What is different about both schools? How different is student body, environment, political affiliations, sports and clubs?which one welcomes entrepreneurship and has more humanities requirements, like Harvey Mudd?
A lot of that information is on their web pages. What information specifically are you looking for that is not on their web pages?
I didn’t get the opportunity to visit MIT, but I visited Caltech. I am trying to see if both schools attract same type of students.
Apply to both and compare later.
As both MIT and Caltech are heavy engineering and science colleges, one would expect very similar types of students in their applicant pools. I went to MIT and the people I’ve met that went to Caltech are very similar. That being said, the range of personalities, interests, talents, etc. vary widely within the people at both schools such that there is no typical student (or graduate) from either.
I’ve always found a wider range of people on the MIT campus. MIT has very highly rated departments outside of science and technology (Architecture, Linguistics, Political Science, Business Management even Music). Whereas Caltech does not really. At MIT, a majority of the student will be on campus for a STEM degree, other fields provide a thriving minority community that does not exist to the same degree at Caltech.
From the latest enrollment statistics, of the 11,301 students (grad and undergrad) wandering around campus, ~50% study in the school of engineering, ~17% study in the school of science, ~13% study in the Sloan School of Management, 6% are in the school of Architecture and Planning, 4% are in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, and the last 10% are freshman or other students without declared majors. (Source: http://web.mit.edu/registrar/stats/yrpts/yreport1314.html). So in summary roughly two thirds of the students are on the MIT campus for STEM.
At Caltech, although it offers 7 non-STEM majors (“options”) in English, Economics, History, Philosophy, Business, Political Science, and History and Philosophy of Science, a much smaller percentage of majors are in non-STEM fields, so you get a more monofocused culture for better or worse.
Even the English majors at MIT have to complete the Core, so they are not typical humanities students.
As Coolweather said above, apply to MIT, Caltech, and Harvey Mudd. See where you get in, then decide.