<p>Well, I am likely dreaming, but I am hoping to be accepted to all three - Caltech, MIT, and Berkeley. Of these, my first choice is Caltech... I would love to be able to turn down Berkeley and/or MIT however. But ultimately, any of the three would be great. Just dreaming... and hoping!</p>
<p>My top choices are Caltech first, then MIT, then Carnegie Mellon or Berkeley… But when I get any acceptances or rejections, my priorities may switch. Caltech sounds like such a amazing place - world class professors yet small enough to work directly with the best! Can’t wait to find out!</p>
<p>Caltech, obviously.</p>
<p>All top research schools with top grad and undergrad departments.</p>
<p>Caltech: very small, lots of opportunity for undergrads as such, almost all students are extremely academic, must take lots of classes, difficult and substantial core requirements that can take a bunch of two years, only for math/sci/eng, more theoretical focus in departments, likely considered the toughest on average. Take-home exams and honor code. Probably the teaching quality is not as great as in LACs of similar size, since the hiring process at LACs is mainly teaching focused. Kind of bad for premed as it seems the biggest GPA crusher.</p>
<p>MIT: larger, has great rep for hooking undergrads with UROP projects, not much core. Like Caltech, I think the beginning is pass/fail record for experimentation, probably has an undergrad body less overly academically focused, and is supposed to be great even if you are not
dead set on math/sci/eng, bigger departments than Caltech (may mean
more diverse faculty interests to do research with), ok for premed -
they tend to possibly be less career obsessed, culture of doing things,
may be slightly to very skewed to applied stuff.</p>
<p>Berkeley: tons of (basically unlimited) opportunity for a strong student,
world class faculty like the others, gigantic top class departments, undergrads must be very self motivated to procure opportunity, avg
student is much weaker than at previous two (but it is a big school, and
there is definitely the share of superstars), bad for premed since it is
competitive and overcrowded, biggest of the schools, probably the most well rounded in terms of strength. I hear CC posters saying they enjoyed their MiT humanities courses though.</p>
<p>Also, in majors like biology at Berkeley,overcrowdedness makes it hard to get classes (they fill up) Not really a problem in most technical majors however.</p>
<p>Also, obviously Berkeley is reL. cheap for CA people.</p>
<p>Based upon what I know about MIT professors and Caltech professors, I think MIT professors are better at teaching classes while Caltech professors are better at doing research. Caltech Professors suck at teaching! If you don’t mind learn by yourself, come to Caltech. If you want a decent and interesting teacher, maybe Caltech’s not the best choice.</p>
<p>MIT professors are better at teaching classes while Caltech professors are better at doing research</p>
<p>Given MIT is a top research school, I would doubt Caltech professors are better at research. Also, how does one compare the overall teachings qualities - does it not vary across different professors?</p>
<p>Or do you have evidence suggesting the hiring styles or so of the two schools are distinct such that your feeling about teaching quality may be supported ?</p>
<p>I can’t speak to the quality of the teaching at MIT or Berkeley, but the teaching at Caltech is actually excellent. Yes, you have an occaisional Nobel laureate who is more into his research than into teaching undergrads, but overall the faculty is very approachable and available. Most classes after core are small, and you get to know the profs on an individual level. That would never happen in a large univ such as Berkeley or MIT. The students are definitely cooperative rather than competitive, a quality that is fostered by problem sets in core being designed to be worked on in groups rather than individually. The honor code is amazing - almost all exams, including finals, are “take home” - ie you take them when you block out 3 hours (or whatever is allowed), and turn them in when you are done. And we all take the honor code seriously, as that is what makes the atmosphere at Caltech so cooperative! We all know that our fellow students are amazingly bright, and we take advantage of that to learn from each other but not to outdo each other.</p>
<p>I’d hardly say MIT is so large you’d never get to know your professors on an individual level. I went to a school roughly the size of MIT for undergrad and had no problem getting to know all of the professors in my department. Heck, after I started getting grad school acceptances I’d only tell one professor, yet by the end of the day I’d have professors I hadn’t talked to in over a year congratulating me.</p>
