<p>Hi,
I was just looking at the data from college navigator ( College</a> Navigator - California Institute of Technology )</p>
<p>They have the 4 year graduation rate at 76%</p>
<p>Any ideas about what is behind those numbers?
Do students take a lighter course load than recommended? Do they fail or drop that many courses? Are they double majoring so it takes longer? Do they take a semester off and study overseas.</p>
<p>I guess the answer is all of the above, but what is the main factor? Since we are not getting FA, it is kind of important as we think about this.</p>
<p>(btw, Stanford's number is 78%, so I don't necessarily think it is an issue of how "difficult" the school is, if one believes that Caltech is more "difficult" than Stanford).</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Caltech is more difficult than Stanford. No question about that from me.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone takes a lighter course load, if anything, students take too heavy of a course load and wind up getting bogged down. I think they have a number of students that have a tendency to fizzle after some time and need to take a little time off.</p>
<p>Most everyone I know who took more than 4 years did so because of academic reasons or personal problems. Academic reasons would basically go like if a student was doing poorly in a class, they would either drop it or fail, requiring them to retake it next year. This can set you a year back if you do this too many times. It’s basically equivalent to taking a “lighter” course load and stretching your degree over 5 years. Personal reasons were usually like if a students just burned out and had to take time off to de-stress. Also, a handful of international students go back to their home countries between sophomore and junior years to fulfill military service requirements.</p>
<p>As a Caltech undergrad and Stanford grad student, I think Stanford as a whole can be easier. If you can’t quite hack STEM at Stanford, you can switch to majors like “human biology” or “science, technology, and society”. I can’t speak for any other aspect of Stanford undergraduate life though, or why their 4 year rate is 78%. At Caltech, there’s no escaping core math (through DiffEQ) and physics (through stat mech and QM). I’ve heard that core may be changing though. You typically take 5 classes a quarter at Caltech, rather than the normal 3-4 at most other colleges on the quarter system. As you can imagine, having homework sets due ~4-5 days out of the week gets pretty stressful, and makes catching up really hard if you should fall behind.</p>
<p>That said, graduating in 4 years at Caltech isn’t that complicated, and is like any other college. Stay organized, stay on top of your coursework, try to go to your classes as much as possible, and try to get sleep when you can. If you’re stressed out or need help, then get help from your friends, upper class counselor, RA, whoever. And never be afraid to ask for help if you don’t understand something. Honestly, I spent most of Caltech feeling like a total idiot in my classes.</p>
<p>@dauntless9 - thanks for the perspective. It is really useful.</p>
<p>I have said this elsewhere but will repeat it here. Even if you made perfect scores on all your SAT, ACT and SAT II tests and had a perfect GPA, you can struggle at Caltech if you are not organized and efficient in your workload planning and execution. In fact, being able to ace everything in high school without being organized or efficient may hinder you at Caltech because you don’t have the skills to manage the workload. Complicating that, you may have esteem issues when you suddenly aren’t cutting it or may be confused about the reason for this. For this reason, it is wise to develop good organizational and work habits before you attend. After all, what do you do if you can’t cut it at Caltech and have poor grades? Transfer to where? Someplace that accepted you before but won’t now that you have a poor record? Someplace that will take you but won’t challenge you? Seems like the only realistic option is to develop good workload management skills, reapply and make being organized and completing everything on time your mission in life until you graduate. A former Caltech prof I knew in another state told my son, “If you go to Caltech, consider yourself as in prison for the first two years. All you should think about is getting your work done and making good grades. After that, it gets easier.” Not saying being at Caltech is really like prison, but it’s not something to be taken lightly. If you can get through your first two years without a hitch, you’ve got a good chance of finishing in four years, or so I’m told. Financial aid may continue for a fifth year if you need it, but check it out for your circumstances. If your family is paying a lot out of pocket, this may be a consideration. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that it’s not unusual for students who attend this type of school to have never really needed stellar time management skills due to their high intelligence, but if they don’t develop them quickly, they will be in trouble.</p>