caltech's admissions policies are ridiculous

College Search & Selection
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<p>The important point, in reply to TTparent and Colm, is that the total number of applicants wishing to study, let’s say Biology, at college X (out of more than 30 or so colleges) is much smaller than the total number of Biology applicants, which, in turn, is already much smaller than the total number of applications that Oxford or Cambridge receive as a whole for all degree courses (“majors”).</p>

<p>On top of that, students who don’t make the grade cut, e.g. are not predicted to get scores AAA or A*AA in 3 relevant A-levels, don’t even bother to apply (self-selection) or, if they apply, are not considered for interviews. The actual number of applications that a tutor on a specific subject, e.g. Biology, has to review at a specific college, e.g. Trinity, is therefore much smaller than the total number of common applications that an HYP adcom reviews for example. </p>

<p>Note that other countries take an even more drastic approach, which removes adcoms completely out of the picture. That is the case for example in China or in the French "grandes </p>

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<p>That’s why the “fat kid” will never become a star athlete or make it to the Olympics, but I have to point out, however, that most of the extremely brilliant intellectuals I’ve met are very skinny instead of fat (I didn’t say fit, just skinny). Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. I wholeheartedly believe that top athletes’ training regime is something that only the strong and capable can survive, and that’s why they will reap the benefits in their respective fields in life. It is an uniquely American experience to have bred a prestigious academic accomplishment into an athlete’s reward package.</p>

<p>If you couldn’t come to this conclusion on your own, then you simply do not have enough credit to criticize CalTech’s admission practices, let alone be admitted into such a specially focused and rigorously academic oriented institution. I read through the whole thread, and your sense of entitlement, disrespect for people different than you and lack of a sense of reality are simply astonishing. Not everyone gets everything they want in life, you have to deal with sacrifices and make your choices. Perhaps you’ll come to realize that with more rigorous training and intense challenges, or perhaps you won’t.</p>

<p>Best of luck.</p>

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<p>@theendusputrid #58: Student-athletes are great, but a college MERITOCRACY is about academics–in Caltech’s case, selecting the students most likely to excel in math/science/engg at a national or international level. Oxbridge does the same, except within many different subjects (in fact, all admission is conditional on achieving a certain A-level cumulative score). I’m not here to judge the merits of a meritocracy vs. a “well-rounded class”; both have clear, but different, benefits to both students and schools. </p>

<p>A football player has to train very, very hard. Who says the “fat unathletic kid” didn’t spend the same number of hours as an anti-racism advocate online, or in truly dedicated community service pursuits? In my personal opinion, athletic qualities should NEVER equal or supercede academic qualities–instead, they should be judged as a time-consuming extracurricular, just like the theater kids who spend equal amounts of time performing in shows and taking acting/singing/dancing lessons.</p>

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<p>Absolutely not. It’s just that these responses didn’t make it any better.</p>

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<p>f(x)–great username, btw!–I’m confused by what you mean. If an academic institution must necessarily elevate academics above arts and athletics–which I agree with, not to denigrate arts or athletics in any way–how is it far for a recruit athlete to have both academic and athletic quality weighted the SAME? Let’s say academics is +1, lengthy involvement in arts or athletics is each +0.5. Maximum possible credit should be 1.5, not 2. I don’t believe in the contemporary definition of “recruited athlete” where the student would not have gotten in without the RECRUITMENT bonus (vs. just the excelling in sports bonus). That said, IIRC Caltech does not consider extracurriculars that are not related to math/science, so essentially academics becomes +3 with +.25 for first-gen or low-income.</p>

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<p>There’s no such thing as “recruited arts,” not anywhere near the level of recruited athletes. The arts only count as a significant extracurricular, perhaps an oboe filling a niche position–but the orchestra director doesn’t go searching for the best oboe players, or submit a shortlist of students s/he wants admitted (“tipped”) to the admissions office.</p>

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<p>“In my personal opinion, athletic qualities should NEVER equal or supercede academic qualities–instead, they should be judged as a time-consuming extracurricular, just like the theater kids who spend equal amounts of time performing in shows and taking acting/singing/dancing lessons.”</p>

<p>This statement is ridiculous. If adcoms at Harvard gave so little emphasis on athletics in admissions, it ould be impossible for Harvard to have a decent football team. IT would et completely destroyed in every game because it is utterly impossible for Harvard to get a football team (and lacrosse, basketball, etc.) that can compete on the division I level without lowering academic standards for the athletes.</p>

