<p>
[quote]
*To quote an old schoolmate, "Today's Techers actually think a C is a bad grade!"
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</p>
<p>Hey, I'm proud of my C in ACM 95/100 since it's the first course in math I'd taken since freshman year in undergrad. :p</p>
<p>And, as a reminder for those that HAVE to go to Caltech for some ungodly reason, there's always graduate school. In high school I had SATs in the high 1400s, As and Bs in all my classes (took 8 APs), lots of clubs and all that junk, and didn't get in. Did decently in a few academic competitions (though half of them were senior year, so it's not like it mattered for admissions), and was ranked somewhere around 30/750. We send maybe one person a year to an Ivy, other top school someone went to was Johns Hopkins, and I went to CMU. What amazed me was the number of people I met at CMU which were way better than everyone else in their schools, but I was still leagues ahead of. So, with all that stuff, I sent off my grad school application to Caltech (as well as MIT, UCSB, Berkeley, Cornell, and Stanford) and somehow managed to get in.</p>
<p>And I'll just say this. I'm so happy they didn't admit me for undergrad. While I'm sure the classes would be a bit better for me then than they are now (taking grad quantum classes with Caltech undergrad quantum majors when you're not even a physics person sucks so hard), I felt the teaching I got at my undergrad actually taught me a lot more. The quarter system tries to cram a whole semester into 10 weeks (typical semester being 16-18 weeks), so you're just doing problem sets as fast as possible, not really having enough time to learn what you want to. I really miss my semester system. :( But, yeah, if you don't get in here, don't worry about it too much. Odds are if they had let you in, you'd only be miserable during the years you should really be enjoying what you're taking.</p>
<p>Also, I remember talking to a Caltech alum who is now a grad student at MIT. He missed the trimester system since he felt like he could get more done on it than on a semester system.</p>
<p>Both you guys must be the people I'd sit there in class and get annoyed at.</p>
<p>Caltech just has a really unique way of doing math. They seem to push less about the what's useful of this stuff to you in your career and more of just learning why the math itself works. And I've definitely felt that it's not so much a math/science nerd school, it seems to be way more of a math school since that's all I'd ever do in my classes (the physical meaning of problems tends to be left as a footnote instead of being the focus of classes). That's not necessarily a bad thing; it's just a little annoying for someone that's into experimental work and not theoretical. :p</p>
<p>Thanks to everybody who replied to my question.. I'll just hope that Caltech will find those competitions sound prestigious too :D Unfortunately I haven't asked for a recommendation from my team leader for IAO, which I realize now, has been quite an error.. But, hey, you learn while you're alive..</p>
<p>
[quote]
Quote:
*To quote an old schoolmate, "Today's Techers actually think a C is a bad grade!"
[/quote]
</p>
<p>w00t?? You want to sat that a C is not a bad mark!? Omg I've lived in a delusion all my life.. :P</p>
<p>Anyway, good luck to anyone who applied, I guess the most of us will need it :)</p>
<p>Whoops, hadn't seen your post there lizard. As I said in the thread below (to great extent), I'm in the Materials Science grad option. The one MS class I take each quarter is actually pretty good, it's just all the other courses I'm taking (all in APh/Ph or math departments) are completely non-interesting for me. I think I'm just being hosed by joining a practically non-existent department. :(</p>
<p>My stats: international from the Bakans, SAT 1- first sitting 1950 (CR 540, M 770, WR 640) second 1960 (CR 560, M 800, WR 600), SAT 2 Math 2 800 and Physics 800. ECs are three IMOs, research (published paper and conference), math camp that I organize for students (voluntary and its free for students, this it was 7th camp), vice president of the school parliament (main school student organization) and lecturer for extra classes in my school for two years. GPA is perfect in the top school for mathematics in my country (alumni - about 350Phd and over 300 medal at international olympiads).
Recs are great and I like my essay.
I know that I have low sat score, but I think that ecs are pretty strong.
What do you think?</p>
<p>Reading this post made me really nervous about a few things i maybe should have mentioned in my long-past-submitted application.</p>
<p>-I got a 730 on the Chem SAT (plenty good for all my other schools), however I took it before my first day of the Chem course it corresponds to… I taught my self more or less the entire course curriculum… but the admissions officer’s wouldn’t know that.</p>
<p>-My school is fairly new, and has a decent english/ss sector, but the math and science performance is abysmal. We have no math/science clubs or competition teams at all. Finally this year I helped found a Science Bowl competition team (but not till after i submitted my app).</p>
<p>Should bother sending CalTech an email explaining these things? Will it make a difference or just annoy them.</p>
<p>The one thing going in my favor is that I have a fairly advanced research project to my name…</p>
<p>will having B+'s in some of your english and history classes lower your chances of getting into caltech?
this school is known for mainly math and science, all of which I have A’s in, but I constantly struggle with history and english, due to the sheer difficulty and rigor of my classes.</p>
<p>will this have a huge impact on me if i want to apply to caltech EA?</p>