<p>steel: Nicely done and Funny as all get out. It reminded me of an advertisement run by the explorer Ernest Shackleton to recruit men for an expedition, it goes:</p>
<p>"MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES,
BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS,
CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOR AND
RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS."</p>
<p>Despite the ad's stark warning (maybe because of it), Shackleton had no trouble finding volunteers. </p>
<p>Good luck with Quantum.</p>
<p>joemama -- you have the Caltech philosophy figured out. We certainly have nothing to argue about here : )</p>
<p>To address some other things said about Tech, if you're a guy and you can't get a date, you're not trying, or you suck, or both. Sure, the girl to guy ratio (note: this is called Ratio in common Tech usage; in speech, you can actually hear the capital R) is pretty low, but the human to troll ratio among guys. I think it's genetic. Trolls, by reason of their aversion to sunlight, have given up most attempts at social contact, let alone dating, so the effective Ratio is much closer to 1:1 than you'd expect. If you care about dating, just get out and talk to chicks once in a while and don't be a creepy stalkerish bastard about it. Worked for me.</p>
<p>If you have any interesting or horrific counter-examples for dating at Tech, post details. If you're Ben Golub and go through women like a Vulcan chaingun goes through 20mm ammunition, post a how-to guide. If you're a girl, I promise the stalkers will give up by the end of Rotation Week and then you get your choice of boy-toys if desired. Also, stay away from Ben.</p>
<p>steel: you have a gift. </p>
<p>ben: live long and prosper.</p>
<p>joemama has left the building</p>
<p>Note for SteelPangolin's post: a troll is someone who studies excessively, does their work ahead of time, etc. rather than doing their work the "correct" way and doing the work the night before it's due. So a troll is "a good student."</p>
<p>No, a troll is someone who is obnoxiously antisocial regardless of workload. There are plenty of good students who get their work done ahead of time without becoming cloistered monks in the process. I'm not one of them, mind you.</p>
<p>Here's my two cents on the whole CalTech issue:</p>
<p>Before my senior year, Caltech was my top choice. However, this changed once I started to learn more about it, to understand Caltech beyond its prestigious name. During the last summer and fall I researched the institute, visited the campus and stayed in Pasadena. I attended several info sessions and talked to a lot of alumns. I even wrote my application essays and finished my application. </p>
<p>But ultimately, my application was not submitted. Although there is no doubt in my mind that Caltech has the best science undergrad department in the whole nation, and its theoretical engineering is arguebly the best, I realized that math and science might not be what I would like to do afterall. It just was not the right fit for me. Honestly, I was also turned off a little by the terrible male-to-female ratio, and was scared of the workload. I had spent numerous years in an Iranian gifted and talented school in Tehran, in which studying and research are all that students do. I absolutely did not want to go back to that and become "troll" so to speak.</p>
<p>Clearly, Cal Tech is not the right fit for me. But that doesn't mean I can bash the school. People who drop out are at fault themselves for deciding to attend such a school in the first place. True, I chickened out, but I believe that was the right thing to do, or I might have ended up transferring to some other place (assuming I would have gotten in, which was very unlikely).</p>
<p>Ben Golub, of course you don't have to care what I think. I never said that you are forced to care about what I think. </p>
<p>However, the whole point of a discussion board is to hear a set of diverse opinions. Not to sound like a Founding Father, but it is precisely through freedom of expression that you are able to formulate better ideas. I don't see you going around challenging anybody else on CC by telling them that you don't care what they think. The point of the Caltech subsection of CC is not to post ideas that you, Ben Golub, or anybody at Caltech necessarily care about. This is not your private forum, nor is it the private forum of the Caltech administration. There are plenty of people on CC whose posts I don't care about, but I don't get in their faces about it. The point of a discussion forum is to hear different opinions, even if you don't like them or don't care about them.</p>
<p>And to Steelpangolin, again, you have tagged me with saying something that I never said. I never said anything about Caltech lowering its standards. I said that Caltech has a problem with students who aren't able to complete the program. I never said that Caltech has to lower its standards to fix this problem. Another way, which is the one I support, is to simply not admit those students who aren't going to make it anyway. After all, what exactly is the point of bringing in students who aren't going to graduate anyway? Let them go to another school where they will be able to succeed. </p>
<p>Some would say that you can't really tell who is going to graduate and who isn't, and of course you can't do it perfectly. But there are ways to make it better. For example, you can look at the statistical data of who made it and who didn't over the last X years, look at their application data, find some common themes of those students who didn't make it, and simply admit fewer of those students. </p>
<p>For example, maybe Caltech will find that those applicants who score less than a 700 on their Math SAT-1 have an extremely high chance of flunking out (I don't know if this is true, I am just using this as an example). Then Caltech should admit fewer such students. True, Caltech already admits few such students anyway, but the data would indicate that Caltech should admit still fewer. Or maybe Caltech finds that certain high schools produce a high percentage of poorly-performing Caltech students. Then Caltech should simply admit fewer students from those high schools. I don't claim to know what the key factors will turn out to be, but I am saying that Caltech could go and find out if it wanted to. </p>
