<p>^ perfectly said</p>
<p>A near top student ( few Bs and SAT around 2300 ) with these additional qualifications that show passion - something relevant to these schools- is more desirable and sought after than a vanilla student with mere stellar scores.</p>
<p>A huge, huge buzz word is ** show**. Caltech does a very good job admitting students who’re committed to math/sci/engineering, but I can definitely think of cases where candidates who may have marketed themselves better were successful in admissions where candidates with more raw interest and astronomically more experience in serious science and engineering (who also had good grades and top notch test scores) weren’t. The key is the latter candidates I’m thinking of probably didn’t produce very many things that go neatly on an application. </p>
<p>Basically, I am making this post because having passion is not the same as showing passion, and while some of those who frequent CC may have heard this time and again, anyone looking for fresh info needs to hear this again and again - it’s probably the most valuable message I can give, aside from obvious things like doing really well in school if possible.</p>
<p>^single smartest thing I’ve heard in the college application process</p>
<p>what if you have a near 4.0 unweighted GPA, very high SAT score (2350+), and 5’s on AP Chem & Physics C Mechanics or E & M, 800s on SAT II Math2 and Chem. but you haven’t taken the AMC or AIME and have no extracurriculars related to engineering, math, or science? would that person still have a chance at CalTech with speech & debate as his/her extracurricular?</p>
<p>^Why would you want to go to Caltech where you must BREATHE science and engineering just to survive if you don’t do it now?</p>
<p>I don’t want to be mean but this is an important question.</p>
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<p>HitMan, you’re right that it is an important question, but consider the facts - admissions don’t always work that way.</p>
<p>I certainly have examples of a student A type who puts special effort into acing more classes, retaking standardized tests to get the highest possible scores, with no significant math/science extracurriculars, but lots of others, and seemingly the type to market the self to the school well, and getting accepted over the student B type (one of my friends) who had good stats (almost all A’s, but didn’t care about getting some B’s in non math/sci classes), 2300+ SAT, high SAT IIs, APs in frosh year, and didn’t make it, despite breathing science/engineering, but informally and not taking the time to package these things into something nice-sounding in an application like “published in so and so journal” while he was very capable of doing so. Interestingly, an example of student A turned down Caltech for any Ivy, and an example of student B turned down a very good Ivy for another school.</p>
<p>Sometimes this leads me back to silverturtle’s point posted in several places that working hard to have the best possible padding to the application (even when it comes to trying to ace the SAT) may at least correlate with admission strongly, when most of us would agree that padding is padding, and doesn’t really distinguish future potential in the field as much.</p>
<p>However, maybe I cannot conclude anything at all valid from these anecdotal points - but they do bring up questions.</p>
<p>Not to say any of this is bad - in the end, Caltech admits very exceptional students with tons of passion for math/science, but just saying, there are these data points out there. All in all, I don’t know of a school with an admissions process I esteem more.</p>
<p>… Win at least two Nobel Prizes, preferably in both physics and chemistry.
Although, at that point, I don’t see why you would want to enroll when you could just teach the classes, eh? </p>
<p>So, basically, in my opinion, you’re guaranteed admission when you’re qualified to be a member of the faculty.</p>
<p>I always wondered - does sports help particularly on the college application for CalTech? Its student body is so small, yet it has to maintain sports teams - so does it give athletes a huge advantage in admissions?</p>
<p>No, playing sports does not confer any kind of advantage. Sports teams here are no cut, and take whatever they can get. I play on the soccer team, and this was the first year we finally had a team where we had more than 11 players who had played high school varsity soccer.</p>
<p>Also, if you have perfect stats, EC’s etc. and you come across as a pompous, arrogant know-it-all in your essay and interview, you will be hurting your chances of admission.</p>
<p>^ Well for one, Caltech doesn’t offer interviews.</p>
<p>Any medals in international science/math/tech olympiads will boost one’s chance by at least 60% for caltech</p>
<p>And 72.3 % of all statistics are made up on the spot.</p>
<p>^and 50% of all techers on this site are bad mouths :D</p>
<p>“And 72.3 % of all statistics are made up on the spot.”
Exactly!!!</p>