<p>I personally am against the anti-inbreeding philosophy (what a roundabout way to phrase it), but you’re going to encounter it many times if you stay in the academic world. Schools don’t want to hire their own kind necessarily from PhD programs to postdoc positions. </p>
<p>Then again, I have come to find that there is some degree of wisdom to the contention that one should see different departments. After all, often a given department will be hugely colored a certain way.</p>
<p>caltech fails ^.^</p>
<p>Being against inbreeding makes sense for grad school to postdoc. It makes a lot less sense when your talking undergrad vs. grad school. Unless you have a ton of undergraduate research, the undergrad academic experience is nothing like grad school. It’s not like you need new perspectives on how to approach research after a year of research experience. </p>
<p>However, I don’t think this issue should affect the choice of MIT vs. Caltech for undergrad. The OP is way overthinking this. It’s like trying to make an opening move in chess to make it more likely that they can checkmate their opponent in a specific spot on the board. It’s good to think a few moves ahead, but you’re only fooling yourself if you think it benefits you to make specific plans for 4 years ahead. </p>
<p>I agree with LauraN. Academic and social life are really intertwined. Your social life can really affect how much you get out of your classes, especially at Caltech and MIT where you often need to work in groups. I highly recommend that you visit Caltech before you make this choice. The big question is where you feel comfortable, and where you feel will be the best environment for learning.</p>
<p>It’s not a question of whether MIT is “better,” “worse” in academics or even social life. There will be more big parties at MIT, but you really have to carve out your own niche socially. At Caltech, it is so small that I imagine it is a tightknit community where everyone knows each other.</p>
<p>Any undergrad can have any research position you want at Caltech, I’m sure, so don’t make your decision based on the availability of research positions. There may be slight differences in academic philosophy, but I couldn’t really tell you either way because I didn’t major in math/physics. I know the year-long physics lab is really excellent at MIT and would be really useful for grad school in applied physics, but I’m sure Caltech has some equivalent. </p>
<p>As long as you can ace the physics GRE your senior year and do well in your classes, my guess is you would have no problem attending MIT or Caltech for grad school even if you went to a state school.</p>
<p>bump… Caltech > MIT</p>
<p>My sister goes to MIT, she says it’s the leading school with suicide rates. </p>
<p>Have fun lolz.</p>
<p>@WaldoEmerson: Every school has suicide rates (even if no suicide, the rate is 0). According to you, it’s the leading school out of these. So it’s the leading school out of every school. So basically - you’re saying MIT is the leading school. :-)</p>
<p>Although if you had said “she says it’s the school with the highest suicide rates”, it’d mean something else.</p>
<p>@Waldo - </p>
<p>That is not true. Unfortunately, like at every school, there are some MIT students who will commit suicide. Our “rate” (although it feels slightly heartless to talk about these things statistically) is in line with the national average for 18-24 year olds. In other words, you are no more likely to commit suicide at MIT than you are as a member of the general, non-MIT population. While any suicide is a tragedy - and I mean that, as someone who knew people who committed suicide at my (non MIT) undergraduate institution - we are not by any means a “suicide factory.” </p>
<p>@OP - </p>
<p>It’s hard to go wrong with either MIT or CalTech. You should decide which campus community you would like to spend the next four years of your life growing within. I suggest you attend our CPW, and CalTech’s as well!</p>
<p>I’d also like to point out that when the rumor that MIT had the highest suicide rate out of any undergraduate institution started, MIT was mostly populated with 18-24 year-old males - the group that statistically has the most suicides.</p>
<p>So, uh, basically it’s the same as saying that the University of Florida has the most students who wear shorts all year round. Duh, it’s like 60 degrees there in the winter.</p>
<p>So basically MIT accepts the highest rate of mentally instable people? lol</p>
<p>Per these statistics (straight from the MIT website) the Suicide Rates are indeed higher at MIT. Please learn some facts about your own school. k thanks. </p>
<p>[MIT</a> Suicides](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/~sdavies/www/mit-suicides/]MIT”>http://web.mit.edu/~sdavies/www/mit-suicides/)</p>
<p>How could you say it’s higher?</p>
<p>1995-2000: 12.0(national average) 18.1 (MIT undergraduate) 10.1 (MIT undergraduate and graduate)</p>
<p>Besides there is no relevant info from 2001-2010.</p>
<p>The national average for college students aged 18-24 is much lower than the national average for people in this age range who don’t go to college. It makes more sense to compare MIT’s suicide rate to the rate of college students. </p>
<p>It’s no myth that MIT has historically had an astromically high suicide rate and easily the worst in the country, but there are less suicides than there used to be. I’m not sure why this is so.
In the late 90’s, there were 10 undergraduate suicides in the span of 5 years. The Boston Globe reported that MIT had twice the suicide rate (per capita) of the 2nd worst school, which was Caltech. Caltech has had a rash of suicides lately, so I think if you look at the past 5 years, per capita, Caltech is probably worse.</p>
<p>So this topic is probably not pertinent to a discussion of MIT vs. Caltech.</p>
<p>Your source starts with, “Of the 12 schools that made data available…”</p>
<p>Very rigorous. I’m convinced.</p>
<p>heh, because random stuff on people’s Publics is totally a legit source.</p>
<p>I love how all you need is ‘MIT’ in the url for people on the internet to believe what you’re saying.</p>
<p>
Haha, there’s so much “recruiting” of students from UPR-Mayaguez that it has a higher representation than Harvard does in the last couple of MIT Biology classes.</p>
<p>Well, small-number statistics. :)</p>
<p>Harvard is actually the second-biggest feeder to its own program, also. There have been 20 MIT alums and 13 Harvard alums who chose to come to BBS in the past four years, the only schools that have sent more than 10.</p>