<p>YouTube</a> - UC Riverside student talk about their first year of college</p>
<p>Go to 2:16</p>
<p>UCR must have offerred him a full ride or they have some program that Caltech doesn't have.</p>
<p>To me, that sounds like a guy who didn’t want to have to compete to be the best. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I don’t think it really indicates much.</p>
<p>I knew a girl who turned down princeton and harvard for university of florida. I’m not saying that picking UCR over Caltech is a good choice in all situations, but it’s definitely a good choice for some–and if most people focused on fit than prestige in the college applications process, we’d all be a lot better off.</p>
<p>There was a guy who was the valedictorian a few years ago at our rival school and he turned down Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Full ride at UPenn, Half Ride at USC for a full ride at Duke.</p>
<p>That isn’t a big deal at all ProteinMan, especially since he only had full rides at 2 schools…</p>
<p>^
Really, do you know what it takes to get in any of those schools and especially Stanford, Harvard, and Yale? And he didn’t get a full-ride from dinky schools, were talking about UPenn and Duke, very prestigious and very difficult to get in schools. The guy had a perfect SAT score and had over a 4.5 GPA cumulative and ranked number one in his class, just shows you the kind of stats you need to have to accomplish all of this.</p>
<p>I think EntropyRising meant that the person’s choice of selection isn’t a big deal. A lot of people would choose a full ride to those “very prestigious and very difficult to get in schools” like Duke and UPenn over HYPS.</p>
<p>Of course getting into these schools are freggin difficult…</p>
<p>“Cal Tech? Is that like ITT Tech?” lol</p>
<p>No offense intended, but I think the guy in the video probably meant Cal Poly, as I’ve seen that kind of mix up happen all the time. For instance, my boss at where I worked after my senior year of high school even got me a job at Cal Poly.</p>
<p>The other question is, if he got into Caltech, why isn’t he going to a better UC at least? UCLA and UCSD are very good schools, and not as soul-crushing as Caltech or Berkeley.</p>
<p>^Yeah, I agree too. A lot of people, even in California, don’t know about Caltech. When I mention that, they think of Cal Poly.</p>
<p>Even my AP Stats teacher, my boss in Starbucks, etc. I guess Caltech is only well known in the field of higher academia.</p>
<p>^
Yeah, my dad thought Cal Tech was Cal Poly. Most people don’t know about Cal Tech because it’s a small school and usually overshadowed by MIT. And when I got my admissions into UCR, I saw this video too and though it was complete BS. How is someone going to turn down Cal Tech for UCR unless he got a full ride to UCR or something. And if someone is able to get in Cal Tech, that person should be able to get in any UC.</p>
<p>For me, scholarship money was pretty big in deciding which college to go to. Although it’s certainly not the same as picking UCR over Caltech, I did turn down UChicago and Cal for UCSD because of $.</p>
<p>Maybe the financial aid award didn’t suffice at Caltech for him…</p>
<p>Maybe UCR was his only safety and he couldn’t afford the private schools.</p>
<p>I have a friend who chose UCR because of some program that would give him a better chance of getting into UCLA’s med school. I don’t know all the places he got into, but he had a lot of choices that most people would see as “better.”</p>