Caltech vs MIT for engineering

djcapelis · January 30, 2005, 4:43am

[quote]
dj, why go to CalTech when there are schools that are ranked and regarded as better?

[/quote]

This thread has numerous reasons, posts 31, 34 and 8 and the article cited in post 32 all contain very good reasons why an education at Caltech is not only a worthwhile pursuit, but hopefully a lot of fun.

Ranking schools by numbers... almost as bad as looking at people by numbers, and just about as difficult. There's a lot more to a school than what is shown in those rankings.

As for picking schools based on their business program, that's not right for me. I intend to major in CS because that's what I enjoy doing. True, Caltech is probably not the best school for CS either, but I'm really looking for an environment that is creative. Caltech students create. Creativity allows creation of companies, research and products. The environment of Caltech is what I'm used to at my current school and is what I'm looking for.

Very few schools have this. MIT is the only one that comes to mind but I prefer small schools. (I'd be happy to go to MIT as well, but right now I'm hoping for Caltech.)

Does that explain things for you?

rtkysg · January 30, 2005, 7:39am

"If CalTech is tied with USC for Grad School Engineering, does that make USC an elite school.

Is Georgia Tech more elite.

Is Illinois Urbana elite.

Wow, what does that make MIT and Stanford."

itsallgood,

Tell me if you are intelligent enough to debate with me... now check the ranking of Caltech for peer assesment score, employer assessment score, GRE score, selectivity, and % of faculty in the National Academy of Engrg. TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE for USC, Gatech and Illinois !!!

Don't give me crap about your preference, Stanford Engineering has more % of Caltech engineering rejects than the other way around !!! What does it imply? Tell me if you're kidding about your comments about Caltech engineering... don't you think your arguments are rather foolish?

Have you ever read the autobiography of Jack Welch, GE ex-CEO and Larry Ellison ? Which engineering grads first come into their mind when picking their employees? Caltech and MIT, you can buy the book and verify yourself!!!

Amused · January 30, 2005, 10:17am

"One statement in that flurry of posts caught my eye: that a degree from Caltech means something. That is such a true statement. In my opinion, by and of theirselves, the only undergraduate degrees that mean something these days are from Caltech and MIT. The rest of the elite schools have no standard core and one is able to get a degree in gender studies or some similarly political and pathetic field without proving anything."

So you're saying that only Engineering, math, and science are worthwhile degrees?

joemama · January 30, 2005, 2:12pm

Well this is a very lively thread. A lot of good info from a lot of different people.

Please clarify what has been said or often implied here because it definitely bumps up against the conventional wisdom I've heard.

Are MIT's, Stanford's and Berkeley's engineering programs (all schools I've applied to) really easier and less demanding than CalTech's?

I've met so students at these schools and they thought they had it rough.

Also, do employers pay higher salaries to CalTech grads than those from the other schools I've mentioned because they are so much better.

Thanks in advance.

rtkysg · January 30, 2005, 6:05pm

joemama,

"Are MIT's, Stanford's and Berkeley's engineering programs (all schools I've applied to) really easier and less demanding than CalTech's? "

Yes, Caltech is much more demanding. I was in Caltech for undergrad, MIT for grad, and I've been to some Berkeley lectures when I was in California. I know about Stanford from many of my friends who are studying there.

"Also, do employers pay higher salaries to CalTech grads than those from the other schools I've mentioned because they are so much better."

On the average yes, employers look very highly on Caltech because it's purely meritrocracy, i.e. if you brilliant you're in, if not then you're out. There's no bargaining with non-academic EC like in Stanford for admission. The common exception for my claim is MIT.

rtkysg · January 30, 2005, 6:09pm

Sakky,

It may be easier to enter MIT grad schools from Caltech than from MIT undergrad school itself. Most of my Caltech friends who applied to MIT grad school are accepted.(Normally Caltech students would know whether he/she would be accepted or not prior to submitting his/her application). The number of Caltech grads who get into MIT grad schools (by percentage) are perhaps larger than MIT grads themselves and obviously larger than Stanford or Cornell or Princeton, etc.

joemama · January 30, 2005, 6:29pm

Thanks. Appreciate your help. I had an idea. I was talking to my Dad who knows some people in Human Resources for a few different semiconductor companies in Southern and Northern California. He going to pose the question to them. I hope to report back in a few days.

