People at Caltech v Stanford

<p>I'd been absolutely set on Caltech until someone on the Stanford board made a really valid point. Some of my best friends historically have been focused in humanities. I did GHP (a mini-college experience summer program) this summer, and of my six or eight closest friends there, one was in math, and one was in science. I'd been all set, 110% for Caltech, but now I'm wondering...will not having (nearly as many of) those people at Caltech make it an inferior experience to Stanford?
Also for me to consider/research, I plan to major in physics or chemistry (or astrophysics, but Stanford doesn't offer that). How strong is Stanford in those as compared to Caltech?</p>

<p>Well...regarding Astrophysics, Caltech is one of the best (Today Caltech with colleagues from Cambridge beat</a> Hubble Telescope in resolution).
So, if you are set out to pursue a career in Astronomy-related field, Caltech is one of your better choices.</p>

<p>It's my personal opinion that this is not the case. That being said, visit both and make your own decision. I didn't like the atmosphere at Stanford because although there was diversity, it seemed segregated--I noticed a divide between the "techies" and the "fuzzies" as they call them.</p>

<p>I'm assuming you're talking about the GHP program in Georgia (b/c I went a couple of years ago). If that is the case, I had a very similar experience. Most of my friends were not science either (6/9 weren't), but this is mainly because this is the group with which I happened to eat lunch on the first day. The thing is, personality doesn't necessarily correlate to academic interests: there are a lot of cool science majors and a lot of troll-ish humanities majors (and vis-versa).
Regardless, you will find cool people at either school, and you'll probably have the same "quality" of inner circle friends. The biggest difference, at least socially, is the fact that Caltech has ~850 students, while Stanford has ~6400 students. This results in a pretty significant difference in atmosphere and should be a bigger factor IMHO than major distribution.</p>

<p>P.S. We could always do with more GHP'ers at Caltech. :)</p>

<p>Yeah, GA's GHP. I went in chem. I guess you were before the times of Dr. Wozny and Mr. Eichfeld? An amazing program. The size of Stanford is definitely a turn off for me. I went to a GHP reunion the other day, and realized that about half of the people there, I don't think I ever saw, much less spoke with. And that was 704 people. 6400 sounds perfect only as a square.</p>

<p>haha, yeah.
I went in 05 as a sophomore (in Analytical Chem). We had Mr. Mitchell. It was a BLAST. I'm starting Caltech this fall, and I am so pumped.
Good luck in your application process, and hope to see you next year at Caltech!</p>

<p>uhh, why would you want to be around people who are interested in humanities?</p>

<p>There's also a lot more that differentiates Caltech and Stanford other than Caltech's deficiency of humanities majors. It's true, there are a lot of things that Caltech lacks compared to Stanford, or any other large university. If you really care about these things, you should go to Stanford.</p>

<p>I was analytical too! So much better than O-chem..."add the NaCO3. Let boil. Wait the rest of majors. You have now made soap. Yaaaay." </p>

<p>Off topic, but another question for y'all: What do you suggest I do when I visit Caltech, and when do you suggest I visit?</p>

<p>There's a tour and info session that are good. You can register and see the times here:
<a href="http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/visiting/tours%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/visiting/tours&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>You should visit sometime during the middle of the term (but not during midterms) if you want to talk to students and see what life is typically like. After you go on the tour, you can hang out in the houses if you want (if you PM some of the Caltech students here, at least some of us can get you hooked up). If you visit the houses other than on the tour, you'll see some of what it's like to be a student here, and most kids will give you the straight answer to pretty much any question.</p>

<p>You might want to come during the midterms, as well, just to see approximately what to expect. :)</p>

<p>Don't bother about which school is better for what because they are both essentially equivalent, certainly in name (of course Joe Shmoe probably knows Stanford more often yet when it comes to grad schools/employers there isn't much of a gap), perhaps Caltech is much more rigorous however that may not necessarily be a negative depending on your standpoint. More than anything, I would pay attention to which environment suits you better. At the undergraduate level, imo its sort of pointless to debate who's better for what, however that is certainly more relevant for grad school. '</p>

<p>I agree with adimeola14 for the most part, you have to take into consideration the research opportunities at Caltech. They are excellent and relatively easy to get.</p>

