<p>I don't really know much about CalTech other than that it's a very good school for math/sciences. But, it's also not very racially diverse and the number of males greatly outweighs the number of females. So, what's so great about this school? I'm considering applying RD but I want to know why people love or like this school.</p>
<p>LOWERCASE t. LOWERCASE. It's not a CamelCased word.</p>
<p>PRETTY CAMPUS <3. I love the House system/the cool cultures associated with each House. Plus the awesome math/science-ness. Plus it's small, which I actually don't care much about, but it is unique. </p>
<p>Plus it's as good as MIT etc. except the weather is NICE. lol</p>
<p>My B. Caltech. Whatever. No need to get your panties in a bunch.</p>
<p>I've found techers to be a lot nicer than people elsewhere. Also, despite gripes about the administration, there are a lot of opportunities for students to be involved in different aspects of running the place.</p>
<p>The dorms are the coolest in the world--seriously. If you really want to know what Caltech is like, go rent the movie "Real Genius" (awesome movie, btw). The architectural aspect is also really cool: they have an auditorium that looks like a wedding cake (and it has lamps that look like p-orbitals, just for the record). There's also a fountain that looks (purposely?) like a bacteriophage, and is appropriately placed in front of the biological sciences building.</p>
<p>I thought they were DNA helicase icons! I always refer to it as the gene pool. The lawn next to Baxter (in front of the wedding cake) is my favorite place to just read, haha. Mm, I think the right question would be, "what don't you like about Caltech?"</p>
<p>i like how they have that open door policy, which all the students get the keys to machine shops and stuff. the gene pool was pretty cool. but when i visited,they could use some cleaning >.< there were candy wrappers on the ground...XP</p>
<p>I think mercurymaster was referring to the virus head fountain inside the courtyard of Beckman Institute -- the one that looks like a complicated polyhedron. The big gene pool in front of Beckman Institute (between it and the auditorium) is definitely DNA.</p>
<p>1) awesome people.
2) problem sets are more "interesting" than high school homework
2b) lecturers are better than in high school (maybe this is just in freshman classes). even though they do go ridiculously fast and don't give us enough time to learn stuff.
3) we get better food than in high school. and you don't have to worry about how much it costs because it's all on declining balance!
4) we can listen to music while taking tests and no one will shoot us for cheating
4b) heck, we can get up and go for donuts while taking tests and no one will care. but you might have less time at the end.
5) everything is really close together, so you can wake up ten minutes before class starts and still make it there on time
5b) you will have to walk at most one block to talk to your friends. but most people are a lot closer by
6) it's december and i still walk around in shorts and sandals.
6b) it's rained about three times this term.
7) wall murals! come visit the school and see for yourself. some of them are really amazing and realistic. there are even murals in the tunnels.</p>
<p>I've finally (after three and a half years now) come up with a description of Caltech that I think is both fair, and accurate. This is tough, because for many people, their time at Caltech represents one of the best, and hardest, times of their lives.</p>
<p>That's the trick about Caltech. Coming here you have to understand that if you value anything at all outside of academics (sports, music, art, whatever) then Caltech may well be the most difficult time of your life. You will not only have all nighters, but you'll be able to see those all nighters coming a week in advance. Sometimes people have a 'regularly scheduled' all nighter, on the same night of the week, every week, for an entire term at a time. That's ten weeks straight. This has happened to me two or three times. If you're interested in something outside of academics, <em>you will have a hard time at Caltech</em>. That said, Caltech may well be one of the most brilliant opportunities you ever have. An undergrad degree at Caltech prepares you for just about anything. With where I'm at (graduating with a degree in physics), I've decided that grad school basically isn't worth it, and that I'd much rather go off, raise some money, and start my own organizations. My time at Caltech, between classes, student government, and athletics, has prepared me well for this.</p>
<p>Then there's the trade off. In my eyes, Caltech is kind of like working for Goldman Sachs or some other high powered, fourteen hour workday finance company. You give up a lot of your spare time, and all of the activities that you would fill it with, in order to make sure that you're better off later in life. In finance, that's because you make a ton of money. At Caltech, you're better off for just how much better prepared you are than just about any other graduate of any other college, university, or institute, anywhere else in the world (and many times you're better off than grad students from other places). After all, at Caltech many people start taking classes with graduate students during their sophomore year. At Caltech, were it not for the stipulation that you cannot count the same class towards both an undergraduate and graduate degree, many people would finish all of the course work (and three years of research) towards a graduate degree. That's more than enough for a masters, and sometimes even enough for a PhD. That's how well prepared Caltech leaves you.</p>
<p>The cost is that you'll be at a small school. I mean small. So small that you meet at most 200 new people a year (the incoming freshman class), and out of the entire 850 person student body you'll interact with ~80 on a daily basis (the number of people living in an average House). Sure, you'll meet some summer students if you stick around for those months, but that's usually only another ten people or so. As I type this, I'm staying with some friends for a few days at Stanford. One of the dormitory buildings about fifty feet away has been having a party all night. They stopped around 4am. As far as I can tell, they're having a party just for the sake of having a party on a Friday night. They've got a ton of people, loud music, and it sounds like a great time.</p>
