<p>I understand that Harvey Mudd College is only undergraduate, and Cal Tech has important graduate schools, but what are other things to know about these two schools (how they are different). Is Cal Tech much harder to get into? Does Harvey Mudd have much more of an inter-disciplinary atmosphere? </p>
<p>What about the student life at the two schools? Similarities/differences?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Well, one major difference is the core. While they both have a science-oriented part of their core, Harvey Mudd includes a humanities portion to its core, which makes up roughly a third of your classes. Harvey Mudd also has the advantage of giving students the chance to take classes at the other Claremont Colleges, which are literally right next to it. Harvey Mudd is also a lot more geared towards teaching. Caltech has more research funding, though, but in both situations the undergrads have good chances of doing research. Caltech also has more facilities like the JPL. Those are the main things that I can think of off the top of my head.</p>
<p>Caltech is more selective than Harvey Mudd (although both are very selective, Caltech is just more so).</p>
<p>Caltech is also more well-known than Harvey Mudd, I'd say.</p>
<p>At Harvey Mudd, the focus is purely on the undergrads. At Caltech, there are more grad students than undergrads. </p>
<p>The undergrad student bodies are of similar size (both <1000 undergrads), though Caltech has about 1200 grad students, and Harvey Mudd has the other 4 Claremont Colleges (the 5 Claremonts have something like 5,000 undergrads total).</p>
<p>Having visited both, I personally think Caltech's campus is much nicer. Harvey Mudd just had really ugly architecture, I think.</p>
<p>Neither of these schools are known for their great social life. They're not party schools. But students DO have social lives. They do have fun. They do things on the weekends (not just math and physics). They have parties.</p>
<p>Caltech has no Greek life, but they do have the undergraduate Houses (if you're not familiar with them, you could liken them to the Houses in Harry Potter).</p>
<p>Both schools have excellent research opportunities.</p>
<p>Both schools are in suburban towns, not too far from Los Angeles.</p>
<p>Although I don't know anyone at Caltech, my cousin is a senior EE major at Harvey Mudd. He loves it. He got asked to teach a course when he was only a sophomore. He's had some really nice job offers already, but plans to go to grad school instead (applying to Stanford, Harvard, Caltech).</p>
<p>At Harvey Mudd, you are allowed to take classes at the other 4 Claremonts, which are all primarily liberal arts schools. This allows you to take some classes with students . Harvey Mudd students also have a requirement for a concentration within the humanities.</p>
<p>At Caltech, I think you can take classes at Pasadena Art School. </p>
<p>Both of these schools are really focused on math, science, and engineering. </p>
<p>Neither school is known for their excellence in sports. </p>
<p>When I toured Harvey Mudd, my tour guide (a freshman, who seemed a little nerdy) described the different dorms: "This is the jock dorm, this is the party dorm, this is the NERD DORM"... hello, everyone there is a nerd. But same goes for Caltech, really (or any other tech school, I guess). When I toured Caltech, my tour guide said he left high school early. Everyone at both schools seemed extremely intelligent. I actually met one guy on the tour at Harvey Mudd that was also on my tour at Caltech the next day (he loved Harvey Mudd, hated Caltech).</p>
<p>Personally, I tried really hard to like Harvey Mudd. I just didn't. But, my cousin LOVES it (coincidentally, when, as a highschooler, he toured Caltech for undergrad, apparently he hated it). The students there seem to love it, but it's not for everyone. Harvey Mudd almost turned me off of tech schools completely, and I almost didn't want to visit Caltech. But I'm glad I did, because I liked Caltech. It seems like I'm not the only one who likes one school but not the other (see above).</p>
<p>Both are excellent schools. They are both very strong academically. They both offer excellent educations. </p>
<p>If you can, I would definitely recommend visiting one or both schools (they're not too far from each other, so if you visit one, it's definitely worth trying to visit both).</p>