
Why Caltech Is in a Class by Itself - Umalu
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2010/12/why_caltech_is_in_a_class_by_i.html
======
holman
_Many Caltech freshmen got a perfect 800 on their math SAT, while a near-
perfect 1560 combination score placed an incoming freshmen at only the 75th
percentile of his entering classmates._

One of the most interesting things I heard in my first day at orientation at
Carnegie Mellon was CMU's president talking about all the students they
_rejected_ \- xx perfect SAT scores, xxx students with a 4.0, xx
valedictorians, etc. In other words, CMU's perspective is that someone purely
interested in academics (and nothing else) isn't as strong of an asset. I
think it made for a more fulfilling academic atmosphere for the entire student
body.

 _What this means is that at Caltech, there are no dumb jocks, dumb legacies,
or dumb affirmative action students._

I kind of think that's weird too (besides the offensive nature of those
words). Carnegie Mellon has a reputation for being an absurdly nerdy school,
but along with Computer Science it also top business schools, drama schools,
and art schools. That is a weird-ass cross section of human. There's plenty of
areas that CMU may lack compared to other top schools, but I think having a
broad, diverse student body is one of its strongest assets.

That said, I'm trying not to translate much to Caltech itself from this
article since this cat sounds kind of crazy.

~~~
jessriedel
There seems to be a confusion with diversity in academic persuits
(math/science vs. humanities/arts) and non-academic diversity (racial,
socioeconomic, athletic). It so happens that CalTech values _neither_ type of
diversity in admissions (focusing on math/science academic merit, and nothing
else). But the author is really only arguing that the non-academic diversity
is rightfully ignored.

I agree with you that it's a strength of Carnegie Mellon (weakness of CalTech)
that it has excellence in a broad (narrow) range of academic subjects. But
that's not an argument against the author's thesis: the pursuit of non-
academic diversity has a major negative impact on the academic quality of most
major research universities in the US.

(Disclosure: I'm a white Princeton Alum who played one of the varsity sports
which were not considered in admissions, so I took a bit of umbrage at those
athletes who got a boost at the admissions office. Not that I'm a petty person
or anything....)

~~~
Lewisham
Non-academic diversity should never be "rightfully ignored". Universities are
a wonderful tapestry of people, and students benefit by being exposed to
students from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds.

My undergrad university in the UK (Bristol) was/is widely regarded as an
"Oxbridge reject" school, full of those from the upper-classes that were
expected to go to Oxbridge but failed. The private schools (called public
schools in the UK) were outraged when Bristol announced that they would start
offering placements not on academic achievement but on potential, so a
straight-A student from Eton would be evaluated about the same as a straight-B
student from inner-city comprehensive schools where the teaching was
noticeably worse. It was a great idea.

It is wrong, if not _dangerous_ , to evaluate universities by abstract metrics
such as research or academic performance. Universities are much, much more.
They are the student newspaper, the radio station, the sports teams, the
activists, the hackers, the politicians. Students undoubtedly benefit from
exposure to all.

(Disclosure: I'm a white middle-class Englishman who went to a Top 10
univerisity in the UK and now I'm a PhD student at the University of
Californa, Santa Cruz)

~~~
yummyfajitas
If universities are the student newspaper, the radio station and the sports
teams, a 1 in 9 chance of sharing a dorm room with an underachieving black guy
and the opportunity to go to student protests, then as a taxpayer, I want to
stop funding them. It sounds like a huge waste of money.

~~~
jessriedel
Then you can pull the money from Berkeley, I guess. Other than that, the large
majority of the very-top-tier schools are private. Yes, they receive public
money for research, but the undergraduate "experience" is funded by tuition,
endowment, and donations.

Still, I agree. This seems like a fantastically inefficient way to meet people
with different backgrounds.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Roughly half the public money for "research" is actually pocketed by the
university and spent on education/administration/etc (the university calls it
"overhead"). This is a dirty little secret of science funding - a big chunk of
it isn't funding science at all, but is merely a subsidy for big research
colleges.

Also, even tuitions at private colleges are massively subsidized - the
subsidies just follow the students (e.g., subsidized student loans, need-based
aid, etc).

------
carpdiem
I went to Caltech recently, and I feel I should weigh in on this.

The author of the article spends an unfortunate amount of time talking about
SAT and AP scores, as if that's all that Tech cares about. Having served on an
institute committee to decide the direction of the Admissions office, I can
assure you that this simply isn't true. Caltech's sky-high SAT and AP scores
aren't an end in and of themselves, they're simply a side-effect. Caltech
looks, more than anything else, for a demonstrated passion for math and
science. Near-perfect SAT and AP scores are just a check box on the way to
demonstrating a true passion and ability for math and science.

And that's really key, because a perfect GPA, SAT & AP scores, and great
teacher recommendations isn't enough to get in. There has to be something
more. Usually that 'something more' is independent work in a research lab,
science competition, personal projects, or somesuch, and so the incoming class
at Caltech is never just people who know how to get good grades and do nothing
else, but a crowd of voracious achievers, many of whom have spent their lives
figuring out how to push themselves harder and faster towards their passions
than allotted for by whatever system they were raised in. To characterize them
otherwise is a mistake.

~~~
bioh42_2
Would you admit someone with a fascinating and very impressive personal
project who also clearly hates school and barely got C- in all subjects
including math and science?

