<p>LOL! Priceless, indeed.</p>
<p>I vote that we teach Platero some good jokes ;-)</p>
<p>By the way, Ben... that was great :D</p>
<p>Ben Golub you make me laugh ^^ btw I thought your name was Ben Gloub until now. I think I misspelled your name once. Sorry!</p>
<p>Kamikazewave, I'm sorry you feel attacked. What I was trying to say is that "it's unnecessary(or meaningless...) to talk about this topic anymore so why don't we (or you? seriously it's you who wouldn't let go) drop it." That's what I was trying to say, rather than attacking you(sure I didn't put it in a way friendly enough, but nor did you in any of your exchange). that's why I tried to get back to the previous topic--is caltech famous? does it matter if it's famous? So yeah, I agree with halfthelaw, let's stop wasting time on this and pretend we're all friends...</p>
<p>Now this is purely a question on English for my knowledge. Is "shut up" very strong in english? as strong as "idiot"?</p>
<p>Lizzardfire, do you go to Caltech now?what are Caltech girls like?</p>
<p>"shut up" is pretty strong. </p>
<p>Yes, I'm a freshman at Caltech (Ben goes here too! He's a senior!)</p>
<p>Hmm... what are the girls like, specifically? I don't think there's much that you can say about them as a group, other than that they are very intelligent. </p>
<p>I suppose I should mention the ratio:</p>
<p>One of the things that's really cool about Caltech is that they don't really practice Affirmative Action, so you get the feeling that everyone here really deserves to be here (not trying to start a debate on AA by the way for anyone reading this...). The downside to that is that because the large majority of applicants to Caltech are male, a majority of admits/matriculating students end up being male (as opposed to MIT, who has something like a 70/30 m/f ratio applied, but through AA has a close to 50/50 admit rate). </p>
<p>Thus Caltech has what we call "the ratio"... roughly 2/3 of the undergraduate class is male (probably slightly more than 2/3). In some ways, it's good (the campus is very oriented towards making females feel comfortable, good dating prospects for girls); in others, it's bad (not great dating prospects for guys).
In general, though, I'd say it's not really a big deal. I don't notice it all that often.</p>
<p>If the question is, "Will I as a female like Caltech?" I can't really tell you... but I would strongly encourage you to attend prefrosh weekend. You'll get an idea of what Caltech is and if you'll like it here. I knew when I visited Caltech that it was the place for me, and I haven't looked back...</p>
<p>I don't really think "shut up" or "idiot" are strong, whereas "shut the f*** up" is. That's just my opinion though. My advise is to be conservative with your language until your figure out what's acceptable in different social groups.</p>
<p>I think the percentage of female students in the frosh class this year is ~27%</p>
<p>In addition to lizzard's comment about Caltech girls being smart, they also tend to be rather conservative. However, one thing to keep in mind is that it's hard to make generalizations about the social environment at Caltech, since each hovse has its own environment.</p>
<p>"In addition to lizzard's comment about Caltech girls being smart, they also tend to be rather conservative." </p>
<p><a href="http://www.mazca.com/b3ta/noooo.gif%5B/url%5D">http://www.mazca.com/b3ta/noooo.gif</a>
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo...</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>Just how conservative are we talking?</p>
<p>not conservative politically... conservative as in, the opposite of slutty?</p>
<p>Edit: isn't that a good thing?</p>
<p>Edit2: If you're looking to get laid, Caltech is NOT the school for you!!!</p>
<p>lizzardfire,</p>
<p>I realize you were not being derogatory with the statement on the M/F ratio difference between your school and MIT. That said, you have made a very meanspirited remark about all MIT female students which includs my DD. She and all her peers that I know match up well with any Caltech student. It is casual non thinking remarks like this that perpetuate the stereotype of females not belonging in math and science. There are a number of factors that might lead to differences in the ratio at the two schools, not the least of which is some don't like the ratio at Caltech.</p>
<p>"not conservative politically... conservative as in, the opposite of slutty?"</p>
<p>Well, slutty has a negative connotation. I prefer 'sexually liberated'. :)</p>
<p>"Edit: isn't that a good thing?"</p>
<p>Being conservative sexually? Hell no!</p>
<p>"Edit2: If you're looking to get laid, Caltech is NOT the school for you!!!"</p>
<p>Oh, I know. Still, it would be nice to meet a girl who's intelligent <em>and</em> who doesn't have what I view as silly hang-ups.</p>
<p>Much of the so-called "conservatism" may actually just be due to the size of the school--as has been mentioned here before, casual hook-ups get awkward pretty quickly when you're living with a close group of <100 people in a larger community of ~1000. </p>
<p>That said, I would have guessed in the opposite direction regarding how sexually conservative girls at Tech are compared to other college students, although there could certainly be House bias there. (No comments from the peanut gallery vill be necessary.)</p>
<p>Akdaddy- I apologize if you feel I have insulted your child. I think hat you misunderstood my post, so I will clarify.</p>
<p>What I was specifically referring to was MIT's policy of affirmative action. What this means is that the average acceptance rate for women at MIT is around two to three times higher than the average acceptance rate for males. (See below for data). A gap that large is not something you can just write off as "girls not liking the ratio at Tech" (You would think that guys would not like it either, for one...) It also kinda doesn't help your argument for natural reasons that MIT admits to practicing affirmative action.</p>
<p>I would love to see Caltech have a 50/50 male/female population. I do believe females belong in math/science (and I can't see where you got the opposite impression). I simply feel that people should be accepted to universities based solely on merit. Caltech has this policy, MIT does not. </p>
<p>These are simple facts, and my feeling that a meritocracy is preferable over a system adjusted for race and gender is just an opinion. It is not meant to insult anyone, it is not meanspirited, and I hope that you can see from this post that it is certainly not made unthinkingly.</p>
