Caltech Has the Best Admissions Processes

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<p>Being a grad student here and interacting with students from all over the world, I can assure you that the rigor of the undergrad curriculum is unique to Caltech. The school is basically a pressure cooker where you are exposed to as much science as can be shoved down your throat in four years. Most of the quarter classes here are equivalent to a semester classes at other colleges.</p>

<p>I’ve talked with friends that have gone to other grad schools within the same field as myself from my undergrad school (all of us wound up at top 10 schools in our field). I can definitely say I was the only one challenged by my graduate classes. Everyone else either said they were on par with what we had in undergrad or were considerably easier.</p>

<p>If you talk to pretty much any grad student here you’ll hear the same thing. Caltech is really about pushing every student to their absolute limit and giving the opportunity for the best of the best of the best to flourish. Personally, I feel about 25% of Caltech’s population is being extremely well served. I think the middle 50% could probably be flourishing better elsewhere (it’s hard to learn when you can barely keep your head above the water), and the bottom 25% should definitely be somewhere else because they’re just so behind they’re hardly learning anything. But the absolute top students of the class seem to excel more here than other schools I’ve been affiliated with.</p>

<p>^ I still don’t see how it could be any different at Caltech than at MIT, Stanford (STEM fields of course), etc. In particular, I still don’t see how Caltech students end up with skills that are on a ‘higher level.’ Do you think that Caltech students are above and beyond their peers at other universities?</p>

<p>I find it pretty believable that the bottom students at Caltech are significantly better than bottom students at Stanford or MIT because of the difference in admissions processes. However, I’m quite skeptical that the top students at Caltech are significantly better the top students at Stanford or MIT because Caltech gets absolutely slaughtered in cross-admit battles with those schools.</p>

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<p>phantasmagoric ; I have to agree with what RacinReaver just said. You said you still don’t see how Caltech students are different from those of schools like MIT, Stanford, etc. Don’t get me wromg, but those two are excellent schools. However, have you ever seen the average SAT scores ( especially Math subject test) of Caltech freshmen, and those of MIT/Stanford etc. Caltech scores are significantly higher. So, when you take students with such ability, and push them even harder, what do you think will happen? Supposedly, they will get even better - don’t you see it now? As for a psecific example, if x>y, then x+N>y+N where the meanings of the variables x, y and N are understood. However, it is of course not true that every Caltech student will perform better than their counterparts in other great schools, and I am not implying that. However, I hope I am not incorrect by saying that in average it is a lot harder to maintain a high GPA at Caltech, compared to Stanford ( or even to MIT)</p>

<p>^ The math scores at Stanford include all freshman, including those in the humanities/arts/social sciences; no data is known about the math SAT scores in STEM fields. 25% of the freshman got above a 780; that’s 425 students, 2x the freshman class at Caltech. Now, not all of them are in STEM fields, but those who are probably did well in the math section. Either way, SAT scores are extremely limited in their ability to show a student’s talents or intelligence. I’ll add that Caltech has said it loses 90% of its cross-admits with Stanford and MIT, which suggests that the majority of current undergrads at Caltech either didn’t apply to Stanford/MIT or didn’t get in. </p>

<p>The point is that Caltech students do not start out “better.” They are not pushed “harder” than students in the same fields at MIT and Stanford (there’s just more homogeneity of interests, so it seems more like a pressure-cooker environment; MIT and Stanford have a wider variety of interests). A Caltech engineer is not better than an MIT engineer or a Stanford engineer.</p>

<p>As far as I can see, Stanford students believe themselves to be superior to Berkeley students (in engineering/sciences), MIT students believe themselves to be superior to Stanford students, Caltech students believe themselves to be superior to MIT students, and Mudd students believe themselves to be superior to Caltech students.</p>

<p>There’s no superiority - it’s all just arrogance.</p>

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<p>I was a Carnegie Mellon undergrad. Two of my good friends from my department wound up going there for grad school. Their opinion of the grad classes at Stanford was they were about the same difficulty level as our undergrad classes. I can certainly assure you the expectations for my classes here at Caltech have required significantly more rigor than anything I had in undergrad. That said, I probably learned a lot less of the material in my Caltech classes versus undergrad, although I’ve developed a completely different set of skills that are useful in learning.</p>

<p>Also, I should mention I believe Caltech is not an engineering school. The engineers it produces, to me, are really scientists and view problems in a very different way than the people I’ve met from Stanford and MIT.</p>

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<p>Caltech gets slaughtered in cross-admits precisely because of the kind of school it is. It’s only for students that are ABSOLUTELY sure they want to spend four years doing science. I imagine a lot of students don’t visit prior to applying, and the place really has its own personality. There’s no real fallback major or a non-STEM field you can fall back on if it turns out you aren’t 100% science.</p>

