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Do really think that when he's applying to grad school, people are going to split hairs between an accomplished Caltech engineer and an accomplished stanford engineer?
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<p>The question is, whether he's going to be 'accomplished', or whether he's even going to graduate at all. My brother (who went to Caltech) knows a number of people who flunked out. </p>
<p>Like it or not, we live in a world where having a degree is extremely important, even if the degree comes from an 'easier' school in an 'easier' major. A lot of employers won't even bother to interview you if you don't have a degree. Most grad schools won't look at you if you don't have a degree. If you go to Caltech and flunk out, they aren't going to care why you don't have a degree. All they're going to see if that you don't have a degree. Like it or not, that's the reality of the situation.</p>
<p>Look, not everybody at Caltech does well. Plenty of students do poorly. Some of those students will do so poorly that they will flunk out. Those students would have been better off going someplace else like Stanford, where at least they would have gotten a degree. Sure, they might have ended up majoring in a creampuff subject and gotten mediocre grades, but hey, at least they would have graduated. </p>
<p>In a perfect world, employers would understand that some schools are more difficult than others and hence somebody who attends a difficult school and doesn't graduate is still just as qualified (perhaps more so) than somebody who went to an easier school and did graduate. We don't live in a perfect world. Instead, we live in a world where having a degree matters a lot.</p>