<p>btw on my last comment I was just pointing out that i didn't see that the data presented a strong case</p>
<p>i like felipecocco's anecdotal evidence. </p>
<p>sounds a bit familiar... haha =P</p>
<p>I was joking. Dur.</p>
<p>The difference is that at CalTech, everyone is good at math and science, whereas at MIT, everyone is good at math and science, and not completely inept at other things, like grammar.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that Andover is a snobby old money school for people with rich families (I would give some examples, but I don't want to mention the names of any current U.S. Presidents), thus the fact that Harvard is their most preferred college.</p>
<p>
What a ridiculous comment. You're critiquing the grammar of someone's sarcastic post [#9] - someone who not only doesn't go to Caltech but doesn't even like Caltech. </p>
<p>Please, don't be so foolish. You're making MIT look bad.</p>
<p>if mdx has accidentally stumbled upon a sense of humor that certainly would be news to me.</p>
<p>and cause for celebration, no less.</p>
<p>MIT is small enough, but having 200 kids in your grade... seems awfully small. It's smaller than most high schools, too. More individual attention for each student, yes, but I'd feel like I'll be missing a lot of...stuff if a school is that small.</p>
<p>^ Being small certainly has both its perks and disadvantages, and Caltech takes that to an extreme. </p>
<p>It's true that Caltech offers less diversity across the board than say MIT: diversity of students, diversity of classes, diversity of activities, etc.. That's understandably a huge negative to many students. </p>
<p>On the other hand, some benefits simply don't scale to larger schools. For example, the low student-faculty ratio (3:1), the honor code, strong inter-disciplinary ties, complete strength of student body, etc., are impossible to achieve at a school of MIT's size.</p>
<p>Caltech's small size and its intense difficulty for ALL students make it a more difficult choice of school than really all but a couple other schools in the nation. There are risks and uncertainties involved, and a student must be curious, confident, and crazy enough to choose Caltech over other top (larger, less risky) schools. Frankly, that's exactly how it should be, and it guarantees the quality of the students at Caltech.</p>