<p>That doesn't happen at Caltech. At Caltech, you never get to attend the basketball game with five to thirty thousand fellow students (thirty undergrad spectators at a basketball game is a huge attendance). You won't get huge clubs to join and meet new people. You won't get a giant campus, with lots of cool things built up around it. Pasadena, as far as I can tell, tries not to notice that Caltech exists. Yeah, there's a street nearby (Lake avenue) with some eating establishments, and another one a little further away (Colorado Blvd) with a mall and other various stores, but it's no westwood (near UCLA).</p>
<p>The number of things there are to do on campus is extremely limited. Sure, there are talks to go to, performing arts concerts to attend, and social hours, but they're few and far between. The Claremont schools have a weekly classical music concert, every Friday around noon. You won't find that at Caltech. MIT does a huge 'independent studies period' where you can learn all sorts of things from (I'm told) blowing glass to how to motorize a couch. You won't find that at Caltech, either. Academic life at Caltech is focused around the rapid-fire pace of three ten-week terms. There's no letting up. There's no 'catch up' or 'dead' week at the end. It just goes.</p>
<p>At the same time, you won't find the House system anywhere else. You'll never find parties where two months have been spent <em>building</em> the party for one night of excitement. You'll never find a place where you can, actually, reliably have seen <em>every single other person attending the school</em>. You'll never find a place with so many opportunities in fellowships, research positions, or just student-administrator contact, per capita.</p>
<p>That's the trade off. That's the opportunity cost of Caltech. If you're willing to attend, and work your way through difficulty and hardship (and some awesome times while you're at it), then Caltech <em>will</em> push you harder than you've ever been pushed before. Caltech will take you past the boundaries of what you think you're capable of, and you will survive through adversity like you've never known. It's hard, but there's a lot to be gained through that struggle.</p>
<p>If you come to Caltech, you will alternatively feel: more tired than you've ever felt before, like you're still second best, no matter how much effort you put in, and you will wonder why you came here.</p>
<p>I came to Caltech to find classes that I couldn't breeze through without even needing to bother to put a semblance of real effort in. I actually came to Caltech to find classes that would hand me my own ass if I wasn't really on top of things. I found what I was looking for, and one of the hardest things I've ever done was to keep going once I found out how hard it could get.</p>
<p>That said, from the perspective of a graduating senior, it was worth it. Because of Caltech, I feel like I can, and am in a position to, take on the world. I know that I can do anything I want, and never fear for lack of a job, or lack of opportunities. Now, admittedly, I'm no longer aiming at academia like I was when I entered. In fact, I'll probably end up starting my own NPO. That's a leap, and a change that was again, very difficult to come to terms with.</p>
<p>So what is Caltech like? It's a choice. It's certainly the harder road. It's a tricky, winding path, strewn with boulders and slippery footing, and you'll miss out on a lot of sunny beaches and peaceful meadows along the way, but you'll never imagine just how far it can take you.</p>
<p>@Michael Woods: eloquently written. it was a very informative description. thanks a lot!</p>
<p>I love the diversity here. Coming from an all-white high school, it was really a shock to see such an assortment of different types of people. But I've really grown to treasure and enjoy the value of different opinions and beliefs in each House. Here are some statistics of this year's freshmen class that back me up.</p>
<pre><code>Asian Indian White Hispanic Black
</code></pre>
<p>Avery 20 3 7 1 0
Dabney 9 1 14 2 0
Ricketts 3 2 20 1 0
Fleming 10 4 12 0 2
Blacker 3 3 17 2 0
Lloyd 11 4 15 0 0
Ruddock 10 10 13 0 0
Ricketts 13 3 16 0 1
Total 79 30 114 6 3</p>
<p>(Note: don't take this as an indication of the make up of any house next year)</p>
<p>Haha on diversity :P Back in HS, it was like "Dang, I'm the only Asian here." Now it's like "Um....whery.e are all the white people??"</p>
<p>Bubbles, what happened to Page on your table?</p>
<p>Sorry- here's a corrected version:</p>
<p>Asian Indian White Hispanic Black
Avery 20 3 7 1 0
Dabney 9 1 14 2 0
Ricketts 3 2 20 1 0
Fleming 10 4 12 0 2
Blacker 3 3 17 2 0
Lloyd 11 4 15 0 0
Ruddock 10 10 13 0 0
Page 13 3 16 0 1
Total 79 30 114 6 3</p>
<p>Diversity is a fuzzy concept. A lot of "official" diversity measures overlook a lot of the diversity that you find at Caltech. For instance, a school can have any number of South or East Asian students, either international or American born, and not become any more diverse by some measures. Tech has a tendency to draw from those population groups where a solid education in some technical or scientific field is most valued and encouraged, and unlike some other schools it doesn't try particularly hard to correct for that by admitting artificially high numbers of people from other groups. This means that you will for instance find more students than you would in the general population whose parents are college professors. </p>
<p>Caltech's policy has one advantage if you are a student who might be subject to affirmative action elsewhere: at Caltech, everybody will know that you got where you are all by yourself without the benefit of special advantage.</p>
<p>I know I'm not qualified for this thread. Not an applicants. But I have to say, I couldn't agree more of this.
[quote]
Tech has a tendency to draw from those population groups where a solid education in some technical or scientific field is most valued and encouraged, ...
Caltech's policy has one advantage if you are a student who might be subject to affirmative action elsewhere: at Caltech, everybody will know that you got where you are all by yourself without the benefit of special advantage.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Out of the Whites, how many are Jews(I'm Jewish)?</p>
<p>Well...do you mean religious Jewish or just Jewish Jewish? In any case, there is Hillel on campus, which, by the time I signed up (at the club fair), already had at least 60 names. Not all of them were froshes, of course.</p>