Again, Thanks.

sleepybunny · January 30, 2005, 6:33pm

Can you post the answer when you get them, joemama?

joemama · January 30, 2005, 7:28pm

will do. Stay tuned.

Samp0320 · January 30, 2005, 10:13pm

Amused, in my opinion Math, Science, and Engineering degrees are the most worthwhile and relevant, yes. What I was saying, though, is that Gay and Lesbian studies or absolute crap like that cheapen the degrees in every department at a school which offers such a department. If a degree could mean coursework like that, then by and of itself the piece of paper that is the diploma means next to nothing.

Samp0320 · January 30, 2005, 10:15pm

Think about it...if someone presents as a graduate of an ivy league school, their achievement cannot be evaluated without knowing what their major was.

rtkysg · January 31, 2005, 12:34am

"Amused, in my opinion Math, Science, and Engineering degrees are the most worthwhile and relevant, yes"

LOL, this is the view of a typical Caltech student. Anyway, Samp, I don't really think math degree is commercially worthwhile and you forgot to mention Law, Medical, Economy and Business degree which are just as important.

sleepybunny · January 31, 2005, 4:24am

if a student chose to apply transfer out of caltech and got accepted somewhere else, can she stay at caltech if she decided to change her mind and not accept the transfer offer?

tech_fan · January 31, 2005, 5:00am

Yep! This happened just recently to a friend of mine. She got into Stanford but decided not to go. Moreover, even if you take a leave for a year to go try another school, you can usually come back if you decide you prefer Caltech (someone I know tried Duke, stayed for a while, and came back here).

Samp0320 · January 31, 2005, 7:35pm

I said that including Business, Medicine, Law ect. under the social science umbrella.

sakky · February 2, 2005, 11:24pm

Now let me respond to some of the quotes given before:

[quote]
You must be kidding. Do you really propose that we just give students P/F grades the entire time they're here?

[/quote]

No, I never said that. I said that I believe Caltech needs to look at all of the reasons as to why its graduation rate is lower than its peer schools (HYPSM).

[quote]
I don't think this is a valid analogy. Maybe it's just because I come from a Southern family, but I've always seen serving in the army as a sacrifice people make, giving something for the country. As such, the country has an obligation to protect what they're giving as well as possible, in the hope that they don't have to make the ultimate sacrifice. As for college, Caltech doesn't need me. There are many more people out there that could probably do better here than I am, and give more back to the school than I have. It is a privledge for me to be here, and I don't think Caltech has an obligation to shepard me through and make sure I survive. Quite the contrary -- I like that I'm being challenged to my fullest. I like that it's not a given that I'll graduate with honors. I revel in the fact that Caltech has given me an environment where I can work hard to be mediocre. That's what I want, and I knew it coming in. Yes, I do think the students who leave made a bad choice. We all make bad choices every once in a while. It's nothing to be ashamed of or looked down on.

[/quote]

First of all, I think it's an entirely fair analogy when placed in the context of what Ben Golub said. Basically, to paraphrase what Ben Golub said is that Caltech is rigorous and if people don't like it, then they shouldn't come to Caltech, and by I think by reasonable implication, I can surmise that if people come to Caltech and do badly, then according to Ben Golub, that's their own stupid fault for choosing Caltech, and they have nobody to blame for that but themselves. I am pointing out that that's a tremendously cold way to go about providing an education. We're not talking about a bunch of scrub underachievers here, we're talking about some of the best students in the world, and to say that Caltech holds no responsibility at all if they do badly is quite off-putting. If that's what you think Caltech should do, that's your opinion. It is, however, my opinion that every school has a responsibility to ensure that whoever comes to the school is provided with every opportunity to succeed, and if you don't want to provide such an opportunity to certain people, then fine, don't admit them in the first place. It's far better to not admit certain students than to bring in some students only to watch them flail around and fail.