<p>The issue seems to be not that Caltech can't find out, but that it doesn't really want to find out. Why not? It gets to something I've been pointing out here for awhile - I think that Caltech deliberately wants to flunk out a higher percentage of its students relative to its peer schools, because they see it as 'proof' of its rigor. In other words, Caltech seems to actually enjoy it. And that, to me, seems pretty harsh. You are elevating yourself by stepping on the bodies of your fallen students. Lest you think that I'm being too harsh in my characterization, just go back through this thread and you'll see the quotes of several Caltech people here who all seem to relish in stereotyping everybody who has problems at Caltech, that all those people who have problems are all just stupid and lazy and hence they deserve what they get. Who's really being harsh here, me or them? How would you like to be one of those students who is having difficulty at Caltech, only to have other Tech'ers calling you stupid and lazy and so you deserve to have problems? Hence, the attitude among some at Caltech seems to be "Who cares if we are stepping on some of our fallen students? Those students suck, so they deserve to get stepped on." So not only are they being stepped on, but you have a bloodthirsty crowd who is saying that it is right that they be stepped on. Talk about adding insult to injury. </p>
<p>You (steelpanglion) ask what am I trying to prove here? Well, first of all, I think that that whole attitude that 'those who have problems at Caltech deserve to have problems' - that attitude ought to be repudiated. You (steelpanglion) at least don't go around implying that your fallen comrades deserve to be fallen because they were clearly too lazy and stupid to survive. </p>
<p>And secondly we can debate whether students who come to Caltech and don't succeed deserve some of the blame for choosing the wrong school. But I think what is clear is that Caltech also deserves some of the blame for admitting them. Caltech can't just slough off all responsibility onto the students. Caltech had a hand in the situation as well. The same question arises again - why admit people who aren't going to make it?</p>
<p>"I think that Caltech deliberately wants to flunk out a higher percentage of its students relative to its peer schools"</p>
<p>What nonsense. We would pretty easily be among the top 3 on the U.S. News list every year (which unfortunately is such a big deal) if we raised our graduation rate. There are plenty of incentives to do it. Caltech doesn't TRY to keep that number low -- we are just unwilling to sacrifice our core mission to raise it, despite all the gains if we did.</p>
<p>As for admitting fewer students who will fail, can I just say flat out (though I've tried to say it courteously before) ... I've sat on the admissions committee thinking about these things for a year, and looking at the data, etc. I've spent lots of time talking to people who have been looking at this data for 20 years each. I'd be willing to bet you've never read applications for undergraduate admission at selective admissions, let alone Caltech.</p>
<p>The outcome: Caltech COULDN'T be any more rigorous in screening out students who won't make it. Almost the slightest sign of weakness already gets you excluded. By the way, a large number of the kids who fail out came with pretty much flawless applications. Failure has more to do with character, perseverance. We read closely, we try to catch that stuff, but the data just aren't good enough... The point is that it is simply <em>impossible</em> to screen for a 95% graduating class based on high school data. You can't point to an institution as hard as Caltech that does that with high school data to use as a counterexample. Shoo, shoo!</p>
<p>Are you claiming that your school, which I'm guessing is MIT, knows exactly which candidates are going to flunk? If your school doesn't, why would mine? We've got an even smaller sample size. If it does, at what point do you fit the cameras and tracking collars to your candidates?</p>
<p>MIT does better than Caltech for graduation rate. But I was just waiting for sakky to make that claim so I could have a good laugh and point him to my earlier post about how much more rigorous the minimal requirements are here than there (quantum, etc.)</p>
<p>"I know a girl who failed spectacularly freshman year, got into Duke as a transfer, spent a year there, and came back because she liked it here better. Is Duke a third tier trashbag?"</p>
<p>I know her too... how is she doing now? I had sort of thought maybe Caltech wasn't for her. I think the reasons she came back had very little to do with academics, which is kind of scary.</p>
<p>To CotoDeCasa:</p>
<p>It would also be worth pointing out that some of the people on that list were Caltech UNDERGRADS: Kip Thorne (perhaps the most famous current member of the faculty), Ken Libbrecht (the head of the physics department) and quite possibly others.</p>
<p>I'm applying with a B in the second semester of AP Physics B, but a 5 on the exam, and an explanation (in recommendations and in essay form); specifically, susceptibility to respiratory infection. It's a pattern that lots (ok, maybe 1 or 2 a year) of my grades follow; my grades during the year are lower than you would think if you looked only at my AP scores. I end up learning all the material as well as or better than most/all of my classmates, but my GPA is only a 4.4 weighted, because I am learning as I turn things in, rather than learning in class.</p>
<p>Is this going to be a problem for me?</p>
<p>I visited Caltech yesterday and talked to a bunch of kids there. Here is a few quotations:</p>
<p>A: "Do you remember when was the last time you slept?"