~~~
kenjackson
Why would anyone? If they clearly hate school it seems like a mistake to try
to entice them -- and an acceptance to CalTech may place undue pressure on
them from family.

I'd reject with a note, "This student may excel, but not in a university
setting".

~~~
bioh42_2
_Why would anyone? If they clearly hate school it seems like a mistake to try
to entice them_

I think this is an admission that college, and defiantly CalTech is not about
knowledge but academics, and the two are not the same. Imho, academics is also
not the same as learning.

~~~
kenjackson
Could you expand? This doesn't compute to me, so maybe I'm missing something.
Caltech is a school. It is structered as a school. If you hate school, why go
to school? There are other ways to learn, and if I'm a Caltech admissions
officer I already reject a full class of students who would love to attend and
have great qualifications. So why accept someone who would neither want to
attend, and probably shouldn't.

~~~
bioh42_2
Well to me the most valuable things are knowledge, practice and discovery.
After all that is how progress is made. And we study hard to be able to make
discoveries and do things which will change the world.

And I firmly believe that almost all studying is at its core autodidacty. You
get out of college what you put into it.

That is to say, self-motivation is necessary to acquire knowledge in and out
of a formal academic setting.

But clearly where you are and who your peers are, is a huge influence on the
human social animal. And because you might love learning but hate the rather
heavy hand of authority at the pre-college education level, you might still
want to co to college.

Specifically, potential to change the world may be intimately related to an
almost pathological love of reason and hatred of unreasonable rules, methods,
approaches and behavior.

I _believe_ Caltech wants students who will do great things. But I may be
wrong? That may not be the goal, actually I am quite certain that is not the
_only_ goal.

The way Caltech evaluates students is by using a proxy of academics. There are
other proxies but clearly formal schooling is a main component of the
evaluation proxy.

I will not go into the proven dangers of optimizing the proxy instead of the
thing that the proxy is proxy-ing for.

School prior to college is well known to not just impart knowledge but also
things like arbitrary rules and enforced discipline over agreed upon
cooperation, etc.

College has some of that as well, although much less so then pre-college
education.

Assuming someone has proven both a disdain for formal schooling and also a
love of learning, knowledge, and scientific discovery, we could speculate that
is a person with an extreme love of logic and hatred of lack of logic, who
might to well in an environment with more knowledge and less B.S.

We all know anecdotes about great geniuses and the trouble they got in at
school. Beyond that there is a lot of formal work done on "gifted" children
and learning environments.

So an argument could be made that exceptional academic success at the pre-
college level is a _bad_ predictor of truly exceptional success in changing
the world.

But I don't think formal academic success is just a proxy for Caltech. I think
Caltech is specifically looking for kids who will _work well within the
system_.

Caltech's filter for students proven to do exceptionally well within the
academic systems is I suspect a goal in itself.

Actually I find Caltech's laser like focus on proven academic success
refreshing. Because it is honest, open and complete.

Other schools make use of the same proxy but don't do it as well as Caltech.

So in my opinion, Caltech is pursuing a low risk/high reward strategy of
potential Nobel prize winners who don't make a lot of trouble in school and
don't tax their advisor's schedule too much.

There is an alternative slightly higher risk which might have a better chance
of picking up real-far outliers.

tl;dr: Does Caltech value academic potential over intellectual potential?

------
tzs
It's a common misconception that humanities and social science is second rate
at Caltech. It's true you wouldn't go to Caltech to get a degree in political
science--but that's not because the political science professors there are
weak. It's because there aren't enough of them for a broad program--but most
of the professors are first rate in their area.

For instance, when I was a student there, they had a professor, Edwin Munger,
who was a professor of Geography. He was one of the world's leading
authorities on Africa. He taught a popular class on Africa. The lectures were
held in his office, which was big enough to comfortably hold a dozen or so
students. Adjoining his office was his personal library of materials on Africa
--one of the best collections of African research material in the world.

His classes were particularly interesting because he frequently would have
guests speak and take questions. One week, the guest might be his good
personal friend, the President or Emperor or Dictator of some African country.
Then, a few weeks later, the guest might be his good personal friends, the
leader of the revolutionary army trying to overthrow the aforementioned
President. Munger knew nearly every important leader in Africa on both sides
of most significant conflicts, and was close friends with many of them. When
they would visit the US, they would often swing by Pasadena to visit him.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
In case anyone is keeping track, stuff like this is why it's still worthwhile
to go to college, IF you can get into a good one. Not saying that there's no
benefit to a middle-tier college, but you'd be hard-pressed to argue that you
can replace an experience like the one posted above with a stack of textbooks
and an account on a Blackboard site.

------
quanticle
/ _Older readers know how the leading American universities, which had risen
to world-class status by the 1930s and 1940s, were upended by the traumatic
campus events of the late 1960s and their aftermath. Riots and boycotts by
student radicals, the decline in core curriculum requirements, the loss of
nerve by university presidents and administrators, galloping grade inflation,
together with the influence on research and learning of such radical campus
ideological fads as Marxism, deconstructionism, and radical feminism all
contributed to the declining quality of America's best institutions from what
they had been in the middle years of the 20th century._ /

Er, what? I'm not following any of the author's points here. The introductory
paragraphs read as a barely coherent rant against every major event that's
occurred on university campuses since the 1950s. While I agree that not
everything has been to the benefit of academics, I definitely disagree with
the author's point that American universities reached their peak prior to
World War 2. Pre-war, there were institutions in Europe and Britain that could
match American universities; post-war, American universities were far ahead of
the rest.

