<p>i read on the website that in order to apply early to caltech it is recommended that students should have already taken phyiscs/calculus....</p>
<p>I have taken physics B</p>
<p>I am currently enrolled in cal BC and Physics - C, so can i still apply early even though i haven't completed calculus...or should i just wait until regualr decision to apply( however, i really, really want to early apply..don't know if it will hurt my chances though)</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>In the past, people have been deferred mostly so that we could get an idea of what their first calculus grade would be. So in this case it might be better to apply regular action. :-)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>oh oh :eek: </p>
<p>Hopefully this not too out of topic but driven by mortification I just
have to ask......</p>
<p>Ben, I will be taking Calc BC in my Junior year (upcoming) but decided
to check out EPGY's M040A (Calc) which I went through in 4 weeks
this summer but ended up getting an A- :eek:</p>
<p>Though by the time I apply (2007 EA) I should have done my CalC BC
and possibly the EPGY Multivariable Calculus courses I am feeling stressed
out and really really exceedingly :o about the grade (and
please note this grade does not reflect my obvious
forthcoming contributions of rampant joy and fervour
that I will be flooding the Caltech campus with)</p>
<p>Since I do not have a gender :) advantage that I do at MIT I was wondering
how dimly the EPGY grade would be viewed ??
(every other EPGY course like Precalc and Trig Honors and
Comp Sci are A+)</p>
<p>:confused:</p>
<p>I had an A- in Calc in high school too. I can't imagine this will be a huge deal.</p>
<p>arwen -- your post is beautiful to look at, among other things. :-) A grade that would raise eyebrows is typically in the B range. It's rare that an A- in a subject really hurts someone. It certainly conveys competence, which is all we're looking for. When someone comes in with no grade at all in calculus to date, we don't have even an approximate idea of what they'd be capable of (since it's not so terribly uncommon to see a high precalc grade but a bad calculus grade.)</p>
<p>Arwen15: I love EPGY. </p>
<p>That is all.</p>
<p>Im in a situation pretty similar to Magerie. Im taking BC calculus this year, but its my first year of calculus. If my first quarter grades would be sent to Caltech, should I still apply EA?</p>
<p>bbbuuummppp</p>
<p>With first quarter grades, EA might be a decent bet (then there would be some indication of how you are doing in calculus). The main issue is that Caltech would be very hesitant about admitting someone who hasn't demonstrated a capacity to do calculus. If you have some evidence that you can do it (such as a quarter grade), that hurdle can probably be cleared.</p>
<p>Here's some plain and simple advice:
If you can finish the app in time, do early. If not, do regular.</p>
<p>I wouldn't recommend using how quickly you can finish the application as a guide of whether to apply early. Instead, decide based on how strongly you feel about the school and whether your application will be as strong as it can be.</p>
<p>Hey Ben, I posted a while back about whether i should do Stanford or Caltech EA and you said caltech EA is harder to get into than RD. Im just having a pretty hard time getting over the fact that 36% of EA apps were accepted this year. In your opinion, do you think Stanford SCEA would give me a better chance?</p>
<p>36% at Caltech? I don't recall the number myself, but even so, I would say the EA pool at Caltech is very competitive.</p>
<p>Given that the later applications you do are very likely to be stronger (by virtue of experience) I would be careful with doing the school you want to go to most early. Just my personal opinion.</p>
<p>I'm no expert, but those 36% mean that the applicants were stronger on average, hence the acceptance rate.</p>
<p>As for Stanford vs Caltech...I had the same dilemma, but I've decided to do Caltech EA, mainly b/c I don't really want to go to any other colege, and also because it lets me apply EA to 2-3 other schools</p>
<p>But yeah, you should wait for Ben's advice :)</p>
<p>EDIT: ah well, you can ignore ^this^ :)</p>
<p>I'm not saying DON'T do EA... I just think it's pretty overrated. After seeing this process from many sides, I'm almost positive it doesn't improve your chances in any real way. I suppose finding out early is nice, but you still have to do your other applications (since you find out the early results too late to put off your other applications until then.) One decent way to use EA is to apply to schools you like but not more than life itself, kind of for practice. If you get in, great -- you have (presumably excellent) backups. If not, you've figured out how to do an application to your best advantage.</p>
<p>This is just my personal rambling and different ways might work for different people.</p>
<p>I really agree with what Ben said in #13 (about later apps being better by virtue of experience). You'd be surprised how much better your essays start to sound after a bit of practice with a few other schools. When I looked back at my essays after the whole college mess, I reread the ones I wrote for MIT (applied early), and for Caltech (submitted last, after writing about ten other application essays). The difference was unbelieveable. There was no question as to why I got into Caltech and not MIT. If I were on the MIT comittee, I probably would have rejected my own application. It was that bad.
/end ramble</p>
<p>Don't ignore this part: Practice helps. If you're completely dead set on a certain school, be very very careful about choosing to apply there early.</p>
<p>-Oren</p>
<p>If I wait for RD though, wont I have to compete with all those westinghouse and STS ppl who enter this year? Having no research experience, I might be at a disadvantage against them.</p>
<p>That's true, the Siemens competition and others are conveniently scheduled so that the final results are known before most regular action deadlines. I think the initial judging results (specifically for Siemens, this is) are out a little before the end of October, but even if early applicants could make it it wouldn't be much to show off.</p>
<p>Still, this wouldn't apply to more than a few hundred applicants (assuming that the losers don't talk about their projects), so the competition difference wouldn't be that significant.</p>
<p>So is hoping(with reason) to do well in the Siemens contest a enough to forgo EA? I was planning on applying EA- if I get past the first round, I'd put it on my app. If I got past subsequent rounds, I'd mail the results in as they came. Since you know about regional finalists on Oct. 30, and, in my case, finalist standing about Nov. 10, it seems this would occur early enough in the application process to make a difference. So unless you win, or place very high, it seems that applying early doesn't affect the boost you would get from siemens. Am I thinking about this the right way?</p>
<p>zeta(3) -- that's probably right. </p>
<p>glue -- it's not like we don't know we'll have lots of Siemens and Intel finalists applying. You are only admitted early if we are absolutely positive you would also be admitted in the regular pool, which is a pretty high bar to hop.</p>