<p>This is a serious question. Can I just walk into the admissions office and start asking questions regarding the school? I live like 15 minutes away from the school.</p>
<p>Go on a tour (led by a student) and ask most of your questions then, at appropriate times. Stay for the information session afterward and ask your remaining questions to the admissions staff member who leads the info session.</p>
<p>You probably can, but you may not get to talk to anyone too high up. Please be respectful of their time - they are working very hard right now on reading through thousands of high quality applications and support documents that you all have sent in. Admissions staff work goes through cycles, and this is a busy period. And then after decisions come out, they have to deal with all the questions from admitted students and concerns from nonadmitted students, and even more from waitlisted students! They are a friendly, helpful bunch though.</p>
<p>What questions do you have? You can ask them here, or you can go to campus and hang out near the Chandler dining area and ask students. Or do what I did and walk through the department you are interested in and knock on doors and ask the profs and grad students. I did that during the summer before I applied, and was very fortunate to speak with many helpful people. But that can be hit or miss - YMMV. But ask here - that is what CC is for!</p>
<p>Also, just to let know you know, most grad students have a very different view of Caltech than undergrads do (in my experience, at least).</p>
<p>@RacinReaver:</p>
<p>You went to Caltech? I want to know what kind of work that students do with SURF. Now I applied for the high school alternative (SpaceSHIP), I would assume it is similar to that but a lot more hardcore. </p>
<p>Also, in the history of Caltech, has there been anyone that was accepted that had a GPA under 3.5? Also can undergrads take grad level classes as a 3rd and 4rth year? </p>
<p>In all honesty, would the admissions people even bother reading my application if my GPA is under 3.5? They say there is no “minimum GPA” but I’ve seen (so far) no one with a GPA even under 3.7 get into Caltech. I am thinking of doing the early action next year. It is not bounding, so does that mean I can too do non bounding early action for another school in conjunction with Caltech’s?</p>
<p>“Also can undergrads take grad level classes as a 3rd and 4rth year?”
Yes, or in 2nd year or in 1st year, if you’re into masochism and the prof doesn’t mind.</p>
<p>“It is not bounding, so does that mean I can too do non bounding early action for another school in conjunction with Caltech’s?”
Yes, unless it’s changed very recently. I did mit and caltech ea together (not an uncommon pairing, I think) a few years ago.</p>
<p>What sort of work you do as a SURF student entirely depends on the lab you end up in. It also depends on what year of education you’re in and what sort of lab experience you’ve had prior to working in the lab. Generally, the older you and are more experience you have, the more responsibility you’ll be given.</p>
<p>Any responses about the GPA? Another question: is a doctorate degree required to be a professor? I personally want to be a professor when I get older (a lot older). I first want to be a research scientist at JPL (or other similar institutes like IBM, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, to name a few) and get a doctorate of Computer Science while doing that. Now I know, it’s a strange life’s ambition, but that is what I enjoy. Don’t judge.</p>
<p>Sorry: I couldn’t edit my post.</p>
<p>Is Caltech one of those schools that allow for studying sun up to sun down (or even after hours)? Why would I ever want to do that? Because I feel like I have wasted the 2.5 years I been in highschool. I want to learn everything I can at college, I couldn’t do that in highschool. I want to immerse myself with good influence all around; the smartest students from all over the world. I mean Caltech is the Nerd Mecca, analogous to Gold’s Gym in Venice for bodybuilders. I do not want to go to college to party it up or anything; I want to go there to learn. But will I have time to cook? Or would I have to settle for food from the cafeteria that would make me fatter?</p>
<p>If you go to Caltech, you will have the opportunity to study a lot and learn a lot if you would like to. I’m not quite sure what you mean by “one of those schools that allow for studying sun up to sun down”…are there places that try to limit how much time you study? Caltech certainly encourages you to do things besides study (for example, members of a house eat dinner together every night, and houses organize at least one social event each week).</p>
<p>One word of advice, though: don’t arrive at Caltech telling everyone your goal while here is to work all the time. People will think you’re pretty boring. If you phrase it differently, though–saying something like that you’re really excited about Caltech, but mention your other interests you’d like to pursue as well, you will look much better. I understand what you mean by feeling like you need to make up for high school. Don’t worry–even if you don’t spend an excessive amount of time at Caltech studying, you will feel like you’re learning a lot.</p>
<p>Yeah, I should rephrase that. What I meant was that I didn’t want to go to a school partying it up all the time. </p>
<p>The problem now is actually getting into the school. I pretty much bombed this first semester (I’m a Junior) Apparently not studying in AP Classes is really really bad. Man, I do not know what I was thinking. I look back to review and I mean nothing I am learning is hard at all. I think I just aced the final. Man, it really frustrates me so much how things like football and robotics can take up so much time. Only if I matured earlier (puberty hit early, but mentally, it took a while). I know I can get straight A’s but I never took the initiative. I dropped football for second semester, hopefully that would give me some more time to actually work.</p>
<p>Try to keep your grades up for the rest of your time in high school; to be a competitive applicant for Caltech you should have A’s in all of your science classes. A few B’s in non-science classes are okay but not ideal.</p>
<p>Yes most schools would expect a Professor to be a Ph.D., but all teachers/tutors may not have a doctorate. In some schools graduate students teach classes or break out sessions, they are not Ph.D’s yet.</p>
<p>To be competitive at CalTech you need a high GPA. Now, will a 3.5 average cut it? I don’t know and it depends on variety of factors: Like LHC said, your performance in science subjects, they types of classes you have taken (for example a B in an advanced college class as opposed to HS class). Your ability to explain low grades (I was lazy or bored will not cut it), your other scientific accomplishments, recommendations can mitigate the effect of low grades.</p>
<p>As a generic statement, a 3.5 GPA is on the lower side of the norm for CalTech and the more you deviate from the norm on the lower side, the chances get exponentially smaller. That is not to state they are no exceptions, but they would be few and far between and those students would have something exceptional in their application.</p>