What's up with Caltech?

<p>Why have I never heard them mentioned as a target school? They're ranked incredibly high... MIT is a target... I guess I don't know too much about the school - are they considered too techy, more so than MIT? Just curious.</p>

<p>MIT does have a very highly ranked UG Business program (Sloan), whereas Caltech has no such equal benefit. MIT also has a VERY prominent MBA program, which Caltech also does not have the advantage of. Another thing is that Caltech is on the west coast in a very non-banking area, whereas MIT is in Boston, which is definitely a somewhat prominent (if not a top tier) financial city, and it is much more tied into the financial center of the world in NYC than is Caltech. MIT also probably benefits from the fact that recruiters are already coming to do on campus at Harvard which is down the street. </p>

<p>However, I would personally rather be applying as an engineer from Caltech than as an Econ major from UCLA (often referred to as part of the bottom tier of targets/semi-targets), and I definitely would consider Caltech at least a semi-target.</p>

<p>I just read in the Economist something like 40% of Caltech grads go into finance…</p>

<p>Hm, interesting. I’ve honestly just never heard them mentioned as a target school of any form, nor of anyone in finance who went to Caltech. They obviously have very smart kids there - is it just very engineer/science focused? I know MIT is pretty diverse, despite being an “institute of technology” - is Caltech as academically diverse? (Obviously apart form the business school aspect)</p>

<p>Caltech has a very small student body and is not academically diverse at all, even compared with MIT. Very few people at Caltech ever want to go into finance. But those that do are well recruited. Even on Wall Street, Caltech has a good reputation as an academic powerhouse.</p>

<p>Oh ok, interesting</p>

<p>Caltech is not a target school for most ibanks…just look at the student body. Hedge funds maybe</p>