<p>seriously :D
because it's the bestest place ever,
but only if you like math and science,
and math-and-science nerds</p>
<p>My friend was waitlisted-but he never got off the waitlist…</p>
<p>I wouldn’t mind going to Caltech for grad school. I’m trying to keep my grades up!</p>
<p>i wouldn’t mind going to caltech for grad school either,
infact i hear it’s a better place for grad school,
than it is for college</p>
<p>Yeah, Caltech is probably a better place for grad students than undergrads, coming from someone who went to Caltech for undergrad.</p>
<p>The benefits of being a grad student here are the accessibility of fantastic facilities, faculty, and colleagues. However, for the most part, we lose out on all the “quirkyness” of Caltech which makes it so appealing to undergrad students. The fact the school is 100% science/math really doesn’t matter in grad school, since you’ll only ever be taking classes within your field and about 90% of your time on campus will be spent in your lab (the other 10% trying to avoid it while getting coffee or running needlessly long errands).</p>
<p>I personally found the “quirkyness” a negative and would have preferred to be at Caltech without it.</p>
<p>different strokes for different folks… I think the Caltech social scene is very good for people that didn’t necessarily socialize a lot in high school / didn’t date, etc. It’s a very safe and friendly environment. For people that had a lot more experience, it can be frustrating at times.</p>
<p>Edit: I should note that this is just my personal opinion, and I’m not trying to speak for anyone other than myself.</p>
<p>Very “safe and friendly” is not how I would describe an atmosphere that encourages activities that are essentially hazing and where people get screwed over with disturbing regularity. </p>
<p>My opinion is that the people who felt left out and ostracized in high school are collected together at Caltech and thus they take out their frustrations on everyone. I didn’t appreciate that at all.</p>
<p>Compucomp, if you’re going to make statements like that you had better clarify that your opinion is not the majority opinion of the school by far. If you think any of the houses’ institutionalized practices even remotely approach hazing, it is only because you either have no idea what hazing is or you are looking at a situation through the distortion of your personal feelings about the social scene. </p>
<p>The large majority of Caltech students find Caltech to be a safe and friendly environment. Techer on Techer violence, theft, (or any other sort of crime) is almost nonexistent. For the most part, since a lot of the students WERE left out in high school they are much more likely to include other people–this is why some of our houses contain / tolerate people that don’t shower, have poor social skills, etc. </p>
<p>From virtually every objective standard Caltech is both safer and friendlier than most other colleges. By the subjective standpoint (student opinion) that is the case too.</p>
<p>I don’t know what has caused you to form the opinions you have, and I can’t even begin to guess. The only person I have met at Tech who speaks the way you do is someone that considers himself to be “screwed over” by the house system because he’s a huge ******* and no one likes him. It’s not the house system that’s the problem, it’s him. I suspect your case might be similar.</p>
<p>Edit: I apologize for my strong words, but it really bothers me when people attempt to present the opinion of a small minority as typical.</p>
<p>last year i hung out mostly in house A and caltech was kind of mean to me,
like they posted about me on gossiptron and stuff,
so i knew what they really thought of me,
but that was also because i was kind of socially inept</p>
<p>this year i hang out in house B and caltech is the nicest place in the world,
but it might have just been because i got nicer</p>
<p>it’s a very individual experience let me tell you,
and it really depends on who you are and where you’re at</p>
<p>addendum:
remember you gotta keep in mind,
that this is true of any college,
some people will like it and some people will hate it</p>
<p>i think caltech in particular is nice because everybody knows everybody
(both because it’s small and because it’s collaborative)
which is good for a lot of the people here
because it means you get to talk to more people,
a lot more than you got to talk to in high school</p>
<p>but if you’re annoying to a fault
people will make fun of you more than you deserve
at a bigger school annoying people just don’t get talked to,
but at caltech they attack you on house mailing lists,
or maybe that’s just my house</p>
<p>caltech is like a family,
and being left out of a family can be a lot harsher
than being left out of a bigger group with weaker ties
but if you’re in the family
it’s a lot more supportive than most schools</p>
<p>for me and for most people here (i think)
it’s a good thing because they’re in the family
but for some people it can be very bad</p>
<p>(and if you’re naturally shy or you were a nerd in high school you don’t have to worry,
there are plenty of people who come here who are shy,
and people here still like them and in fact they help them break out of their shell
it has to be worse than that i think)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>oh and it’s not that techers are mean or anything,
it’s just when annoying people are in your house
you tend to come into contact with them more
so it gets more frustrating and you say mean things</p>
<p>it’s a small school and you’ll get more attention than you would otherwise.