~~~
jessriedel
The author clearly has an axe to grind. I suggest just skipping the
introductory paragraph and concentrating on the main claim: the pursuit of
non-academic diversity has a major negative impact on the academic quality of
most major research universities in the US, but CalTech is rare in resisting
this.

~~~
Alex3917
"The pursuit of non-academic diversity has a major negative impact on the
academic quality of most major research universities in the US"

I haven't read the book these claims are based on, but a Harvard professor
wrote what looks like a pretty thorough debunking here:

[http://www.row2k.com/features/print_feature.cfm?id=82&ty...](http://www.row2k.com/features/print_feature.cfm?id=82&type=Story)

------
WalterBright
I attended Caltech in the 70's, and the article is accurate. I was told by
older students that there had been efforts by outsiders to get the students to
stage protests, but that the students had ignored them with "but I've got to
get to class!"

My SAT scores were lower than those cited in the article, but were average for
my freshman class (750/640). I understand that there has been inflation in the
SAT scoring system since.

One thing not mentioned was Caltech's attitude towards students who were
accepted. Once they were in, they were in. You could flunk and fail
repeatedly, and Caltech was always ready to let you have another go, even a
decade later. I know students who dropped out and were welcomed back a decade
later to finish.

I lucked out in going to Caltech. The way the college was run fit my attitudes
completely. The administration always treated the students like sentient,
responsible adults (even when we behaved badly) and by and large the students
responded by acting like adults. For example, professors were not allowed to
take attendance at lecture. The students could show up or not, their choice.
Grades were determined by the midterm and final, which of course were given on
the honor system.

The students liked the system, and if you broke the honor system you were
ostracized. Nobody cheated that I knew of the entire 4 years I was there.

~~~
HistoryInAction
Walter, are you in the Bay Area? If so, you should totally check out our
alumni happy hours :)

Hear! Hear! to the 'once a Techer, always a Techer' mentality.

The other key thing about the honor code was the lack of proctored exams. I
took most of my frosh ones at 3 am in the student SciFi library (SPECTRE, ftw)

~~~
WalterBright
I'm in the Seattle area. The Caltech alum community here is pretty small :-(

I read with bemusement the various articles and laments about rampant cheating
in colleges. And yet this cheating was completely absent at Caltech. Even the
failing students did not cheat, it never occurred to them.

Perhaps that's also why I place no value on my piece of paper degree or GPA. I
think it's moldering in the basement somewhere. What I value is the experience
at Caltech and what I learned there. Reading the catalog of what classes I
could take next semester was like picking which dessert you wanted at a
banquet; the only regret was my stomach was only so large. Cheating would have
gotten me nothing that I wanted.

I also read about students complaining that their college courses aren't
"relevant", who wonder what the point is, that they'll never use that
knowledge, etc., then graduate and wonder why they can't get a job. It seems
pretty obvious to me why they can't.

------
enerene
I graduated from Caltech in '08. White, female, 3-sport athlete, SAT scores M
660/V 730. That's not a typo, I scored a 1390 on my SATs

In my application I wrote about my experience in high school athletics and I
obviously wasn't put in the reject pile. I also expressed my desire to be at a
college where everyone was focused on learning, unlike at the underachieving
public school I attended. That's the type of student Caltech is looking for:
passionate about learning and STEM. While that usually translates to perfect
SAT scores, an 800 in math is not a requirement.

The author stresses numbers because those are measurable and easily
comparable, leading to the easy critique that numbers aren't everything. As in
my case, Caltech admissions agrees, and the result is an incredibly diverse
population considering how focused the school is academically and how small
the classes are. A guy in my class designed and built a bridge in his home
town. I knew kids who were home-schooled and who were champion ballroom
dancers.

BTW My junior year we broke the women's basketball team's 10-year losing
streak. One win of that magnitude trumps any winning season in my book.

------
sjsivak
I think it is awesome that Cal Tech is so singularly focused on academics, it
shows serious devotion.

However, I think most people would agree that academics are not the only thing
that matters for success, either personally or professionally.

~~~
yters
Why can't school be mostly focused on academics? It's hard to excel without
focus.

~~~
samtp
The biggest benefit of going to a public high school in the DC area was being
forced to interact with kids from almost every background you could imagine.
This includes ethnicity, income bracket, intelligence, and social ability.
True diversity is an education in our own human race, specifically the common
bonds that unite all of us. Being able to see a wide range of perspectives and
experience completely different cultural norms on a daily basis can go a long
way to testing your own assumptions about the world.

~~~
bioh42_2
_The biggest benefit of going to a public high school in the DC area was being
forced to interact with kids from almost every background you could imagine._

But isn't it a bit odd you had to go to college to do that?

Wouldn't it be better if you had grown up in a neighborhood that would let you
do that?

OK, you didn't and you're glad college provided you that opportunity, but
isn't it a bit sad how much $ they charge for what is at its core human
interaction?

------
prayag
The article is biased and full of negative stereotypes and a thinly veiled
attack at not the Universities but the practice of Affirmative Action and dare
I say, racial, ethnic and sexual minorities themselves.