<p>“performing in shows and taking acting/singing/dancing lessons”</p>

<p>The problem with this idea is that there is (almost always usually) no way to prove that the kids who spend many hours taking “dancing lessons” are actually very talented dancers. Wht are you doing to do, ask them to send in a video of themselves dancing? It would make no sense to give a bad dancer just as much a leg up in admissions for her dancing ability as for a footbal player who is excellent at football. Besides, there is no dancing team at Harvard. However, it’s easy to tell if a football player is very talented.</p>

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<p>theendusputrid:
“The problem with this idea is that there is (almost always usually) no way to prove that the kids who spend many hours taking “dancing lessons” are actually very talented dancers.”
You know there are PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS AND COMPETITIONS and high-end dance companies/jobs for top dancers, right? Don’t say what you don’t know.
Each school has a different focus. Top colleges with strengths in math and science, like Harvey Mudd and Caltech, wouldn’t bother with people with less than 720 SAT in the math section. Schools like NYU Tisch and Julliard could care less about SAT’s and sports. Journalism and creative writing schools would care more about English than math accomplishments. The Service Academy puts heavy weight on leadership and athletics. More well-rounded schools, like the Ivies, Duke, Stanford, MIT, etc., would care more about diversity and sports. And guess what? They are all fair!</p>

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<p>"You know there are PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS AND COMPETITIONS and high-end dance companies/jobs for top dancers, right? "</p>

<p>Not all dancers have access to those though. Do you think a poor minority who spends all his time break-dancing and is amazing at it would have acces to these competitions? What if someone is really amazing at dancing but misses out on an award by one place? Then he has nothing to show for all his skill. Compare this to football; you don’t need to win an award to show you’re really good. You prove it with game tape, weight room numbers and 40 times and the like, etc.</p>

<p>The prospect of Ivy adcoms viewing someone who took dance lessons for many hours as someone who gets a leg up in admissions because of tht in the same light as someone who is amazing at soccer, lacrosse, football, etc. is ridiculous. That’s hy none of the Ivies do such a practice.</p>

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<p>“Not all dancers have access to those though.”
Just like not all sports people do. Some public schools do not offer varsity sports, and some schools don’t even have sports. A poor break-dancer who is smart enough would start his own dance club and do gigs and shows on the street or in school. And there are rankings for these prestigious competitions. If you were ranked 20 in, say, Blackpool Amateur division, that would be VERY impressive to adcoms. You can ALSO prove your dance excellency with audition tapes. You may not know this, but there are national and state rankings and track records for high school sports players (ESPECIALLY football). If you aren’t at a competitive level for sports (like state level), you simply aren’t good enough. Trust me, dancing is just as hard as tackle football (I’ve seen so many football players collapsing in fifth position, it wasn’t even funny).
Again, I ask you this, would Yo-Yo Ma, Emma Watson, Michelle Kwan, Tiger Woods, and Warren Buffet be of any use to Caltech? Buffet, maybe, the others, no way.</p>

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<p>Yo-Yo Ma, Emma Watson, Michelle Kwan, Tiger Woods, and Warren Buffet be of any use to Caltech</p>

<p>Tiger Woods was smart enough to get into Stanford and had excellent high school grades and was an economics major. [Tiger</a> Woods: Off the Course](<a href=“http://www.mccsc.edu/~jcmslib/mlk/woods/life.htm]Tiger”>http://www.mccsc.edu/~jcmslib/mlk/woods/life.htm)
If tiger had gone there, Caltech would have received much, much prestige and name recognition. Plus he would have done fine academically. If you ask any Tech admissions officer if it would have benefited the university to have had Tiger go there he will say “Absolutely yes.” It is very uncommon for the best player EVER in a sport to be so academically qualified. Of course, Tech does not have a golf team, but if for some reason Tiger decided to go to Tech and just train for golf on his own eight hours a day, Tech admissions officers would still be ecstatic.</p>

<p>Caltech admissions officers would also be ecstatic if Emma Watson wento to Tech. Evidence: [Harry</a> Potter’s Hermione Aces High School Exams - Emma Watson : People.com](<a href=“http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20219417,00.html]Harry”>http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20219417,00.html)</p>

<p>"Emma Watson has proved the equal of her brainy Harry Potter alter-ego, Hermione: She’s gotten straight A’s on her A-levels, England’s high school finishing exams, a source close to the actress confirms to PEOPLE. </p>

