<p>hpyscm, Speaking from India - No one here has heard of Caltech. Here are some common reactions from students of my school (which is arguably the best school in the country and has a lot of Int’l placements and information sessions)</p>
<p>MIT - OOOHHHH!!! (The unrivaled champion, where admissions are unheard of. Over the past few years, we have had placements to Harvard and Yale but none to MIT)</p>
<p>Stanford - Stanford’s good for engineering? I thought it’s only good for arts and humanities. (Everyone knows it’s among the best, but not for engineering)</p>
<p>Berkeley - Whoa! That’s amazing man! When’s the treat!! (Solid reputation, but students have gone there before. So doesn’t have that MIT mystic)</p>
<p>Caltech - Extremely prestigious among Science and Engineering applicants, but unheard of among the rest. Here’s an actual conversation when this year’s results came out,</p>
<p>Me: You know, xyz was wait listed at Caltech!!
A: Really? Poor guy.
Me: But it’s Caltech! Imagine if he gets in!!
A: Is Caltech good? I thought he will get in. His grades are pretty good you know.
Me: BUT IT’S CALTECH!!!</p>
<p>HMC is a niche school but pretty well-respected in the engineering community. Lots of my friends were stuck between HMC and Berkeley but in the end it came down to cost. However, HMC doesn’t have the same recognition, as all LACs tend to be lesser-known. </p>
<p>Caltech is pretty high up on every international ranking, in fact topping the list for quite a few, but I don’t think people both international and on the East Coast really know about it. MIT is much better known due to proximity to Harvard and through the media.</p>
<p>GARGGAURAV: I only visit this forum once or twice a year and every time I always ran into this kind of post. Instead of asking this Wow nonsense, you will be better off researching on what you need to accomplish at Cals EECS program. Because the moment you get out of school and enter the work place, no ones really care where you got your degree from, seriously.</p>
<p>Here is my proof: **Google Cares Less About SAT Scores And GPA Because They Have Better Hiring Data **</p>
<p>Calwood - I am sure no one will care about my college after entering the work place. But surely, I will need my college to first enter the workplace!</p>
<p>I know there are people who say that for undergrad, name barely matters. It’s all about what you do in your time at college. I posted this thread recently,</p>
<p>There is clear correlation between the starting salaries of students, and the perceived prestige of their colleges. CS students from MIT, Stanford, Cal, etc. get an average of 90 - 95k, whereas the average pay package of Purdue was 60k. Even Purdue’s highest package at 85k is lesser than MIT’s average of 90k. Also, I need a top tier undergrad school to go to a top tier grad school.</p>
<p>@Calwood, these concerns are legitimate. You get college only once and everyone wants to get off to the best start possible after college, one that minimizes possibly “redundancies”. Decisions made earlier in life have a larger impact than those made later in life, and choosing the right college will perhaps (but not guaranteed) put you on the right track. You could go to Purdue, work at some unknown tech companies for a few years after graduating, go to grad school, and then work at Google. Or you can go to a school like Berkeley and perhaps work at Google right after graduation. Sure, in the end it’s all the same, but the better degree helps you get your foot in the door right away as opposed to later or potentially never. Of course, tech is more meritorious in that aspect, whereas many other professions are not (law, business, academia).</p>
<p>~10 applied to Berkeley from my school (one of better schools in India, but nothing fantastic. Usually send ~3 students to Ivies and Ivy levels every year). 6 got in, and one will be attending. The schools they picked over Berkeley were Northwestern (2), Pomona (1), Cornell (1), and CMU (1). Sure UCB has a good reputation in India, but most people realize that it’s relatively easy to get into… It’s reputation for u’grad is nowhere near top Ivy level (not even lower ivy level), and it’s grad reputation is just about on par with HYPSM and Caltech, Columbia and Chicago.</p>
<p>I agree that prestige is a bad, bad reason to choose a college. Please make your decision based on the college that has the program you need, with the atmosphere you like, etc. Bragging rights won’t do much for you if you’re miserable. And employers know the best schools - those are the people you want to impress - no one else.</p>
<p>But these comments about Berkeley being unknown on the East Coast - that’s insane. I’ve lived in the Phila area all my life. I went to high school in the 70s and even then Berkeley was acknowledged as a top school - perhaps a notch below the Ivies but not far below. </p>
<p>Let me put it this way. I have a relative who is currently a PhD student at Stanford. People raise their eyebrows and go “wow” - they’re impressed. I believe it would be close to the same reaction if he was at Berkeley.</p>
<p>Editing to add: Just realized I didn’t read most of the thread before I replied - so if I’m answering stuff already done with, sorry! lol</p>
<p>Have you seen the FB page for incoming Berkeley students? (It’s a public group so anyone can join). Everyone there seems to be in complete denial about this fact. It’s crazy.</p>
<p>Agreed with SansSerif on graduate prestige vs. ugrad prestige, and jak321 on glossing over “bragging rights” for the overall experience and/or truly better academics. In academia, Berkeley is well-known as the top of the top for >30% of its doc programs and top 10 for 48/50 of them (see: NRC rankings in the Cal Wiki text [University</a> of California, Berkeley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“University of California, Berkeley - Wikipedia”>University of California, Berkeley - Wikipedia)). I chose Cal over Harvard, Columbia, et al, and know many (many) who chose it over HYSPM. That said, as a high-schooler in New England, I wouldn’t have thought to bin Berkeley with HYSPM. I have one odd memory as a 10 year old saying “Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Berkeley, and Stanford are the best schools on the planet,” but aside from that (again: odd) memory, I’d say Berkeley was subconsciously categorized with schools like Middlebury, Dartmouth, UPenn, Columbia… and there’s a moderately large maybe-i-should’ve-chosen-harvard chip on my shoulder to show for it. Still, I do get the “wow! berkeley? let me ask your advice on ‘x’!” response in Upstate New York, so some high-level prestige is still live and well.</p>