't tell what subfield you'll want to be in, let alone who you would work well with, four years in advance. Don't worry about that for a while. It is much more important now to choose the university where you can get the best education and research at the undergrad level, so that you can choose the adviser you want at the grad level.</p>

7

<p>Snowcapk:) and Jdhutchin:) thank you for your posts.</p>

<p>I am interested in the equivalent of Coure 20 at MIT, or
Chem. Engg with Mol Bio at Caltech, or Integ Sci (Mol Bio) or
similar to Caltech Chem E with Engg. Bio at Princeton or
the co-terminal program in Biomed. eng at Stanford. The
intersection point of these specializations is my area of interest
which I started on two years back and have continued to
work on.</p>

<p>The chances I will be working in another field
is quite low- another related specialization maybe....wierd as
this sounds, yes I do have my favorite profs that I would like
to have as my advisers (based on their published work that has
helped me)- like baseball cards, I have their arXiv and pubmed stuff
all neatly filed under their names- they do span all
4 institutions (and 1 at Duke).</p>

<p>Not to go to Caltech * sometime* would be unthinkable.
Right now, I am most focused on the UG perspective.
:)</p>