<p>What are the little things that pushes your decision towards one school?</p>
<p>When it comes to decisionmaking among the cross admits, MIT usually wins a lot of them. So this question will only get you a majority of responses from people who chose MIT which will only bias this poll.</p>
<p>If you are fortunate enough to get into both, make an effort to to think through why you want to attend one of them because it is a choice you should make.</p>
<p>99.9999% ( a percent either an mit or caltech student would understand)of the world can not relate to such a question! it is like asking me if somebody gave me a billion dollars what would I do!</p>
<p>The two locations are very different.
Boston is a better college town than Pasadena, don’t you think?
But Pasadena weather is a lot better.</p>
<p>They are both outstanding technical institutes, but MIT is stronger as a comprehensive, liberal arts university (with top-notch programs in economics, linguistics, political science, and business, in addition to strong science, engineering, and architecture programs). MIT also has the advantage of being able to cross-register at Harvard.</p>
<p>MIT is a much larger school.</p>
<p>^^I agree. Major differences between the schools are are are location, size, and the non-science classes. For these reasons, the schools do have different “vibes”. Both are great institutions. If you are fortunate enough to be deciding between them, I suggest you visit and see where you feel most comfortable. My D had two friends in that position this year – one chose CalTech, the other MIT.</p>
<p>Cal Tech is the inspiration behind the comedy series “The Big Bang Theory”. The chance to study with Professor Sheldon Cooper would certainly make the choice easy!!</p>
<p>MIT? No comedy series yet…</p>
<p>Oh yeah, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is right there too. Choose according to your major.</p>
<p>Its MIT hahaha. CalTech is a wonderful school, but MIT is MIT.</p>
<p>MIT has the edge on prestige, endowment, and probably humanities.</p>
<p>Caltech has the edge on research, weather, student to faculty ratios, and also rankings. </p>
<p>Caltech is part of a handful of American universities which have been ranked above Harvard. (Stanford, Yale, Princeton would be the others i believe) And it’s been ranked above Harvard in more than one ranking (Times Higher Education, USNWR; the only other university i know that’s had this is Princeton, with USNWR, and Forbes.)</p>
<p>
This is often an over-exaggerated benefit. Due to various restrictions, such as the fact that you are only able to take a class if it is not offered or required at MIT, this “benefit” translates to roughly 3-4 elective classes, which is certainly alright, but is not a major advantage.</p>
<p>At Caltech, you will get much closer attention from professors, due to the extraordinarily small student faculty ratio. MIT’s social life, however, will be more varied due to the larger population.</p>
<p>I think the difference is California Blvd vs Massachusetts Avenue.</p>