First of all, SAT scores or grades are hardly any measure of the 'smartness'
of academic credibility of the student. For example, as a commenter above
pointed out, in computer science, a person who has average grades but more
research work and open source experience is probably more motivated to learn
than a student with just good grades.

Secondly, the data[1] proves even that though minority students who make it
with affirmative action might graduate with average of below average scores
but perform as well as their colleagues in their professional life. Come to
think of it, isn't this what education is really about. Changing people's
lives for good.

Thirdly, contrary to what the author might want us to believe, the politically
charged atmosphere in the Universities during the 70s was good for the
society. Remember the free speech movement? Universities have been the
breeding ground of revolutionary thinking for centuries and it is actually
unhealthy for the society if the Universities are too compliant with the
dominant thinking.

Fourthly, though I am sometimes critical of exuberant spending on sports by
American Universities, they are the primary reason of the USA's sporting
excellence. Why should a student who is obsessed with and excels at track-and-
field be penalized for his obsession? In addition, These 'dumb-jocks' work
harder than most students. Contrary to popular beliefs; in most top ranked
Universities these athletes have to finish as many credits as a non-athlete
and have to work as hard on their courses.

I think very highly of CalTech and respect them, but the reasons for their
excellence is not what the author would want us to believe. The article is
nothing but horse manure.

[1] Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, 2008

~~~
jessriedel
> The article is biased and full of negative stereotypes and a thinly veiled
> attack at ... dare I say, racial, ethnic and sexual minorities themselves.

Could you give an example of how this author could have criticized the
practice of affirmative action _without_ attacking racial, ethnic and sexual
minorities themselves? I agree that the author clearly has an axe to grind,
but I see _nothing_ in the text which attacks a minority. Honestly, it seems
like you're accusing him of racism based _only_ off the fact that he opposes
affirmative action.

ADDED:

>SAT scores or grades are hardly any measure of the 'smartness' of academic
credibility of the student. For example, as a commenter above pointed out, in
computer science, a person who has average grades but more research work and
open source experience is probably more motivated to learn than a student with
just good grades.

The author uses SAT scores because they are the best objective measure we have
of academic quality. Most other measures (GPA, high school research
experience) are going to be strongly effected by where the student is from.
Nowhere does the author suggest that research experience shouldn't be
considered. And, in fact, using this measure would benefit the rich, white,
and privileged students, as they are much more likely to have such research
opportunities than poor minorities.

>Secondly, the data[1] proves even that though minority students who make it
with affirmative action might graduate with average of below average scores
but perform as well as their colleagues in their professional life.

The data as you describe only confirms that well-known fact that top-tier
schools add negligible value to the professional prospect of its students.
That is, after controlling for SATs, familiy income, etc., future success
doesn't depend on what school you attend. (I can pull the study if you want.)
That data says _nothing_ about the how lower admission standards for
minorities impact the schools academics. And, as you say, their grades are
weak both in high school and college.

>Thirdly, contrary to what the author might want us to believe, the
politically charged atmosphere in the Universities during the 70s was good for
the society.

This isn't the main thesis of the article; the author is just giving you his
perspective on where the situation originated.

>Why should a student who is obsessed with and excels at track-and-field be
penalized for his obsession?

No one is suggesting that athlete's be _penalized_. The author is arguing that
they shouldn't receive the (massive) boost in admissions.

~~~
prayag
>"Minding the Campus readers probably need little instruction on the
corrupting effects of the racial balancing game played by almost all our elite
universities"

Racial balancing is somehow corrupting? If I am making a claim like that I
would definitely like to back it up with some facts.

>" The typical African- American and Latino student who gets admitted to the
most elite colleges and universities in the U.S...."

What is a typical African-American student? Can I meet him? Racial stereotypes
are loaded, and the authors throws them around like bad puns.

>"a requirement often interpreted to mean that if there is a male lacrosse,
soccer, water polo, volleyball, cross-country, or fencing team there must be a
female equivalent"

And this is a problem, why? Why shouldn't there be a female equivalent of a
fencing team?

I don't think the author is racist or sexist, I am sure he is a perfectly nice
person to meet. However, his deep hatred for programs to achieve social
equality leads him to have beliefs that are very very worrisome from a racial
and gender equality point of view.

~~~
anamax
> And this is a problem, why? Why shouldn't there be a female equivalent of a
> fencing team?

What's the definition of "female equivalent"?

Doesn't the validity of your assumed "should" depend on the definition we're
using?

> However, his deep hatred for programs to achieve social equality leads him
> to have beliefs that are very very worrisome from a racial and gender
> equality point of view.

Are you suggesting that all current programs to achieve social equality are
worthwhile, that none of them are bad? Or is it just that any criticism is
necessary wrong?

~~~
prayag
>What's the definition of "female equivalent"?

Author's words not mine. I should have put quotes around "female equivalent".
I believe that female sports should be given as much attention as male sports.

>Are you suggesting that all current programs to achieve social equality are
worthwhile, that none of them are bad? Or is it just that any criticism is
necessary wrong?

