<p>lol sorry for another one of these versus posts, but ive been very worried lately about choosing between these two. My parents are trying to push me towards stanford right now. My mom wants me to go there because its supposedly the place where students are happiest, and my dad thinks its good because they offer a lot more than just science and engineering incase I somehow change my mind in college. However, i have always been interested in science and engineering and i think its very very unlikely that ill change my mind on this in college. As of now, im about 90% sure that ill want to go into some form of engineering. Pure science seems to be a less likely choice for me because I am more interested in applied stuff. This is one reason why I worry a bit about caltech. From what Ive heard, it is supposedly very theoretical. Then again, I do plan on going to grad school, so will a theoretical undergrad education will be beneficial for me in terms of preparing me for grad school? Caltech seems to offer better undergrad research opportunities with the small student-faculty ratio, JPL, etc. Ive heard that stanford is more of a place for graduate school too. I noticed that their DARPA team is all grad students while you can join Caltech's team as an undergrad. Overall, I guess my two highest priorities for choosing are which college will give me a better shot at my top choice grad schools, and which will offer me the most opportunities and give me the strongest education in engineering and applied science. Any opinions?</p>
<p>You'll have a great shot a top grad schools from either place. In terms of an education, in my opinion it's not worth nit-picking the differences. Both schools have strong programs, anything beyond that gets to splitting hairs that doesn't matter nearly as much as some other things.</p>
<p>Is what will matter much more to you is where <em>you</em> will be happiest. Stanford's students are quite a bit different from Caltech's, and the environments are very different as well. I would visit both pre-frosh weekends and pick the school based on that.</p>
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My mom wants me to go there because its supposedly the place where students are happiest...
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I just want to add that the school where "supposedly" "students" are the happiest is not always the school where you personally will be happiest.</p>
<p>And that I think it's tough to defend picking a school based on extremely broad popular stereotypes.</p>
<p>I don't know enough about engineering to know how the two schools compare for engineering grad school preparation, but what Mollie says is very true; this is clear to me just looking at my own kids. As JD said, the students and campus vibe are really different at Caltech and Stanford, in fact of the schools I;ve visiited with my kids so far (Caltech, Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Yale) Caltech and Stanford were in some senses the farthest apart.
So you might want to (re?) visit both, even though their prefrosh weekends conflict.</p>
<p>crazyglue: Then again, I do plan on going to grad school, so will a theoretical undergrad education will be beneficial for me in terms of preparing me for grad school?</p>
<p>Stanford gives inflated grades... Realistically, your grades might look prettier over there.
And....you can drop classes and not have them show on your transcript. Some kids "audit" classes and retake them to make their even gpas higher.
But I second that the people at both these schools are extremely different.</p>
<p>I'm stuck with the same dilemma...it doesn't help that apparently the campuses are very different. :/</p>
<p>For people heading to grad school as opposed to med/law/bschool the difference in average grades at Caltech and Stanford should be a non-issue if you are applying to a strong program, as the admissions committee there will be used to seeing both Caltech and Stanford transcripts. As Ben posted in another thread, med schools don't do this. An economist might say that they suffer from grade illusion :)</p>
<p>You know, atmosphere and everything might be important for a lot of people but I highly doubt it will make a difference for me. Ive lived in alabama, new york, and virginia, and honestly i cant say i was happier one place over another. Even though my social life here in VA has been very different from the one I had in NY, I would choose between the two only for academic reasons if I had to go through high school again. Also, from my experience, there is no way ill be able to get a real feel for the social environment of someplace from a short prefrosh weekend. I actually spent 3 weeks at stanford when i did their summer EPGY program a couple of years ago, but my opinions toward it barely changed after the program. Its not like i felt it was the perfect place for me or that id be miserable there. I just felt like it was a nice place, and im pretty sure ill feel the same way about caltech after visiting it too. Maybe im a special case but Id much rather base my decision on academics then on anything else.</p>
<p>I have talked to some caltech alumni and they said that any good grad school will understand how hard caltech is and will cut a little more slack on GPA, so im guessing this shouldnt be an issue. Does stanford have a list of where its students decided to go to for grad school this year? The list that caltech has posted seems pretty impressive.</p>
<p>Percentage of undergraduates go on for Ph.D. is much higher (about 5 times or more)at Caltech vs Stanford.</p>
<p>CrazyGlue, I would be very careful when you think you can ignore the environment. It's the single biggest thing that determine if you will be happy or not for four years. When I started looking for schools, I thought it wouldn't matter, and I should just look at academics- but now that I'm here, I really like the atmosphere and am very glad I came.</p>
<p>I've got to make the same decision as well and the fact that both places have their admit weekends on the same days doesn't help.</p>
<p>Everyone keeps saying that the two campuses (and the people at each) are very different. However, no one has really explained in what ways they are different. It would be nice to hear from someone who knows both places well.</p>
<p>I don't know both places well -- only Caltech. But I know a fair bit about Stanford now, because it's one of the places I'm seriously considering for grad school. (Obviously your question is about undergrad life, but I talked to some people there to find out what being an undergrad is like, just out of curiosity.)</p>
<p>Caltech is much more academic, "hardcore", and proud of it. People talk about physics late at night in the dorm and have quirky nerd activities like building a huge and elaborate array of LEDs for a party. People are uniformly interested in math and science. The average IQ is somewhat higher.</p>
<p>Stanford is more laid back, at least on the surface. People don't seem like they're working themselves superhard and are generally less focused on some particular thing. People don't take as many classes as the typical undergrad at Caltech, but the sports teams are obviously much better and there are lots more activities (though there are plenty at Caltech, too). The campus life at Stanford is less tight-knit. At Caltech everybody on campus is within a two minute walk of each other, whereas at Stanford you basically have to ride a bike to get anywhere. That makes for more interactions with other undergrads, I think, and the houses at Caltech seem a lot closer (and have stronger personalities) than the dorms at Stanford.</p>
<p>That's obviously a very superficial overview -- others who know a lot about one or both places please chime in.</p>
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Stanford is more laid back, at least on the surface.