the question you should ask yourself is,
is this good for you, or bad?</p>
<p>I don’t have any idea what hazing is? Let’s just say that forcing people to hold pails of water for lengths of time, throwing junk at them, forcing them to drink and “showering” (which is assault and battery really) are quite hazing-like activities. I don’t care if it’s worse than this at other schools, this is sufficiently bad to have people take notice. </p>
<p>Then you have the Rotation and the housing picks process, which involves Houses essentially interrogating and sizing up the frosh and then running them through what is essentially a secret version of a professional sports draft. No frosh are supposed to know that they are being manipulated in this way, but it happens every year. Those are just a couple of examples. </p>
<p>lizzardfire I’m not going to clarify anything, I’m not at Caltech anymore and you can’t do anything to me, like trump up fake cheating charges to the BOC. Perhaps people should get beyond the pro-house groupthink at Caltech. If the house system had a freshman opt-out, it would solve the problem, but it doesn’t, and if the house system were really so great, the proponents of it would have no problem with adding this as a concession. </p>
<p>My personal philosophy is that I want to be treated with respect and I want to be left alone to do what I want. Sounds straightforward and reasonable, but I got neither of those things living in the House system.</p>
<p>are there a lot of liberals, democrats, or atheists at Caltech? </p>
<p>i want to go to Caltech but i don’t want be around liberals, democrats, or atheists</p>
<p>You may just want to avoid college altogether then… especially if you can’t handle other modes of thought, and meeting people with opinions different than your own. Caltech does have a very active Christian Fellowship that would probably serve your needs, but unfortunately for you, like most other colleges in America, we do have liberals, democrats, and atheists.</p>
<p>Have you considered a religious school, such as Wheaton College? I’d recommend Notre Dame, but your post history indicates some hostility to Catholicism…</p>
<p>^^^you can pick into the off-campus houses after frosh year if you really hate the house system that much. (they’re pretty nice and like one block away from caltech, and there are none of these “house activities” that you’re complaining about.) you can even drop house membership, but i only know one guy who’s done that. after all, the majority of people here like the house they’re in. i think, what, like 50% of people get into their first choice house?</p>
<p>i know there are some atheists there but are they very common?</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=banjoman12348]
are there a lot of liberals, democrats, or atheists at Caltech?</p>
<p>i want to go to Caltech but i don’t want be around liberals, democrats, or atheists
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Are you for real? Your average US college is going to have a majority or at least a very large number of liberals or democrats. I would guess that Caltech has a majority of liberals, democrats and atheist/agnostic/indifferent people, and if that’s such a problem for you, then I don’t want you here anyway. It’s one thing to disagree with certain groups of people, but to reject them entirely and “not want to be around them” at all? That’s severely close-minded, not to mention unrealistic.</p>
<p>Obviously the house system is not going to work for everyone. That is why you shouldn’t come to Caltech if you anticipate the house system being a problem for you. It’s not like Caltech pretends that it has a normal housing system.</p>
<p>why would there be alot of liberals there? don’t liberals do non scientific things, there’s a lot of them in the media and politics and they are judges, because you hardly hear about any body being executed these days</p>
<p>I’m going to assume that banjoman is ■■■■■■■■ (as in, his posts are intended to generate a negative reaction and are not necessarily his personal opinion). In the very small chance he is not: Banjoman, if these are your actual feelings, go away. We don’t want you. I say this despite being a Christian and a conservative–idiots are idiots, regardless of religion or political beliefs. That’s all I will say in response to your posts.</p>