<p>Watson, who turned 18 in April, received her results Thursday. She took three A-level exams: English Literature, History of Art and Geography. </p>

<p>“She’s ecstatic,” says the source. “She worked really hard and she got the results.” </p>

<p>Not only is Emma Watson extremely well-qualified academically, but she has made incredible academic achievements while balancing her rigorous acting schedule. If she went to Tech, Tech’s name-recognition and prestige would sky-rocket upward.</p>

<p>I don’t know why you seem to have such a huge beef with Tiger Woods and Emma Watson; they are clearly very smart and capable and would contribute much to Tech.</p>

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<p>Also, Ivy League schools do not have dance teams, but they have sports teams. Being great at sports helps a lot in admissions because Ivies need to fill up their teams; ivies don’t need to fill up their dance teams because they don’t have any.</p>

<p>Since there are no dance teams at Ivies, there are no dance coaches who can properly and accurately evaluate the level of talent of the dancing on the videos. Your average admissions offier would have no clue how impressive or unimpressive someone’s dancing ability is from a short (adcoms don’t have all the time in the world to go through applications) video. However, varsity sports have coaches for which it’s their job to go through athletes’ game tape and rivals ranking and all that to evaluate talent.</p>

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<p>Sure there is:</p>

<p>[Harvard</a> Ballroom Dance Team](<a href=“http://www.harvardballroom.org/]Harvard”>http://www.harvardballroom.org/)</p>

<p>Yale has one too:</p>

<p><a href=“Yale Ballroom”>Yale Ballroom;

<p>It’s common for colleges to have competitive dance teams.</p>

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<p>A few thoughts in response to a variety of posts,

  1. The Caltech admissions committee includes students, faculty and admissions officers and each application is read 3 times.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Caltech is essentially a place focused on math and science. So if you are an english major looking for a football program (or some variation of this idea), why would you want to come to someplace you’ll be spending 11 hours a day doing math and science? </p></li>
<li><p>Being female, I would never have wanted to get into a school solely because I’m a girl. I like the Caltech admissions policy because I know I got in because I worked hard, did summer research, wrote good essays and scored well on tests. My guess is that people from minority groups feel the same way (but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong).</p></li>
<li><p>The Caltech freshman class is 235-236 students every year. It is limited by housing space and the number of people who fit in 201 E. Bridge (the physics lecture hall) and Gates 22 (the chemistry lecture hall). I don’t think Caltech is interested in having a larger class size than that so the only variable in our selectivity equation is the number of applications we receive per year. Therefore, the only way to increase selectivity is to increase the number of applications. </p></li>
<li><p>I was told by someone on the admissions committee that the deciding factor between applicants is how they show commitment to math and science. I’m pretty sure we’d rather have someone who built a fusion reactor in his/her backyard or published a paper on genetics than someone who scored 100 points higher on the SAT.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>I can’t believe Gordon Moore, Intel Chairman donated $600 million to Caltech.</p>

<p>Should have done something better and cured cancer with $600 million dollars.</p>

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<p>^ I think Gordon Moore is hoping that someone at Caltech will cure cancer as an indirect beneficiary of that $600 million. Maybe even multiple someones.</p>

<p>I’m not even going to respond to the latest lunacy over why recruited athletes deserve lower academic standards.</p>

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<p>@ Phead128 umm… Caltech may have already done that.</p>

<p>[Nanotechnology</a> Based Cancer Treatment Shows How Academic Research Can Make a Difference in Real Life](<a href=“http://www.azonano.com/news.asp?newsID=4722]Nanotechnology”>Nanotechnology Based Cancer Treatment Shows How Academic Research Can Make a Difference in Real Life)</p>

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<p>“*It really annoys me Caltech plays the college admissions game to lower its accceptance rate; it ***ed me off.”</p>

<p>As ^^^^ above, CalTech matriculates 235 per year; it’s how much space they have. So how do they have control over how many applications they receive? That’s the only variable affecting the acceptance rate (since they know their yield after many years).</p>

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<p>Caltech is a tiny school to begin with so of course it’s acceptance rate will be low.</p>

<p>Caltech’s 800 undergrad + 1200 post grad population is a tiny fraction compared to MIT’s 10,000 student population.</p>

<p>Caltech’s $1.9 billion dollar endowment + 600 million is ridiculous huge for a 2000 student body.</p>

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<p>^ ??? There are plenty of tiny schools with high acceptance rates; over 80% is common.</p>