<p>A student at those institutions. I am a student and it does not matter to me.</p>
<p>I’m a student too, and I’m not sure if I should be feeling inferior to HYPSM students…I felt evermore so at CC before I got off of Caltech’s waitlist and was headed to Duke…</p>
<p>Why should you feel inferior?</p>
<p>^Because that’s the vibe I got from reading all the searched threads. It felt like if you didn’t get into HYPSM, then you’re not worth a second glance.</p>
<p>So you conclude your worth as a person is determined by faceless admissions committees whom you have never met in your life?</p>
<p>I don’t. Apparently others around here do. Heck, girls I’ve dated come from community colleges and the “lower” UCs…</p>
<p>Many of the denizens of these forums live in an e-bubble. I would not pay much attention to them.</p>
<p>the school that you are going to attend this fall, the one and only Caltech, is one of those few schools that results in a “WOW!!!” comment, whether it is in a cocktail party in the upper East Side of manhattan full of Ivy League Socialites, an M&A meeting in a billion dollar deal with Investment Bankers, an Oil Patch meeting in an Oklahoma or Texas Petroleum Club lunch of good old boys, or a Movie Studio meeting in Century City.</p>
<p>You should keep your chin up. You are a very lucky person to have been chosen to attend this very very special school.</p>
<p>Even 90% of EDUCATED people don’t know what or where Caltech is. There’s no way people involved in the film business, socialites in the NYC, energy managers in the South, etc. know about these school. ONLY people seriously interested in academia and people who are interested in colleges in general like those on CC have heard of Caltech.</p>
<p>Only the HYP, Duke, Stanford, Northwestern and perhaps Notre Dame would provide the universal “wow” factor you are describing. These are the most well-rounded schools that have connections in virtually every single industry. Universities like MIT, Caltech, Amherst, Williams or Swarthmore are lopsided in focus.</p>
<p>^^lol thanks? I don’t know…I did get big wows, but 60% of the people I told this to had no idea and some thought I was talking about Cal Poly lol.</p>
<p>Anyways, not the point.</p>
<p>I didn’t learn about CalTech until I began researching colleges my junior year. You’ll command the awe of your peers and colleagues, but not older professionals. It will be another 30 years or so before we all take over, so for now you’ll have to be content with CalTech’s “quiet prestige.” It’s an exceedingly niche school.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure Caltech is well known to a certain extent…
I myself didn’t know about it till Junior year. I knew about it because MIT said it was its rival–“The Other Institute of Technology”</p>
<p>I knew about Stanford and MIT in middle school. Duke and the Ivies in 9th grade (I got to know Duke more personally because we admitted my father who had cancer there…then I fell in love and had A LOT of respect for it). UChicago this senior year when they had their applications soar up like crazy.</p>
<p>Anyways, my point being is that both Caltech and Duke are excellent universities. Caltech is more academically rigorous…and its perhaps more academically respected than Duke. But that applies against, say, Stanford as well.
But places like Stanford and Duke, which have strong academic recognition and sports, are usually more well known due to their all roundedness. But Caltech and MIT and UChicago are generally known to be slightly more “academically powerful” than these universities. But that really doesn’t mean much.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, its about you. I really agree with Pizzagirl: Its YOU who is going to make someone wow. Besides, are you really going to ask EVERY person you meet in your life “What college did you go to?” and judge them?</p>
<p>John117, I realize that you like Duke a lot and considered going there until Caltech admitted you, but please don’t ever put Duke academics in the same sentence as Stanford, MIT and CalTech academics. You are talking a total different level here.</p>
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<p>I’m sure Wharton offers undergrad programs which are top programs, and I’m sure I was referring to Wharton as an institution that offers undergraduate programs.</p>
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<p>Hmm I’m not sure if I agree. Well, for me, me only I say, I suppose I split “Elite Undergrad Universities of America” into HYPSM (level 1) and Brown, Caltech, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, UChicago, and UPenn (level 2). I think a lot of sensible people here would agree with this.
[Top</a> Universities - A List of the Ten Top Universities in the United States](<a href=“http://collegeapps.about.com/od/collegerankings/tp/Top-Universities.htm]Top”>The Top Universities in the U.S. in 2020)</p>
<p>So I personally see no fault in interchangeably using level 1 and level 2 universities in the same sentence. To be honest, I really don’t see TOO MUCH of a difference between levels 1 and 2 for undergrad. I just believe that level 1 has more prestige and little more successful alumni, placement, and awards–just a little more than level 2 universities.</p>
<p>But yeah, to me, the “level 1” and “level 2” universities comprise, to me, the elite undergrad universities of USA. I’m sure a lot of people would agree.</p>
<p>By the way, do you not like Duke for some reason, JA12? You don’t seem to like it so much lol.</p>
<p>I think people here are too concerned about what the average Joe thinks and not what your future employer thinks of your school.</p>
<p>One of NYU’s gems is a spectacular applied mathematics department. The average Joe has no idea of this, but your employer on Wall Street probably does!</p>
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<p>Sigh. Do any of you actually interact with the real world? People in the real world don’t parse universities at this level. They really don’t. Honest.</p>
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Well Duke’s much larger.</p>
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Splitting colleges up into these tiers is pointless, but Duke doesn’t belong there anyway.</p>
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<p>I can see that happening with long-term clients, sure.
However, at that point, they’ve already formed their impressions of you. You don’t really think that if they’ve liked your work for the past 6 months, that the moment you mention you went to Princeton they’re going to be all, “oh, WOW,” do you? They’ll figure you’re a smart guy who went to a great school. And if they haven’t liked your work, dropping the P-bomb won’t mean anything.</p>
<p>Truth is Caltech is one of the best schools out there, and IMHO, definitely better than MIT. The acronym should be HYPSC - C for Caltech</p>
<p>And Caltech is without a doubt better than Duke.</p>