any body know how many people apply to Catech this year (Class of 2021), and its acceptance and yield rates ?
Catech is small but supposedly the most difficult school to get in, accorging to Niche. And I see no stats here
at all in these pages.
@chiefironside I think “the most difficult school” here means applicants or admitted students have highest test scores or GPA on the average, not that they have the lowest acceptance rate or highest yield rate. I am just guessing. I wonder what they mean by “the most difficult school to get in”. I do agree that CalTech admitted students or applicants probably have the highest test scores and GPAs on average.
@chiefironside Caltech hasn’t released admissions stats at this point.
My husband attended Caltech’s Prefrosh Weekend with my son. I asked him to report any admissions information that was given out. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a detailed slide, so this is all I heard:
“Caltech admitted 525 out of around 8000 applicants. Sure about the 525; don’t remember for sure if it was 7K or 8K applicants. 52% of admitted pool is female.”
Caltech is not the most difficult school by admissions percentage. That would be Stanford.
The most difficult school headline was based on standardized test scores. In fact, most schools don’t report their middle 50 %ile for the Math Level II SAT Subject Test. Caltech’s middle 50 for that is 800-800, which I would guess is pretty uncommon.
^ Actually an 800 on the SAT II Math II is not as hard to accomplish as you might think. You can get an 800 with as many as 7 wrong answers and a score at the 81st percentile. That said, presumably the pool of students taking the Math II subject test is quite accomplished.
@am61517 I don’t think that’s correct. You may mean 7 omissions and no wrong answers. A raw score of 43 or 44 our of 50 will get an 800. But if you get 7 wrong, then with a 1/4 point deducted for wrong answers, the score would be 41.25, which would not be enough for an 800.
But I could be wrong, so take a 0.25 off my answer here. 
@websensation I agree that the “most difficult school” to get in to should be based more on scores/gpa…the acceptance rates and yields are not always apples to apples comparisons and can be deceiving, especially with all of the different types of admission options (ED I, ED II, EA, REA, RD, etc.). As someone suggested, I would also love to see a list by average scores, but it would take a while to compile that list!!
@collegemomjam If it’s interpreted that way, I am sure CalTech will have the highest average GPA and test scores, followed by MIT. I guess what I was trying to say is the phrase “most difficult school to get in” itself is confusing.
@collegemomjam There are several organizations that have compiled such lists. Most of them are on blogs we aren’t supposed to link to here. Google “colleges listed by act score” or “colleges listed by sat score” and you will find several lists from various years. HYP (particularly Princeton) and UChicago are generally up there with Caltech and MIT.
Here’s a list of est. median SAT for 2017 (top ten) provided by College Raptor (is it okay to provide the link here?):
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/college-rankings/details/MedianSAT
I wasn’t expecting to see Franklin Olin College of Engineering tied with University of Chicago in the number two spot. Interesting.
The link above is just ESTIMATED scores based on 2014-15 data. You’re probably not going to be able to get real scores from this admissions round until school release their common data sets later in the year.
Yup.
Yes, you are all right…I meant it would be nice to see the 25%-75% ranges put right next to each school on the list on this thread. I think there would be some correlation, but there would definitely be some differences.
@sushiritto you are correct. My real point was that to achieve an 800 on the Math II subject test you only need to be at the 81st percentile, and that it could also be achieved with several wrong answers or omissions.
I would say that the expression “you only need to be at the 81% percentile” is not quite correct.
The reality is that the group of students that take that test is so strong that 29% of them get the 800, which sounds totally different. It is not an easy test at all. Average math students don’t take the Matt II Subject Test.
Agreed…My daughter took Math I and Math II…Math I she got a 780 and that was in the upper 90’s percentile. Math II she got a 790 and that was 76%!!! LOL.
^^^Except the # is 19% (not 29%) receive an 800. It’s not an easy test.
No, it’s not easy and definitely attracts the stronger math students. I’m sure the colleges all know this!
Yes, it is 19%…my mistake…
My daughter got 800 in both tests, Math I and II, but she did APCalc AB as a sophomore, APCal BC as a junior, and Multivariable Calc in the senior year.
Where does it say estimated? When I follow the link it says School Data from 2014-2015 for schools with at least 100 undergraduate students? I was just curious.