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<p>Ha ha. Hahaha. Hahahahaha. This is why Caltech students never skip a class, right?</p>
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I think skipping a class and the quality of teaching are not much related. One can skip a class if you did not sleep working all night, you can skip a class if you did not finish a homework that is due shortly. If your undergrad school was about the size of MIT, but not MIT, and got accepted to caltech grad school, you must have been right at the top of class. A school of lesser quality of the size of MIT, a top student can be known to nearly all professors. But this same student, had he been at MIT may not be known to many professors simply because there are so many students as good as, or better than, you in any MIT department.</p>
<p>If a class is really good, don’t you think attendance will be higher? Why is it when I took ACM 100a with Niles Pierce lecture stayed pretty full through the entire semester, yet when B and C were taught by someone considerably worse, the lecture hall was nearly empty by the second week?</p>
<p>If the lecture is of really high quality, you’ll consider it something you want to go to, so you’ll go to bed earlier, get your work done ahead of time, or push something else out of your schedule so you can find time.</p>
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<p>Not really, all the professors knew everyone in my department. It’s really a departmental thing and depends on the attitude of the people there. We had roughly 20 people in my year in the department, though following years had roughly 50% more and professors still knew everyone. (And, for the record, I wasn’t right at the top of my class, not even the top 25% of my year.)</p>
<p>^You are right. Professors need to put some time in preparing their classes. The lack of effort in teaching may be (I am guessing) due to the small size – the Institutue as a whole has to compete with MIT, Stanford, etc. in research performance and big schools can afford the faculty time in preparing classes where as caltech may comparatively ill afford such faculty time. I am speculating. Also, the emphasis on collaborative learning – students teaching other students in the house, etc., should have a higher value. But still great researchers can teach great classes – Prof.Feynman, Prof.Thorne, Prof.Koonin, Prof.Tombrello, Prof.Goodstein, … many physics professors are great teachers (the professors here from old times).</p>
<p>I still think if you went to MIT, you will be probably buried in obscurity due to other higher able graduate students and undergraduate students and due to the busy professors who are occupied with their research. Look at the size of MIT Materials Science Dept:
MIT Numbers: Faculty: 42; Grad. Students: 276; Ugrad. Students: 134;
If you were below top quartile of your undergrad department, then where (which quartile) would you have belonged to if you were at MIT M.S. department, and would MIT professors have known you?</p>
<p>I don’t think the lack of effort in teaching has to do anything with class size; if anything the small class size should help it improve if we’re to believe anything teachers from public school districts with growing sizes and shrinking budgets are telling us.</p>
<p>I can’t say anything about MIT professors, but I can say that it’s not always the students with top grades that get attention. Lots of times it’s students that are willing to interact in class, try to talk to professors after class, and want to get involved with the department. A lot of it is up to the professors themselves as to how much they want to interact with their students. My undergrad department had at least two parties a year where almost all of the professors would show up, many of them with their families. Everyone had a chance to sit down, meet the professors, talk about classes, research, and pretty much anything you wanted to. I think this sort of interaction encouraged professors to put more effort into their classes, since they weren’t just teaching a bunch of faceless students, but a class full of people who they knew by name, interests, and a little bit of care for their future.</p>
<p>^RacinReaver, oh I meant the overall faculty size, not the class size. </p>
<p>You went to a wonderful undergraduate school with that sort of a culture in the department. But at caltech, similar culture exists and it evolves around the research group which consists of professor, research associates and postdocs, visitors, graduate students and undergraduate students (who may be conducting research year round). The culture of different groups would be different of course.</p>
<p>Anyway, best of luck with your research work. As a graduate student, it is research research research. Classes are a remote 2nd priority graduate students who are into thesis research.</p>