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<p>Would this still be true when comparing those in Stanford's engineering program? If Caltech's program is more rigorous, why is it that Stanford's is ranked higher?</p>
<p>Rankings are a lot about sizes of labs and engineering grants and things like that. Stanford is bigger and so (deservedly) wins on some of these measures. But I think those things are very weakly related to the quality of the undergrad engineering program, which is still harder at Caltech. (Small example: Stanford engineers aren't required to take proof-based calculus or quantum mechanics, whereas all Caltech students are. Not that this is so necessary for engineering, but it makes you smarter.)</p>
<p>If I were an engineer, I'd probably choose Stanford over Caltech, but I think nonetheless Caltech is a more rigorous program.</p>
<p>Stanford's certainly good, but the personality is almost the polar opposite of Tech's (at least, that's the impression I got when visiting). I liked Stanford the least of all my schools for fit.</p>
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Would this still be true when comparing those in Stanford's engineering program? If Caltech's program is more rigorous, why is it that Stanford's is ranked higher?
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Ranking also often based on result of survey of various people's opinions and since Caltech size is small and does not cover all area, fewer people have first hand knowledge about her resulting in her lower ranking in popular surveys. However it is the opinion of those who knows that truly count.
I would say Stanford offer opportunity for student find him/herself while Caltech is a paradise for a passionate pursue of many disciplines based on science.</p>
<p>Ben, exactly why would you choose stanford over caltech for engineering? Just because there are more opportunities since its a bigger school?</p>
<p>Forget about which is better academically. Both are excellent schools with big time reputations (ugh, I <em>hate</em> rankings and name recognition, but sometimes you just gotta (ab)use it). If you work hard at either, grad/med/law schools will admit you no problem.</p>
<p>Caltech can be very limiting both in terms of social scene and acadmics. (A party usually consists of 13 guys dancing around 1 girl). On the academic front, sure it is great for science, but is basically all science/engineering all the time. </p>
<p>Stanford will offer a lot more variety in terms of types of people you will encounter, and I would wager you would be all the better for it.
The most important thing that you can do in college is expose you to many different viewpoints and types of people to understand and digest different perspectives.</p>
<p>Listen to your Dad....every once in a while parents actually know what they are talking about.</p>
<p>As a mom who wanted her son to pick MIT over Caltech, Crazyglue, I'd suggest you trust your own instincts. Parents, while I think we usually have the best intentions, sometimes wish for our children what we wish we'd had for ourselves. Consider what your parents say and decide whether or not it matches your dreams. Its your life, your college experience. My son is very happy he decided on Caltech and in retrospect, I understand why he made the decision(theory vs hands-on, & the small size of Caltech). I hope you have a chance to visit both Caltech & Stanford. The culture of each campus is very different - decide which is a better fit for you.</p>
<p>And an added note: I don't think its so much about which school has better academics, its what you decide to do with the opportunities presented.</p>
<p>Again, I doubt I feel like im going to be a perfect match at either school so I want to look very closely at the academics.</p>
<p>"I don't think its so much about which school has better academics, its what you decide to do with the opportunities presented."
True, but some places present more opportunities than others. For example, I was VERY VERY VERY lucky to have found out about CC when I was a sophomore at my highschool. If it had not been for CC, I would have just done the couple of science clubs at my school, not knowing about Intel ISEF, FIRST Robotics, the competition for elite schools, etc. There is no way I would have gotten into Stanford and Caltech. If I had been at the public highschool I would have been going to had my family stayed in NY, I would have begun research as a freshman, I would have had much more academic opportunities for science, and I probably wouldnt have needed the luck of finding CC to get into the colleges I wanted to. I got really lucky this time around, but I may not be so lucky again when gradschool admissions arrives.</p>
<p>Im trying to choose colleges based on what I learned from choosing high schools. When I was in NY, I was trying to decide between the public school I just described and a private, selective, all-boy catholic school. My main concern was which school was going to give me a better shot at my top choice colleges. The atmospheres at both schools were very very different, but it didnt really matter to me that much. At the time, I only had a basic understanding of how college admissions worked. All I knew was that I needed good scores, grades, and ECs. The private school I was looking at seemed like it would have given me the upper hand in these respects. What I did not know at the time was that applying to MIT/Caltech (Both of which i didnt even know of then) is a bit different than applying to the ivies. Had I known then what I do now, I would have chosen the public school since it offered more in science, and I would have had a decent shot I think at becoming an ISEF semifinalist. My family then moved to VA during the summer and I couldnt choose either. So, Id like to make sure things go differently this time around. First, I need to get a good understanding of how gradschool admissions works for engineering. Second, I need to see which college will offer me more opportunities and provide a better education in engineering. Third, Id like to see a complete list of where people from each school ended going for grad school. The one that caltech has posted on their website is pretty impressive I think. I still have yet to see one from stanford though. If anyone can help me with any of these three things, I would greatly appreciate it.</p>