No. Some of them might have failed spectacularly and deserve criticism. But to
criticize the social equality programs in colleges because they get students
with lower SAT scores into colleges is a very imprecise argument to make.

~~~
anamax
> I believe that female sports should be given as much attention as male
> sports.

Why should they be "given attention" and by whom? What about folks who don't
provide said equal attention? (While the majority favor male sports, there are
folks who favor female sports. Surely both are in need of correction.)

For example, why shouldn't womens' preference be given some weight?

I note that women are less likely to attend women's sports than men are to
attend men's sports. Heck - women are more likely to attend men's sports than
they are to attend men's sports.

Be careful - the "provides valuable diversity" argument requires differences
(in aggregate). If there are differences, then exact duplicate treatment is
inappropriate.

------
eibrahim
I am a "minority" and I 100% agree with the author. If you don't qualify you
don't qualify. How is it fair that you get admitted just because you are black
or a latina or can throw a football?

I want my kids to go to caltech but only if they qualify and are smart enough.

Like the author said, the Olympic team doesn't take players because of their
race but because they can play and win. The same should apply to academic
institutions.

Maybe someone should sue the NBA if they don't let him in for being vertically
challenged.

~~~
kenjackson
College isn't an institution of knowledge. It's an institution of learning.

This is why you'll often take disadvantaged students over advantaged students,
even when the disadvantaged have poorer numbers. Showing you're passionate
about learning and have the capacity to learn is not simply reflected in the
output. You also have to look at the input.

The same also goes for football and chess players. If someone excel's at
something deemed "valuable" (and people will argue over this), that goes into
the equation of passion for learning and produced output.

------
ernestipark
This seems like an incredibly narrow-minded and misinformed article. While
it's great that Caltech doesn't bend on its academic standards, it assumes
that simple academic meritocracy on paper is all that is important to build a
'good' school. I go to MIT (where we have over 30 varsity NCAA teams, many of
which are very successful), and the jocks have just as much academic merit to
be here as the nerds who tool away in their dorm room. Same with the blacks,
hispanics, legacies, minority x, minority y, etc etc. Not only that, MIT does
an incredible job of putting together well-rounded people, and not at the
expense of their intellectual capability. I have a friend who is high up in
the undergraduate admissions committee and personality and fit are just as
important as their academic merit. This means I don't go to the stereotyped
MIT with a bunch of nerds who only study all day. Instead, I go to school with
a diverse blend of incredible people who are athletes, musicians, and artists
who are talented AND smart.

I guess if CalTech's mission is just to breed academic warriors that's fine,
but this article's statements on MIT (I can only speak for my own school, but
it probably applies to others as well) are ignorant and elitist. They seem to
be pushing their own stereotype that CalTech students are simply one-
dimensional people. The real world isn't a 'pure meritocracy'.

~~~
cma
If you want more musicians and artists, then _view student portfolios and
listen to student demo tapes_. The idea that MIT making decisions based on
parental legacy (tantamount to aristocracy--extremely scary for a publicly
funded school in a democracy but unfortunately the norm) is justified by the
broader mix of interests, etc. is absurd on its face; just select for those
interests within the admissions process itself, or, failing that, institute a
random lottery that lowers the admissions threshold by some amount.

------
cullenking
I applaud a university for standing up for academics, but this author sounds
slightly unhinged. Affirmative Action and other such policies have some
serious downsides so I respect people who are willing to criticize such a
racially touchy subject, however the authors animosity towards the subjects of
AA, rather than just AA itself, seemed to leak into his writing.

~~~
wtn
No kidding. My school had D-I athletics and affirmative action but it hasn't
slowed us down in terms of (externally granted) academic awards or excellence
in engineering and other specialties.

The bigger problem I think is the belief that everyone has to go to college to
'get ahead' and the excesses of credentialism.

------
jrockway
I don't necessarily agree 100%. I applied to Caltech. I did not have great
grades, but I did have published research papers and a few open source
projects. If this isn't "love of science and technology" I don't know what is.
I got the thin envelope.

I do not really care anymore, but it would have been a cool experience to go
to a good school.

~~~
quanticle
_I do not really care anymore, but it would have been a cool experience to go
to a good school._

Not necessarily. Would you be okay with being the dumbest person in the room,
not just for one class or one semester, but for four years? A lot of smart
kids go to CalTech, MIT and Harvard, but end up dropping out and finishing
their degree somewhere else because they're not accustomed to failing on a
regular basis. Unless you're convinced that you'll be able to handle repeated
failure (because it'll happen when you're trying to achieve at that level)
that sort of school may not be for you.

Then there's the fact that these schools are _expensive_. So not only do you
have to be able to deal with failure at an emotional level, but you have to be
able to deal with failure financially as well. If you don't have the budget to
repeat at least two or three classes - don't bother with a top-ten university.

~~~
jshen
I'd love to be the dumbest person in the room. I've found in my life that my
largest leaps in development come when I throw myself in the deep end that is
outside my comfort zone. These days it's the primary thing I look for in a
company. Are the people I'll be working with as good or better than may on
average? If the answer is no then I'm not interested.

this of course assumes I want to be good at whatever the subject of the room
is.

~~~
HistoryInAction
It was really, intensely frustrating at times. I was almost certainly a bottom
10%, if not 5%, at Caltech. It inspired me and pushed me into moving into a
different, non-typical field for the average Caltech student where I could
still be the best among the cohort. From another, less charitable perspective,
Caltech proved to me that I couldn't be a top--or possibly even a very good--
engineer, so I just gave up rather than struggling to get better.

~~~
owyn
My dad dropped out of Caltech in the 60's... he ended up getting a PhD and
becoming a professor of asian history. :)

------
iwwr
It could also be that since Caltech has no affirmative action, bright students
of minorities would find it easier to enter top schools that employ AA. For
example, MIT's AA would be "crowding out" the "disadvantaged minority pool" in
Caltech, even if those students would be good enough for Caltech's own
standards.