<p>Yes. I agree with everything that's been said and have a few small things to add.</p>

<p>At Caltech, everything is more concentrated, so you are likely to find what you want, if it exists, without a great deal of effort searching. If you want to do research in a certain field, you may have to ask 2 professors to get an offer as opposed to 5 or 8 at a bigger school where there is more competition. If you want to talk about Asian history or moral philosophy, you are likely to know the people in your class with a similar interest. You won't have to seek them out through clubs or other circuitious routes. But there won't be a huge number of them, either.</p>

<p>At a bigger school like Stanford, there are definitely MORE students (in absolute numbers) with any given interest, and MORE research in most fields going on, but it becomes a challenge to find and integrate those things into your life. If you are very proactive and are ready to seek out opportunities to connect with people who share your interests, then you are likely to find more of them at Stanford. But they won't come to you, and you are unlikely to just know them personally beforehand the way you are likely to know a majority your Caltech classmates.</p>

<p>It's definitely true that you are very unlikely to find a dinner table (say, 8 people) at Caltech who all care about the nuances of criminal sentencing or Rembrandt and have read deeply and thought hard about those things. Sometimes I was disappointed by this, because I felt like the non-science interaction at Caltech was sometimes pretty shallow. But this turns out to be true at most places. Admitting better-rounded students does not lead to that kind of dinner discussion.</p>

<p>It's just that at Stanford, if you really care about criminal sentencing or Rembrandt, you can join the Mock Trial team or sit in on a Law School class; you can join an art or literary magazine and meet people with your particular interests. Harvard is an even more extreme version of this. There are many, many more extracurricular opportunities than at almost any other school, but you have to be proactive in finding them and being accepted as a part of them.</p>

<p>So this decision is going to depend very, very heavily on your personality. If you are the kind of person who will actively go out and meet people you don't know through clubs and such just so that you have good, broad interaction, then you definitely should aim for Harvard or Stanford -- places with lots and lots of people and a huge variety of different activities. If you prefer diversity to come to you, Caltech is a better bet. Somewhat paradoxically, it seems that most people who are not very outgoing who go to big (even very good schools) end up hanging out mostly in their major or with a few kids they met freshman year. </p>

<p>These opinions should be taken with a very healthy grain of salt, because I've never spent time at big school except for a year part-time at Princeton (and that's not Big by Stanford or Harvard standards). But nevertheless I feel unusually certain that this post isn't too far off from the truth.</p>

<p>Speaking strictly about chemistry and physics, Caltech is better than Stanford. (If you were interested in biology and computer science, the answer would be reversed)</p>

<p>However, Stanford has an excellent chemE program, so if you wish to pursue that, realize that the two places are roughly equal in the discipline. </p>

<p>Then again, what do you mean when you ask which department is stronger? Strictly textbooks, strictly teachers, strictly research opportunities (and the answer to the last question depends on how good you are), or a mixture of the three? </p>

<p>Textbooks between the two are roughly equal in quality, and so are professors (each school has its share of good and awful), but research is a lot better at Caltech, and it's easier to get in contact with grad students, postdocs, and professors. </p>

<p>But with that said, it might be easier to stand out at Stanford as opposed to Caltech in those fields. I don't know. You need a really deep knowledge of your own abilities, research desires, and professors at the two schools to be able to accurately answer that, which none of us have.</p>

<p>As for social life....that's an even more complicated question. I can't say a thing about which one you would enjoy more without personally meeting you, and even then, I might not have a clue. </p>

<p>I can't even answer that question for myself...and I've spent two years at Caltech, and live a few minutes away from Stanford, and visit there all the time. </p>

<p>Honestly, just visit and attend the classes. If you want to be thorough, do so during a period other than the two admit weekends.</p>

<p>Just the fact that Caltech is so small and affords so many opportunities to its students so readily, especially research, sounds wonderful. I'll definitely visit both, but I'm leaning heavily Caltech. The house system also sounds amazing, and the pranking and elaborate party sets...just so spirited/colorful. And a one sentence honor code speaks volumes. Two more years of high school...</p>

<p>I'm leaning more and more toward chemistry over physics, and more theoretical than chemE or something like that, which is another point in Caltech's favor over Stanford or MIT, since I've heard over and over that Caltech has a more theoretical focus than the others.</p>