You also talk about making bad choices. and whether people should feel bad about them. The question is not whether people should personally feel bad about making certain choices, but about the stigma that society places. Let's face it. Right or wrong, society considers it to be shameful to be tagged as a 'college flunkie'. Right or wrong, society considers it to be highly desirable to have a college degree than not. You can look at how many jobs are out there that require a college degree, even if the job itself has nothing to do with anything that one would learn in college. Right or wrong, society makes a big distinction between somebody who has a college degree, and somebody who doesn't. Yes, we can talk about certain rare exceptions like Bill Gates, but by and large, unless you intend to start your own company, it is important to have a college degree, if for no other reason, than because it helps you to get a job. Hence, by and large, you are better off going to a no-name school and graduating, then going to a top-flight school, and flunking out. If you are good enough to get into Caltech, then you are clearly good enough to get into many other colleges. And the greater guarantee of a degree from somewhere else is something that people should consider carefully.

The flip side of that is that Caltech could better itself by offering a greater probability that those who come in will actually leave with a degree. This could be achieved by not bringing in borderline cases in the first place.

[I also don't think leaving Caltech is the disaster you make it out to be. I also know the girl Ben mentioned who transferred to Duke, I knew a guy who transferred to Berkley, and I know another that I think is planning to transfer to Stanford. Many of these people did not have stellar GPA's.]

I never said it was a disaster, and in fact, I give kudos to Caltech for being a lot better than most other schools.

But that's not the point. I'm sure you would agree that people who flunk out or get put on academic probation would have great difficulty in going to another top-flight school. And even that misses the greater point. Those people you cited who are trying to transfer to Berkeley or Stanford, you must agree, would have been better off if they had simply gone to Berkeley or Stanford as incoming freshman.

The point is that anytime any school (not just Caltech, but any school) brings in a student who, for whatever reason, doesn't graduate, that's a problem. It is of course true that no school will graduate 100% of its students. But that doesn't mean that you simply don't try. And in particular, Caltech graduates less of its students than its peer institutions (HYPSM). I believe Caltech should look at why that is the case and whether they can do something about it.

We're talking about flesh-and-blood human beings here who have feelings and have futures. If somebody comes to Caltech and for whatever reason decides it is not right for them, then that's a flesh-and-blood problem.

[quote]
Maybe I'm alone in this, but I was very careful NOT to choose a school based on brand-name appeal. I wanted to make sure that I went to the school that would give me an education best suited to my needs.

[/quote]

And here, alleya, I think you have implicitly conceded the problem. You might not chosen a school based on whether that school would give you an education best suited to your needs. Fine. Fair enough. But clearly, judging from the Caltech graduation rate, quite a few people did not do that. Quite a few people came to Caltech even though it was not going to give them an education that was best suited for their needs (for if they did, then why wouldn't they be graduating?).

[quote]
Maybe so, but there has been a demand for this kind of education for over a hundered years, and as long as there are still students who continue to flood us with applications, I don't see why it's so horrible to keep doing things the way we are. Wouldn't it be better to have many different types of college education out there, rather than half a dozen schools with no differences whatsoever? Who's to say HYPSM are doing it "better"? Why not just say they're doing it differently?

[/quote]

Well, to follow this logic, every highly-demanded school will never have to make anything better. For example, when I point out problems at Berkeley (which I often do), then Berkeley can argue "Well, lots and lots of people apply to Berkeley, so clearly there is a demand, so that means that we never have to fix any of our problems ever. Why should we care about making things better if there is demand for us?".