<p><a href=“there’s%20just%20more%20homogeneity%20of%20interests,%20so%20it%20seems%20more%20like%20a%20pressure-cooker%20environment;%20MIT%20and%20Stanford%20have%20a%20wider%20variety%20of%20interests”>quote</a>

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<p>Why do you say there’s a great homogeneity of interests at Caltech? I actually spent the afternoon today attending a jazz concert put on by Caltech students. There are musical groups, performance groups, art shows, sports teams, and all the other sorts of things you’d expect to find on any other campus. </p>

<p>I feel the biggest difference, from what I’ve seen, is that all students at Caltech are expected to be performing at the level of the top of the class. If only one person in a lecture of 50 is following that means the rest of the class needs to step up their game, not that the class needs to be curved for everyone else. From what I’ve gotten from my friends that did their undergrad at MIT they find the classes, for the most part, expect a lot out of the students. (That said, many of the students aren’t able to fully rise to the challenge, which is why I believe they’d be better off at other schools.)</p>

<p>Completely agree; I think the top students at all the top schools would be at about the same caliber, but the bottom students at Caltech are probably better than those elsewhere b/c of the admissions process.</p>

<p>Personally, I like the idea of a non race-based admissions process. Acceptance is based on academics & other skill sets. Although minorities at Stanford, Harvard, etc. definitely aren’t incompetent, I know several people (of minority race) who have gotten into Stanford who are merely average and hadn’t gotten into MIT, Caltech, and a lot of other top schools. Several top schools seem to be much more lenient with minorities in their search for “diversity.” Though it sucks that Caltech doesn’t have much diversity at all, at least everyone there is capable & very focused on science/math.</p>

<p>‘diversity’ should not be taken synonymous with the difference in skin colors because really people of the same skin color are a lot more diverse than you think.</p>

<p>I agree with what RacinReaver said in #21, especially

It is true their 10 week quarter covers as much as, or even more than a 15-week semester covers at most colleges. My son will major in biology but he has to do one term of e&m and waves, one term of quantum mechanics, one term of vector calculus, one term of differential equations, etc. which he probably wouldn’t have taken in any other colleges. They do indeed push the kids a lot harder than at their peer colleges, I think. As to RR’s comment about the bottom 25% would be better off at another college, well, there will always be the bottom 25%, also true is the fact that the half of class will always be below average (which can be hard for kids who were always near the top of the class in high school). You may be right though that the bottom 25% could thrive better at other colleges while at caltech they barely keep up with the work.</p>

<p>About this comment

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Again, as people seem to equate the ‘diversity’ with the ‘diverse skin colors’, the student body at caltech is a lot more diverse than you think, I believe. My son, when at high school, was very active in orchestra for all four years, jazz ensembles, chorale, and took a lead role in school musical. But he doesn’t do any of that now, but is active at a club sports program at caltech. He is too busy with problem sets and quizzes to spare any more time away. You can not judge the diversity of the student body by the diverse skin colors alone because for people of the same skin color there is a great deal cultural differences. By the same token, You can not say ‘homogeneity’ just because the students have less time to engage in extracurricular activity. They get more out of curricula’s than extracurricular’s at caltech and it is a good deal for me as a parent.</p>

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<p>Then your friends were probably taking some easier ones; the overwhelming majority are not easy at all. (Nor would I take 2 people’s opinion for it.) I know people who went to MIT who found Stanford’s grad classes ridiculously hard; does that make MIT ‘easier’? No. It all depends on personal strengths, which classes you took at MIT, which ones you took at Stanford, etc.</p>

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<p>I should have been clearer - I’m not talking about extracurricular interests (and btw, it’s not surprising at all to know that Caltech has people that are interested in music. STEM people are often great at music). I say that there’s more homogeneity of interests because 98% of Caltech is in a STEM field. When most of the student body is in a STEM field, it can seem more intense (‘pressure cooker’) than a school that has half of its student body in STEM fields, the other half in HASS fields (such as Stanford). I do think that being in a STEM environment 24/7 does make it feel more intense; elsewhere, you’re also constantly around people who aren’t in STEM fields. But that doesn’t mean that the STEM subjects are any easier, that you learn any less, or that you end up on a ‘lower level’ than your peers at schools where STEM is the only offering (and yes, I know Caltech offers a tiny bit in the way of social sciences). It only means that you’re more likely than at Caltech to be around people who aren’t super stressed out from the material, so the environment on the average is more laid-back. The intensity/rigor of STEM alone is no different than at *ITs. </p>

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<p>Why do no Caltech posters seem to acknowledge that Caltech has a race-based admissions process? It admits that race is a consideration; look at its common data set. It is not 100% merit-based as so many posters seem to believe.</p>

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<p>I’m not. I’m judging the diversity of academic interests by the fact that 98% of the students are in a STEM field; 1% are in the social sciences; 1% are in business/administration; and 0% are in the humanities.</p>