------
snikolov
You could argue against affirmative action on the grounds that it is only
about some nebulous notion of diversity.

But it is not --- or at least shouldn't be.

It should be about evaluating people's achievements relative to the
opportunities presented to them. MIT, for example, prefers someone who is
resilient and will change the world over someone who retook the SAT three
times to get a 2400. You could argue about whether places like MIT evaluate
these things correctly, but having been at MIT for 3.5 years, I've seen a lot
of academically less prepared, but super driven students do astoundingly well.

On a side note, I've seen some of the other side as well. I went to a high
school that has a 2% acceptance rate by exam only. It was 60% asian, and about
4% total black and latino. While I was around a lot of smart, motivated
people, there were also a lot of smart slackers who couldn't or wouldn't
thrive in that environment.

------
WalterBright
Why Caltech rocks:

"Its indifference to athletic performance is well reflected by the fact that
its men's basketball team in recent years had a 207-game losing streak, its
women's basketball team had a 50-game losing streak, and men's soccer team
lost 201 games in a row."

------
bokonist
_Added to these 60s-era trends (some of which have mercifully waned) came two
further developments which are still very much with us today and which moved
the elite universities further away from the pursuit of excellence and merit
which was their greatest achievement after the Second World War: the
competitive sports craze and the affirmative action crusade. To these two
anti-meritocratic developments..._

How is being pro-sports being anti-meritocratic? It's anti-academic, but not
anti-meritocratic. Getting a sports scholarship requires a tremendous amount
of talent, teamwork, dedication, etc. Selecting students based on athletics is
every bit as meritocratic as selecting students based on academics.

------
cafard
I'm not sure how athletics is such a huge problem. The teams meeting in the
BCS championship tonight have about 20 thousand undergraduates each. The
football team, the largest surely on campus has something under 100 kids on
scholarship, so about one half of one percent. Are there schools where it
could be a problem? Perhaps. I've heard the complaint made about the Naval
Academy.

~~~
jessriedel
The OP is focusing on the very-top-tier research Universities in the US. Most
of these are private and much smaller than the large public schools which
dominate NCAA championships.

For example, Princeton has only 4,500 undergrad so, as the author points out,
athletes favored in admission make up an suprising large fraction of the
class.

Likewise, legacy admissions has a big impact on the quality of Princeton
admits, but probably not as much at the University of Oregon.

------
ashbrahma
The Indian IIT's have a similar focus on academics. One key difference is that
they still take in students by employing Affirmative Action. AA hasn't hurt
the school's reputation one bit.

------
Lukeas14
Are USC's 114 national championships any less of an achievement than Caltech's
31 Nobel Prizes?

~~~
reinhardt
Yes.

~~~
Lukeas14
Haha. That was probably the wrong question to ask. I agree Nobel Prizes have a
greater positive effect on our society than National Championships. But, the
point I was trying to make was...

Do you believe that USC should "follow a similar path" and begin to emulate
Caltech or are they allowed to be happy with the success that they've had in
their own respective areas? My take from this article was that Caltech was the
one and only true example of a successful college and all others are doing it
wrong. Can we not have some schools that aren't focused solely on the hard
sciences and welcomes students who may want something else out of their
college experience such as a diversity of backgrounds and ideas, a path to
professional sports, or a focus on the arts?

------
alex1
Seems like link is down. Mirror?

------
nice1
A good article, but the trend aiming at redefining admissions criteria to
steer away from academic merit appears to have started somewhat earlier than
mid 20th century. Already in the second decade of the 20th century measures
were being put in place to reduce the rising proportion of Jews at top
colleges. Of course not everyone wanted to look antisemitic, so various
diversifying tactics were invented to somehow deal with the the fact that Jews
seemed to be smarter.

------
HilbertSpace
With high irony, it sounds like in the STEM subjects Cal Tech fails to 'get
it' on important reality and, instead, is pursuing something not good.

Uh, Job One at Cal Tech has to be 'research' and NOT "learning". For the
article, sorry 'bout that.

Well, from the article, it sounds like most of the Cal Tech freshmen have
already wasted a few years getting ready for the SATs, making straight A
grades, and taking AP courses. Sorry, guys, but that's a LOT of work, a good
recipe for early 'burn out', and indicative of a lack of seeing reality. What
Cal Tech is insisting on looks very much like at least simplistic
understanding and likely 'obsession', and a big, HUGE, problem with these two
is that they overwhelm rationality and ability to see reality clearly and,
net, are from harmful down to debilitating.

Uh, it sounds like the Cal Tech freshmen were ready for college 2-3 years
before they went and, thus, wasted 2-3 years fooling around with make-work,
junk-think nonsense. E.g., when I looked at the AP calculus materials, they
were garbage. Instead, just get a good, standard freshman college calculus
book. When that book is too easy, then just get a stack of the usual suspects
in advanced calculus and then measure theory and functional analysis. Don't
try to make a super big deal out of frosh calculus.

For AP calculus, f'get about it: The AP materials were overkill, packed
solidly with tiny trees with no good view of the forest, written by people who
didn't really understand calculus and were afraid to omit anything, no matter
how tangential, and are a great way to kill off any interest in calculus.

Here's the truth: If a high school student wants to race ahead in math and
physics, then FINE, but to do this they should just get (1) a good stack of
the usual, best respected early college texts in these subjects and (2) some
guidance from someone, maybe a college prof, who actually understands the
fields. Basically nearly no US high school student should EVER take an AP
course in high school because the fraction of US high school teachers
competent to teach such material is tiny.

Broadly the AP courses are junk, a waste of time and worse; a student ready
for the AP courses should just go to college or at least just study college
materials.

The biggest problem with Cal Tech is that the freshmen don't really belong in
college: Instead, they should touch up in a few subjects for a few months if
necessary and then start on their STEM major at the junior or senior level,
rush through that, and then get on with grad school, research, and their Ph.D.
Instead, Cal Tech is insisting that in high school these students have gone
through some pointless mental torture chamber, of material that is elementary
and poorly conceived, and then wants to put them through four more such years.
It's sadistic, a 'filter', destructive, and way too common in academics.

Look, guys, Cal Tech 'college' is JUST college, ugrad school, and NOT, and can
never be, just one step from a Nobel prize. Instead, their college is to get
the students ready for grad school, at Cal Tech or any of the usual suspects.
The Cal Tech frosh already wasted 2-3 years on AP, etc. nonsense in high
school, and Cal Tech wants them to waste 1/2 to 3/4 of their four years at Cal
Tech. Bummer.

Net, what's important for that academic track is the research, just the
research. All that nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, ear to the
ground, and then try to work in that position, is from not very good down to a
disaster for research.

Buyer beware: Save yourself from nonsense; often you are the only one who can.

The path to research is NOT through AP courses, the last 50 points on the
SATs, or even frosh and sophomore college work. Indeed, the best path to
research usually starts in, say, the junior year of college. The best part of
the path is in grad school, and there the best part is the student being in a
good 'environment' and doing a lot of relatively independent learning and,
then, even more independent research. E.g., commonly a good Ph.D. program has
no official coursework requirement.

With irony, Cal Tech, for all their emphasis on being 'brilliant', is being
DUMB on college admissions, running a college, and getting students into
research.

I've see FAR too much super narrow minded, simplistic, destructive, obsession
in academics and know how destructive it can be. Cal Tech is embracing that
nonsense.

