Caltech but not MIT

<p>Wow..."majority"? How many ppl from your school got into Caltech?</p>

<p>I think for your math and science type, Caltech is easier to get into than MIT. MIT has an eclectic-minded admissions team, so entry is a little less predictable. But plenty of people who don't get into Caltech can get into MIT. These are usually the less OBVIOUSLY science/math oriented type who have redeeming personal qualities of some sort.</p>

<p>I think we have to be careful in using the phrase "easier to get into". A lot of us use it synonymous with "lower standards for admission", and say things like "Oh, if I'm a minority and I didn't get into MIT, and look at their percentage of minorities, I'm NEVER going to get into Caltech, now." is completely false. So what if girls are accepted at a rate 2.5 times as high as guys at MIT and only 2 times as high as males at Caltech, it doesn't mean that MIT's standards are 20% lower than that of Caltech for girls, it just means that if you are a qualified girl, you stand a higher CHANCE of being admitted. This is just a probabilities game now, and we know that outcome X does not have any effect outcome Y if they are statistically independent of each other. And I'm willing to believe MIT and Caltech admissions are pretty independent of each other.</p>

<p>what guests we have here! pebbles is spot on.</p>

<p>Ben Goo-lub Boo-lub</p>

<p>"But plenty of people who don't get into Caltech can get into MIT. These are usually the less OBVIOUSLY science/math oriented type who have redeeming personal qualities of some sort."</p>

<p>this is what I have been thinking, and this is why I thought there's a larger probability that I would got into MIT than Caltech, besides being a female...I have no astonishing awards (like those national/international olympiads many of you have), no astonishing # of AP courses and college classes, no research or whatsoever, but I personally think I am that type of person who started with $10 and ended up with $100 as opposed to someone who started with $50 and ended up with $120...so I was thinking I might have a smaller chance at caltech where people are all OBVIOUS overachievers...but apparently it's not true that numbers are always more important at Caltech or personal qualities are always more important at MIT. that comes back to pebbles' point, which I totally agree with: it's not that predicable and we're making too big a deal out of it.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I personally think I am that type of person who started with $10 and ended up with $100 as opposed to someone who started with $50 and ended up with $120

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I think both Caltech and MIT are looking for this kind of person.</p>

<p>Just accepted to Caltech, rejected from MIT. Very surprising, really, as my SAT math score was on the comparatively-low side for Caltech, my grades are Of Suck, and I'm a needy international. (I'm also Indian -- not an advantage! -- and a girl.) I hadn't dared to hope for Caltech, since they aren't need-blind, but I suppose the world (and admissions) works in mysterious ways.</p>

<p>i think my situation is pretty unique, applied early to both MIT and Caltech
Round 1 (EA, December)
-Deferred from MIT
-Accepted to Caltech, and they offered to pay for my flight to prefrosh weekend
Round 2 (RD, March)
-Rejected from MIT
-Was offered a full scholarship at Caltech (as long as i maintain certain academic standards)</p>

<p>and....i'm hispanic
i think MIT just hates me</p>

<p>For those of you that have received scholarship offers from Caltech and
were rejected from MIT, let me just state for the record: I think MIT admissions decisions make no sense.</p>

<p>Disclosure: I am an MIT alum (class of '80). I had the time of my life there.
Great experience. But Marilee Jones' rhetoric and the whole MIT admissions
blog is an incredible turn-off for me. My oldest child is 16. He will probably
apply to MIT, but I wish he wouldn't. </p>

<p>To Ahhhhh - MIT doesn't hate you. They're just random? lost? I don't know.
Be glad you're in at caltech.</p>

<p>"But Marilee Jones' rhetoric and the whole MIT admissions blog is an incredible turn-off for me."</p>

<p>Me too. The whole message out of MIT admissions seems to be "we care less and less each year about how smart and well-prepared you are in an objective sense." It's very disconcerting. I don't think MIT is what it was 20 years ago.</p>

<p>(Disclosure: got into MIT in '00 for undergrad and '04 for grad school, so nothing against MIT personally!)</p>