The issue is not whether Caltech is being horrible. It's about making Caltech better. I am not saying that HYPSM do everything better. However, what I would say is that I doubt that anybody at Caltech would point to its graduation rate vis-a-vis HYPSM and say that they are 'proud' of it. Nobody is 'proud' of having a lower graduation rate than its peers.

sakky · February 2, 2005, 11:40pm

[quote]
Sakky,

It may be easier to enter MIT grad schools from Caltech than from MIT undergrad school itself. Most of my Caltech friends who applied to MIT grad school are accepted.(Normally Caltech students would know whether he/she would be accepted or not prior to submitting his/her application). The number of Caltech grads who get into MIT grad schools (by percentage) are perhaps larger than MIT grads themselves and obviously larger than Stanford or Cornell or Princeton, etc.

[/quote]

I believe this is an unsupported assertion, and in any case, I would like to see the numbers that support this assertion. I would argue that those Caltech students who apply to MIT graduate school are clearly a highly self-selective group and so it wouldn't surprise me if lots of students within that highly self-selective group got in. That doesn't tell me anything about people from Caltech who would have wanted to go to MIT for graduate school but don't apply because they suspect they can't get in (either because their grades aren't good enough, or whatever).

Furthermore, it especially doesn't tell me anything about those people who come to Caltech intending to go to MIT for graduate school, but then don't even manage to graduate from Caltech, either because they transfer elsewhere or because they simply flunk out completely. And that's the real crux of what I've been saying. I have always maintained that Caltech is really really good for those students who can handle it. But what about those who can't? Those students are people too, and it doesn't seem fair to simply ignore them out of hand.

[On the average yes, employers look very highly on Caltech because it's purely meritrocracy, i.e. if you brilliant you're in, if not then you're out. There's no bargaining with non-academic EC like in Stanford for admission. The common exception for my claim is MIT]

I'm afraid that this is a bit of a non-sequitur. As horrible as it is to say, merit and employment are not as tightly coupled as many people think. Surely we've all heard the phrase "It's not what you know, it's who you know". Right or wrong, many jobs are given out for reasons that don't have a whole lot to do with merit. Things like contacts, networking, and brand-name come into play. Stanford people hire lots of other Stanford people because of the Stanford connection. Same thing with Harvard people. The other aspect of the 'game' is that employers might hire somebody from an extremely famous school (like Harvard or Stanford) even if they think that another candidate is probably better, simply because they know that the Harvard or Stanford brand-name is better for attracting clients. I-banks and consulting companies are notorious for doing that - they want to be able to show to customers that they have a Harvard or Stanford guy. Again, like it or not, Caltech doesn't have the brand-name appeal that Harvard or Stanford does. Even if it is in a bullshi* major, the fact that it has a brand-name school behind it gives it customer desirability.

Look, I don't want this to turn into an emotional argument. Caltech is an elite school, I never said otherwise. What I am saying is that from a pure marketing standpoint, Caltech has a weakness when it comes to its graduation rate. Certain brilliant students who might otherwise have gone to Caltech might be off-put by its lower-than-its-peers graduation rate, and end up Harvard or Stanford (or even MIT) for its greater assurance of graduation. And I think it's a tremendously dangerous thing to simply back-handedly dismiss these students as 'not tough enough' or 'not worthy enough' to attend Caltech. Many of these students could have done just fine at Caltech, it's just that they prefer the greater assurance of graduation elsewhere. So the question is, does Caltech want to compete for these students or not? I believe that if Caltech really wants to be the best tech school in the land, it will have to compete for the best tech students, including those tech students who desire that high assurance of graduation. It is not an irrational or "wimpy" thing to want a high assurance of graduation.

rtkysg · February 3, 2005, 10:04pm

LOL! Sakky, I think you've mis-interpreted some of my comments about employment. When I said recruiters looked very highly on Caltech students, it didn't necessarily translate to easy employment. In fact many not so technical companies are driven away from Caltech, nevertheless it still commands highest respect (arguably slightly higher than Stanford) in terms of pure academic achievement.

