<p>For anyone has taken this, how heavily does it weigh on acceptances, and is it something you would recommend studying for? Could you give any example of what the problems are like? I'm not super interested in Caltech, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to apply there along with the UC's. If it's a super difficult exam, though, I would rather not waste the time/money for a school I'm not particularly interested in. (Plus, I would still be taking an entire semester of math and physics afterwards. I'm not keen on relearning content after transferring.) If it makes any difference, I would be a CS major.</p>
<p>Do you think the adcoms would be super impressed with your enthusiasm you expressed above about applying to tech? Your admitted lack of interest means tech is not a good “fit” for you.</p>
<p>That’s totally true. Anecdotally, a lot of those people (well, the few that end up coming to Caltech despite being not very interested) end up very unhappy with the tech experience. </p>
<p>Too many people I know chose Caltech because they didn’t get into Ivies/Stanford/MIT and Caltech was the next most prestigious on the list. Caltech is not anything like the Ivies or Stanford and is even quite different from MIT. </p>
<p>It might be that there are some of these people who are pleasantly surprised by the Caltech workload, but I assure you that number is in the small minority.</p>
<p>Edit: To clarify, by “difficult” in my original post I was referring to the workload / classes here, not difficulty of admission.</p>