<p>It's a tragedy that most of the top schools are going to these "social"/touchie-feelie criteria at a time when grade inflation is further messing up the meaning of a college degree.</p>

<p>Like Joe, I too turned down MIT for Caltech undergrad, having received aid from both and having spent a good long time agonizing about the decision. A good friend, who went to MIT for both undergrad and grad in the 80s says that he thinks MIT decided it could do better and make more dough by going after Harvard's market. Since Caltech's endowment has been lagging, maybe they're right. Maybe in the end what you need are top students, a mix for "diversity", self-serving rhetoric, and lots of care and feeding of legacies to get the bucks to maintain top faculty.</p>

<p>What's worse is that top school grad admissions -- where professors are directly involved -- pays almost no attention to the sorts of characteristics that the newer undergrad ethos extols.</p>

<p>The only upside to this is that nowadays, there are probably tons of superbright kids who don't get into the elites for arbitrary reasons but do spectacularly well at less selective schools which have strong programs for honors students. Certainly I'm seeing good students rejected by programs that I thought they would have been eminently suited for 20 years ago. At the same time, I still see puzzling admits (at my own selective U) that make me shake my head in wonder that they weren't rejected on the first round.</p>

<p>Some good points made above. Here to share my case: admitted to Caltech, waitlisted at MIT. Ah well, as those classic prank shirts say "MIT....because not everyone can go to Caltech" with the palm tree on the back!</p>

<p>
[quote]
Ben Jones has said that something like 70% of all applicants are qualified to be at MIT.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>What that means in simple English is, "30% of applicants are obviously unable to complete degree requirements at MIT; so it is OK for admissions to dig as deep as 60-70 percent into the applicant pool to meet its non-academic recruiting needs."</p>

<p>Yes, most admissions offices (not just MIT's) seem to use a fairly low bar to define "qualified," as do others who want to give more weight to non-academic characteristics- see for example Harry Lewis' argument for admitting more college athletes to Harvard on the grouns that the football players graduate at the same rate as other undergraduates.</p>

<p>Just curious, whats the real benefit for these colleges in going for athletes, minorities, etc. ? I mean honestly, what is MIT getting by recruiting basketball players when it will never be able to compete with schools like UCLA and Duke? Is it maybe because it attracts more students? I was surprised to find out that so few people applied to Caltech compared to MIT, and Im guessing its because MIT appeals to more people since its so diverse.</p>

<p>I suspect that the larger MIT applicant pool is partly due to its recognition -- as an example, hundreds of Indians alone apply there because it's MIT, but a pretty significant proportion of them haven't even heard of Caltech (er, true story: I informed my school that I'd likely be attending Caltech, and their response was 'Oh, Caltech? Is that like UCLA?'.) -- and partly due to the fact that there are always some people who will apply there 'just to see', while that doesn't really happen with Caltech (too intimidating, even if one has heard of it. I had friends who simply would not apply because of the SAT ranges and the air of extreme difficulty). MIT's also projecting a sort of 'you don't have to do math or science if you come here, really!' image, which probably makes it artificially appealing.</p>

<p>@Noldo</p>

<p>Your grades don't matter much if you are in Indian school system. I know a guy Viksit Arora who got in with 64% in 12th with just 44 in maths in MIT class of 2011. I am rejected with a 97.1%. So....</p>

<p>""But Marilee Jones' rhetoric and the whole MIT admissions blog is an incredible turn-off for me."</p>

<p>Me too. The whole message out of MIT admissions seems to be "we care less and less each year about how smart and well-prepared you are in an objective sense." It's very disconcerting. I don't think MIT is what it was 20 years ago.</p>

<h2>(Disclosure: got into MIT in '00 for undergrad and '04 for grad school, so nothing against MIT personally!)"</h2>

<p>As an MIT alum, I totally agree with you. It's funny how people keep writing into the blogs saying how they messed up in school and how they love Marilee Jones for making it possible for them to still get into MIT.</p>