~~~
WalterBright
>it sounds like most of the Cal Tech freshmen have already wasted a few years
getting ready for the SATs, making straight A grades, and taking AP courses.
Sorry, guys, but that's a LOT of work,

No, it isn't a lot of work. I never studied before going to Caltech. I never
studied for the SAT. This was typical for incoming freshmen. The ones who had
to study hard for SATs, etc., could not make it at Caltech, and frankly the
admissions committee tried to not admit them.

~~~
HilbertSpace
Hopefully.

But making an 800 on an SAT has to be tricky stuff: The first-cut explanation
is that it is more than 3 standard deviations above the mean in a Gaussian
distribution. I can't believe that the test is very accurate much above 700
(in the sense of classic 'reliability'). So, getting above 700 is not so
tough; actually getting an 800 has to be partly a craps shoot.

On both shots, I was over 750 on the Math SAT and never studied for it either.
I finished early, checked my answers, and still had time. I didn't see any of
the questions as very difficult and can't imagine I missed much. With such a
short test, it about has to be that one question can mean dozens of points
above 700 or so. So, the test 'reliability' can't be very accurate above 700.

In the end, what was valuable for me in college and grad school was interest,
talent, 'environment', and some relatively independent work. That nose to the
grindstone stuff played no role.

If you didn't burn yourself out in high school cutting through AP nonsense,
SAT prep, etc. and still got into Cal Tech, then good for both you and Cal
Tech.

But, ugrad school is not supposed to be so challenging that determined
students "could not make it". Again, it's just ugrad school and not some one
step before a Nobel prize. So, "could not make it" indicates something is
wrong as I concluded.

If want to make a big splash in academics and get a Ph.D., etc., fine, but
nearly all the big splash part is grad school, not ugrad. So, get a four year
ugrad degree with a good background in your interest areas and then pick a
good grad school. The ugrad school doesn't have to be Cal Tech. If in grad
school the Cal Tech students are way ahead, then that just means that at Cal
Tech they really deserved a Master's or Ph.D. but only got a Bachelor's.

~~~
WalterBright
>But, ugrad school is not supposed to be so challenging that determined
students "could not make it".