<p>EDIT: Found the official data for last year at <a href="http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/2006/c.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/2006/c.html</a>
Male Acceptance Rate: 10%
Female Acceptance Rate: 26%</p>
<p>I think it's fair to say that at both MIT and Caltech, there are a lot more qualified applicants (male and female) than can be accepted. So it's not as if anyone's trying to say MIT girls aren't smart; they clearly are. And I think a lot of us would like to be in a more balanced population. </p>
<p>But in terms of admissions practices, MIT seems to be a little less fair towards males than Caltech, which has more of a system of meritocracy. So for instance, some people who get into Caltech won't necessarily get into MIT, although they may deserve it. This is more true for guys than for girls, as I think the statistics show. </p>
<p>Not anyone's fault, really - at both schools more qualified applicants apply than each is able to admit. </p>
<p>Edward A, I'm not sure you should pre-emptively go "NOOOO" if you haven't been here before and seen what living here is like. Surely political views and "sexual liberation" aren't the only things you're looking for in a school? :P</p>
<p>"Surely political views and "sexual liberation" aren't the only things you're looking for in a school? :P"</p>
<p>Well, let's see. Sex, politics, hmmm... what else is there?</p>
<p>akdaddy -- I sympathize with your feelings on this issue, but these conversations are part of the cost of affirmative action. If you admit group X preferentially, there will always be the hovering question about whether those people really earned their spots as much as others did. </p>
<p>It's silly to expect to have affirmative action (and all its attendant benefits) and also to ask everyone to pretend it doesn't exist to perpetuate the pleasant illusion that everyone got in on an equal footing. That is an Alice in Wonderland world where you get all the benefits of an unfair policy and none of the costs. People simply won't participate in that charade. </p>
<p>And that's one of the strongest anti-AA arguments I know. Many of the people it is supposed to benefit deal with a lot of second-guessing, both internal and external. (I know this is not true of everyone, but if you want evidence, I'll refer you to books written about this consequence.) </p>
<p>The way to deal with that is not to ask people to please be quiet, but to eliminate the unfair scales that create the problem and the accusations in the first place.</p>
<p>One more thing: if you think that it's solely bitterness of rejected students driving such accusations, ask yourself why Yale or Stanford gets so few complaints from rejected men about gender-biased admissions. Surely those people are just as unhappy, on average, as MIT rejects.</p>
<p>Whatever no harm done. I'm also sorry for attacking you earlier.</p>
<p>But halfthelaw, platero is as much of a non-native english speaker as I am. Her English isn't as weak as you imply it to be.</p>
<p>And yeah, telling someone to shut up is tantamount to telling someone "ni dai wo bi zui."</p>
<p>I once took Caltech's stats from the Fiske Guide and Ben's stats and calculated the probability that females v males would be admitted.
Ben-
"the applicant pool splits 76/24 and the admit pool 66/34 in terms of percentage male / percentage female."
Fiske guide 2006 edition, which means these are the stats of 2005: # of applicants 2615. ( These may not be the exact numbers every year but they're close enough) and 21% are accepted.</p>
<p>That boils down to 1987 male/ 628 female applicants
21% accepted--> 549 people
66% male accepted-->362 males
34% female accepted-->187 females</p>
<p>% accepted by gender
females-187/628--> ~29.777%
males -362/1982-->18.3%
Ben attributed this "slight" advantage to better essays and less parental pressure to become engineers/scientists.</p>
<p>But really, that is a huge discrepancy. Almost double. And much like MIT's number! Even though everybody is making this huge fuss.</p>
<p>If anybody can explain what I did wrong. Please amuse me and do so.</p>
<p>Those numbers are about right, but I question your interpretation. The admit rate for girls at Caltech is not "almost double" that for guys at Caltech, if I can still count. It's 1.62 times. MIT's ratio of (female admit rate)/(male admit rate) is 2.6. That's a substantial difference. </p>
<p>To put it differently: girls get a 62% higher chance of admission than guys, on average, at Caltech; they get a 160% higher chance, on average, at MIT.</p>
<p>I think the difference is substantial. Feel free to disagree.</p>
<p>Fair enough.
Caltech vs. MIT. Caltech admissions places less influence over whether you're female or not. Or maybe MIT also has girls applying just for the name as well--> less qualified applicants. </p>
<p>But overall, I think we do need to note that females do have a somewhat significant advantage over males in admission to Caltech. It'd be interesting (or a waste of time) to do statistical analysis over these differences, even with other technical and nontechnical schools. Especially since the ratio of females to males in many other schools are now around 60/40.</p>
<p>And for the "almost double"....well, I did elementary school style rounding. I admit that was really a really rough estimate but it still draws to the fact that Caltech does favor females to a certain extent.</p>
<p>Well, to be completely honest about it, the pure admit ratios are useless numbers. The experiment you'd really like to do is take 100 applications, identical in every respect except indicated gender and pronouns, and run them all through both admissions processes. (It could be arranged so nobody ever saw an application and its opposite gender clone.) Then see whether the gender matters in a systematic way.</p>
<p>Short of being able to do this, we have to rely on observation and guessing -- and claims from committee members (like me) who obviously are not impartial observers. So it's a tough racket. But people will draw what infrerences they will, and there's no way around that.</p>
<p>It would seem simplistic to say that a 62% advantage is due to quality of the pool but a higher rate is due to AA . The difference is substantial and not being privy to all the data will make no claim as to the ultimate quality of the pool. However there are many possible reasons besides AA for much of this difference. If that were not so your institution would have a 1:1 rate since you invoke no AA of any kind. Complex subject that cannot be answered with one line responses.</p>