CotoDeCasa · February 3, 2005, 11:27pm

<a href="http://www.pma.caltech.edu/GSR/facresearch.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.pma.caltech.edu/GSR/facresearch.html</a>

The Physics Faculty and Their Research(caltech)

BARISH, Barry C.
Ph.D., Berkeley, 1962

Frank J. Roschek Professor of Physics
Ph.D., Berkeley, 1980

Ph.D., Chicago, 1982

FRAUTSCHI, Steven C.
Ph.D., Stanford, 1958

GOLDREICH, Peter M.
Ph.D., Cornell, 1960

GOODSTEIN, David L.
Ph.D., Washington, 1965

astro Assistant Professor of Physics,
Ph.D. Berkeley, 2000

Ph.D. Berkeley, 1993
HITLIN, David G.

Ph.D., Columbia, 1968
HUGHES, Emlyn W.

Ph.D., Columbia, 1987
KAMIONKOWSKI, Marc

Ph.D., Chicago, 1991

KAPUSTIN, Anton

Ph.D., Caltech, 1997

KIMBLE, H. Jeff

Ph.D., Rochester, 1978
KITAEV, Alexei

Theoretical physics, computer science
KOONIN, Steven E.

koonin@caltech Professor of Physics, Ph.D., MIT, 1975
Theoretical nuclear and many-body physics
LANGE, Andrew E.

ael@astro Marvin L. Goldberger Professor of Physics
Ph.D., Berkeley, 1987
Experimental cosmology
LIBBRECHT, Kenneth G.

Ph.D., Princeton, 1984
Gravitational wave detection; crystal growth
MABUCHI, Hideo
Ph.D., Caltech, 1998

MARTIN, Christopher R.

cmartin@srl Professor of Physics, Ph.D., Berkeley, 1986
Experimental UV, Optical and X-ray Astrophysics
MCKEOWN, Robert D.

Ph.D., Princeton, 1979

NEWMAN, Harvey B.
newman@hep Professor of Physics, Sc.D., MIT, 1973

OOGURI, Hirosi
Ph.D., Tokyo, 1989

PECK, Charles W.
Physics, Ph.D., Caltech, 1964

PINE, Jerome
Ph.D., Cornell, 1956

POLITZER, H. David
Ph.D., Harvard, 1974

PORTER, Frank C.
Ph.D., Berkeley, 1977

PRESKILL, John P.
Ph.D., Harvard, 1980

PRINCE, Thomas A.
, Ph.D., Chicago, 1978

KES, Michael L.
Physics, Ph.D., Cornell, 1985

SCHERER, Axel
Ph.D., New Mexico Institute, 1985

SCHWARZ, John H.
Ph.D., Berkeley, 1966

Ph.D., Princeton, 1970

SOIFER, B. Thomas
Ph.D., Cornell, 1972

Ph.D., Chicago, 1963
Princeton, 1965

TOMBRELLO, Thomas A.

Ph.D., Rice, 1961

VOGT, Rochus E.

Ph.D., Chicago, 1961

WEINSTEIN, Alan J.
Physics, Ph.D., Harvard, 1983

WISE, Mark. B.
Ph.D., Stanford, 1980

YEH, Nai-Chang
, Ph.D., MIT, 1988

ZEWAIL, Ahmed H.
Ph.D., Pennsylvania, 1974

ZMUIDZINAS, Jonas
Ph.D., Berkeley, 1987

tech_fan · February 4, 2005, 1:03am

The point? This would be true at almost any university. How many Princeton mathematicians are Princeton-trained? (Not many.) Etc.

Indirectly, though, you've proved an important point. This list of faculty includes the most respected names in virtually every field of physics. The opportunity to work closely with such people is available at very few places.

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