B: "You mean like...real sleep?...Uh...I've fallen asleep..."</p>
<p>C:"I'm in the middle of a 4-hr f**king exam...the people next door are having sex, I can't even concentrate!"</p>
<p>D:"Caltech sucks...Don't go here."</p>
<p>E:"yeah. Life sucks. In high school, you should just get high, get drunk...and here in college you do the same!"</p>
<p>A:"Do you love science?"
Me:"Yeah, I love physics."
A:"Right...I remember when I was like that."</p>
<p>I am DEADLY serious about it. I can't say anything about MIT though cuz I haven't been there.</p>
<p>You did visit final exams on the last (most crunched) day... plus the people who hate it are always more outspoken.</p>
<p>But there is some truth to some of it. The place is not for the weak.</p>
<p>Firstly, I love Caltech. I'm just telling the truth about my trip. I've seen lots of good things about Caltech too: the amazing wind tunnel, beautiful fountains, and met some extremely nice professors. JPL is there too, so there're good opportunities. Overall, Caltech is one of the best colleges in the world, no question about it. It is hard for most people, but some might love it. It's always like this; though the fact is that lots of people aren't liking it there--maybe they'll thank caltech after they graduate.</p>
<p>Whoa, what house(s) did you visit Shanghaiwes?</p>
<p>This has been a decently easy week for the pass/fail frosh. My roommate, for example, started relaxing after Saturday (only two finals). I can't believe your sample is that skewed...!</p>
<p>BTW, I think i2hub rocks! I've downloaded ~14 gigs the past few days. My last real final was Tuesday :)</p>
<p>shanghaiwes,</p>
<p>LOL! Many Caltech students will say it aloud:" Life is hell here, Caltech sucks, it's crazy, I should've gone to Stanford, This is the worst time in my life and so on ...". But you missed the implicit pride of being in the school, i.e. at the same time claiming that: I am studying in science geniuses school, the workload I have is the toughest ever, Caltech is the hardest school in the world, only best of the best can survive here and so on ..." Hence you need to look at both side, don't take words for granted :)</p>
<p>Ah, Ben Golub, once again, you can't stop with the personal insults, can you? </p>
<p>First off, are you really truly saying that Caltech is demonstrably more rigorous, overall, than MIT? Forget about minimum requirements and all that, I'm talking about the whole thing. Top to bottom, are you conclusively stating that Caltech, overall, is a more rigorous school than MIT? Not equivalent, but that Caltech is more rigorous, overall?</p>
<p>If you are, then I'm sure that that's news to all the MIT people who hang around on CC. So if you are, then perhaps we should debate this very point on the MIT board. I'm sure the MIT people would have something to say about that. </p>
<p>If you are not, then that begs the question of why exactly is it that MIT has a higher graduation rate than Caltech does. But again, we can go and debate this on the MIT board if you'd like. If there really is "no way" to figure out who is going to graduate and who isn't, then that's news to MIT. So, who's the one who's being mindless, Ben Golub? </p>
<p>And finally, Ben Golub, I am not going to "shoo" just because you say so. What is this, censorship? This isn't YOUR personal discussion forum, the last time I checked. So what exactly gives you the right to tell people to go away? If you don't like and don't agree with my posts, fine, but I still have every right to say it. Do it again, and I'm afraid I will have no choice but to bring the moderators in.</p>