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caltech IS in STEM field and if you mean by diversity the majors that students will take, then it is irrelevant point I think. But the student are required to fulfill the humanities requirements. If you mean homogeneity by their majors, yes caltech is homogenious I agree altho quite a few students seem to do double majors, one in STEM field and one in humanities (like English literature) or in economics. These double majoring kids still finished in four years, and I thought they would have no time to take any electives, busy with fulfilling the two major requirements.</p>

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<p>Uh, it’s very relevant to the point that I was addressing, which is the reason why Caltech feels like such a “pressure-cooker environment.” I don’t think anyone would disagree with that…</p>

<p>^students are definitely under pressure from the intensity of work (p-sets and quizzes and the compressed cycle of quarter system), but not from peer competitions. Students seem to go out of their way to help other students. The content and quality of this ‘pressure-cooker environment’ is very different there than schools where overly competitive environment (I see this in people from MIT and Stanford, but not caltech). Their pressure is in learning and problem solving, not in competing against classmates.</p>

<p>I wasn’t saying that Caltech’s pressure-cooker environment comes from competitiveness (nor did anyone else) - just from the concentration of STEM fields. Neither MIT nor Stanford is competitive in the slightest. You can’t get through the curriculum by being competitive - you have to collaborate, because it’s too hard to do on your own. Their pressure also is in learning and problem solving (I don’t know why you would think this is any different from Caltech). I know this from experience at both.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t say having a bunch of humanities and business majors being at the same university as me made things feel any easier in undergrad. If anything it made it worse since I’d look at the giant mountain of work I’d have to deal with week in and week out while my friends in business were starting their weekends on Wednesdays. At least at a school like Caltech everyone’s in the same boat (though when you’re a grad student and your roommate only has to take one term of classes for his program and you still have over a year’s worth to go… :mad:).</p>

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<p>I think Caltech goes by students showing the most passion for math & science with the facilities they have available to themselves. I think they do use the fact if you’re an URM student from a URM-predominant school you’ve probably had fewer opportunities than student from any of the high schools in the greater Silicon Valley area that always seem to be winning massive numbers of awards.</p>

<p>RR brings up a couple of really good points. Classes at Caltech are harder than at Stanford. As someone who has taken more classes than I ever wanted to in both places I can comfortably say that. I do understand why Caltech does what it does, I just honestly don’t think that it’s very optimal for undergraduate students. </p>

<p>There’s more to having a diverse range of majors at a university than being upset at the amount of work they do or don’t do. There are many really smart and interesting people that choose to not do STEM fields and their life experiences and ambitions help broaden horizons. In general, I feel like all too often STEM majors either dismiss them too quickly or approach them with an air of superiority. At caltech however they simply do not exist and for Graduate Students who have already experienced undergrad at another place and decided to get a PhD I think that’s fine but I really think the lack of diversity in majors harms the growth undergraduate population. I would love to see Caltech broadening its horizons.</p>

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<p>It’s funny because I hear grad students saying the exact opposite thing about who the crazy hard classes are good for. As a grad student we want to be working in the lab, not staying up all night working on problem sets that don’t even pertain to our research. ;)</p>

<p>I think Phant is getting hung up on the fact that he thinks we are saying harder classes mean better; therefore, he thinks people are saying Stanford cannot produce a top-flight engineer. I don’t think this is what anyone is saying.</p>

<p>I think the thing is that because Caltech has the firehose, there is less flexibility. If your ability and way of learning is aligned with Caltech, then it can be helpful. It will push you farther. But if it’s not aligned with you exactly, then it can really hurt you. Some big thinkers like to daydream and be lost in reverie. Kekule’ famously discovered the structure of the benzene ring after day-dreaming about a snake chasing its tail. Arguably the best synthetic chemist of all-time, Robert Woodward, failed out of MIT. He wasn’t even doing well in some of his chemistry classes. And he was basically a prodigy in chemistry–he came in at an extremely high level. Even before high school, he had performed all the experiments in a well-known organic chemistry textbook. When he returned to college, he got his BS and PhD in only one or two years. </p>

<p>I’ve gone through periods of my life where I really benefited from a firehose type philosophy, and other times where I wanted more space. It depends on where you are at during that particular time.</p>

<p>Regardless, I think Phant is just plain wrong that these top places are all the same in terms of rigor and volume of work. Some MIT majors like physics have less requirements than they did 15 years ago; does this mean that MIT physics major is now easier than Stanford’s? I also think it’s unlikely that, as Phant suggested, all the people Reaver knows who said their undergrad classes weren’t as challenging must have taken the easy classes–I think it’s safe to say that Caltech grad students are the ones who challenged themselves as undergrads. </p>

<p>In some cases, some majors are harder than others even though they may be rated the same. I heard molecular biology is easy at Princeton, but that chemistry is hard. In general, I think it’s an oversimplification that everything is the same.</p>

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<p>No, that’s not it. RacinReaver said that Caltech students have skills on a different “level.” I don’t think anyone said, or even implied, that Stanford cannot produce a top-flight engineer (that would be ludicrous), nor am I contesting that harder =/= better, but rather the mere reality that the classes on the whole are harder. I would concede that the grading may be harder (perhaps that’s what superwizard means), but just looking over the corresponding syllabi of the two for random classes, I cannot see what Caltech students are learning or doing that is putting them above any other top school, whether Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, etc.</p>

<p>RacinReaver did say that Caltech puts its students on a level not found at “almost every other university,” just short of saying that Caltech’s students are the “best.” Then when asked which universities match Caltech in that respect, RR did not answer. He - not me - then went on about the difficulty of classes at Stanford, going so far as to imply that graduate-level courses at Stanford are equal in difficulty to the undergraduate ones at CMU, without qualification and based on hearsay.</p>

<p>The point is that there are courses at Caltech that are more difficult than some courses at Stanford, and the reverse is true as well. The same could be said of CMU, MIT, Berkeley, etc. and the most evidence anyone has to the contrary is limited personal experience or hearsay. MIT has graduate-level courses that are easier than some of Stanford’s undergrad ones; do I judge MIT’s difficulty - or the skills of its students - based on that? Of course not. That would be absurd.</p>

<p>What grinds on me is a continual pattern of arrogance that I find in those at Caltech and MIT, an arrogance that not even Harvard students can match. I thought that this was mainly a CC thing, but I continually encounter it in real life as well. It’s astounding how many students at both Caltech and MIT - not all, but a sizable subpopulation - truly do believe that their skills are unmatched. It’s not as though someone in this thread was saying that X, Y, and Z are better than Caltech - no, he said they matched Caltech in *prestige *and had more prestige in certain polls, to which RR then brought up something out of left-field and exalted Caltech for its ability to nurture students with skills on a higher level than X, Y, and Z. (A response that seems like “well, so what if Caltech isn’t as prestigious to the general public? Our graduates are better.”)</p>

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<p>I think you’re misinterpreting my point.</p>

<p>At Stanford, you have a wider variety of courses to take, both in and out of STEM fields. The STEM departments encourage you not to load up on extremely difficult classes; that only leads to personal unhappiness, stress, and dislike for the material. Instead, students balance their workload with hard and less hard STEM courses (most often), or STEM courses and non-STEM courses (for those who are “techie-fuzzies”). The curriculum also shuffles material around differently, splitting material across different classes (some in sequence, some not), focuses on projects, etc. It’s a different “process,” as RR first said, and I agreed that Caltech’s is unique and “pressure-cooker”-like. But Caltech’s process is not “better” as he implied - i.e. it does not endow its students with higher-level skills that graduates of similar universities do not have. In the end, students are just as prepared, just as skilled, just as knowledgeable. There is no evidence to the contrary (and indeed, when I asked RR for such, he had none to offer other than anecdotes).</p>

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<p>Re-read the thread. RacinReaver was talking about 2 CMU undergrads he knew who are now at Stanford. I said that those *two <a href=“not” title=“all”>/I</a> were probably taking some easier ones at Stanford (not all their courses, and not “easy” ones, but “easier,” i.e. not as hard). Nice restatement of my words ;)</p>

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<p>superwizard, I would add that those in HASS fields often have as much an air of superiority toward STEM people: dismissing them as “not intellectual” and “preprofessional” (in the case of engineering). I’ve seen it go both ways all too often, and not just at Stanford.</p>

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<p>Well, at Caltech and to a lesser extent MIT, this is not a choice. You are forced to load up on difficult classes. There are more requirements. As I said, MIT pared down the requirements in the undergrad physics major because they felt this was counterproductive, but by and large we have more requirements for our STEM majors.</p>

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<p>OK, I misread that. However, my observations on admissions and on the rigor of the classes are based on a much bigger sample size. About 15-20 people a year from my high school got into MIT and Stanford, and we all kept in touch. We were all STEM and it seemed across the board that the Stanford people were all less stressed and found classes easier. In fact, when one of my friends who was going to Stanford found out I was going to MIT, they said, “Why would you do that to yourself?” meaning it was going to be super-tough. What was interesting was that the MIT people were on average better students than the Stanford group in high school, yet we found college harder. </p>

<p>MIT and Caltech both have a reputation for 1) taking the smartest people they can find, and 2) for having the hardest classes. That is it’s reputation. Other than engineering, the words most associated with MIT are “firehose” and “suicide.” You are in a minority of educated people (i.e., people who have heard of Caltech) that think Stanford undergrads are on average academically on par with MIT and Caltech undergrads or that the classes are as hard, even when you restrict it to the STEM area.</p>