Some students will never make it there no matter how hard they work. If one
had to take a "test prep" course to do well on the SATs, then realistically
Caltech is not the right school for him. And I'd never be an olympic athlete,
no matter how hard I tried.

~~~
HilbertSpace
Well, maybe out of ambition or whatever they took some SAT prep work.

I didn't for three simple reasons: (1) I was so uninformed I didn't have a
clue about just what the SAT was! (2) Teachers in grade school had been so
critical of me, essentially because I wasn't a student like the girls in the
classes!, that I'd largely given up on academics and wasn't trying very hard.
(3) I'd never heard about any SAT test prep!

I did try hard in high school math, because I very much liked the subject, but
I still thought that pleasing the teachers was hopeless and, thus, didn't try.
Maybe that math I studied was responsible for my SAT scores, but I doubt it.
Besides the CEEB or whatever wanted to claim that the test measured just
'aptitude'.

Uh, just because someone took some SAT prep material doesn't mean that the
prep material was really responsible for their good scores! I'd side with the
students who got good scores, however they did it: If they did so well on the
SATs, however they did it, then they should be able to "make it" in ugrad
school.

Uh, unless they were competing with my wife! She wanted to take a course in
history but didn't need the credit so just audited. The lecture hall had 300
students. The prof insisted that even auditing students also take the tests.
At the end, the prof told her that she should have taken the course for credit
since she had the highest grade in the class! Before I met her socially, I
taught her frosh trig. On my tests, some of the questions were difficult for a
lot of points. At the end, she had twice as many points as the next best
student; she could have walked out after the midterm and still made an A! I
tried to compete with her in Scrabble. She was ahead, but as we played I got
better. Alas she got better even faster so that her margin grew so much she
refused to play with me again!

------
partition
This 'article' is very clearly another instance of trollish, uninformed
misleading shit designed to sell copies of <author>'s book. The whole piece is
pretty much 'Revenge of the Nerds' tripe, containing the usual, trite anti-
jock (and, lol, anti-minority) rhetoric combined with facile AP/SAT test-score
elitism (I'd have thought HN would be suspicious of arguments that use test
scores as a proxy of education quality).

Caltech is in _some_ class by itself, sure, but not for the reasons he cites,
which are plain bullshit, and definitely not a completely 'positive' class---
there are definite, subtle tradeoffs of a Caltech education that are not
highlighted by the rather crude level of discourse this article has
encouraged.

Already mentioned and debunked here is the asinine assumption that AP/SAT
scores are used as proxy for actual academic excellence by the admissions
committee.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2089717>

However this next comment, while probably made on the wrong premises (that the
admissions committee uses test scores as the sole criteria), is probably the
only assessment of Caltech I've seen that has a hope of getting the real
issues that show going to Caltech can be a bad decision if there are other
respective alternatives available:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2090087>

"Well, from the article, it sounds like most of the Cal Tech freshmen have
already wasted a few years getting ready for the SATs, making straight A
grades, and taking AP courses. Sorry, guys, but that's a LOT of work, a good
recipe for early 'burn out', and indicative of a lack of seeing reality. What
Cal Tech is insisting on looks very much like at least simplistic
understanding and likely 'obsession', and a big, HUGE, problem with these two
is that they overwhelm rationality and ability to see reality clearly and,
net, are from harmful down to debilitating."

Indeed, even though the admissions committee emphasizes the fact that test
scores do not completely determine admission, preparing for tests and 'burning
out early' is exactly what the majority of applicants end up doing _anyway_ to
get into this place. Then Caltech has (and misses) a great opportunity to end
up educating people the _right_ way, as you say.

What many people who go to Caltech do is end up learning all the right
subjects but the wrong lessons. There is hardly room for introspection,
broadening one's perspective, and really learning the why and how of research
---there is only the assumption that you are _enthusiastic as hell_ at
math/science and you are going to _signal this_ by overloading, taking the
hardest classes for no good reason, and trying to impress Head Nerd in
<subject of your (their) choice>. This is your _life_ \---this is a social
group where your self-worth is measured by your GPA and how many papers you
publish. Too many people I knew have been sucked in this way and ended up
burning out in one way or another.

The end result is that there are no 'jocks' at Caltech in the usual sense---
what you have is a similarly wretched, caveman-like hierarchy, but with
'sports' replaced by 'academic achievement.' Surely a different and perhaps
more productive contest than what goes on at other colleges, but no less of a
harmful environment. Unless you are at or near the top of the hierarchy, the
environment has the structural effect (as in, may not be intentionally
designed) to beat any previous interest you had in math or science out of you.
Could this be an explanation for the high suicide rate at Caltech (and other
elite institutions like it)?

Basically: Where was the _education_? For being a fairly good student who
clearly could learn subjects straight from books: how to learn what to learn?
To educate _yourself_ in the _right way_? To see the world for what it is and
make independent, informed choices? To be rational?

Hell, this shouldn't be exclusive to Caltech---with the availability of
information these days it seems to be a much better payoff to educate people
in this alternative way instead.

So, go to Caltech only if you really understand it as just one small step in a
longer research career, you know how to be rational and not get taken in by
the social hierarchy there, and you are in contact with helpful faculty with
whom you know you will have a productive relationship. Or, if you estimate
P(Head Nerd) as being really high, so you can start your own little fiefdom.

Full disclosure: I went to Caltech (class of 08) and thankfully am in a good
Ph. D program right now where I can 'pick up the pieces,' as it were, and
reignite my interests.

I am constantly in conflict about this---would I have done 'better' (for some
definition of better) overall if I hadn't gone there, and instead gone to an
easier school?

Or do I just remain grateful about my current situation and just stop thinking
when I think about this? I am forever indebted to my parents for their
sacrifice in paying my Caltech tuition, and I really think there could not be
a better place for learning engaging subjects with the brightest people
around. All my career opportunities were made possible because I networked in
the Caltech community.

But I just think there could have been a much more principled, less
psychically costly way of doing it.

------
cantbecool
I felt there was a sense of arrogance from the author while reading this
article. We get it, Russel, Cal Tech is a difficult school to matriculate in.
No need to hype the academic credentials required by your Alma mater for
acceptance.

------
mtviewdave
One major difference between Caltech and many other schools is that Caltech is
a technical school, and doesn't provide a liberal arts education. An
underlying assumption of the article is the superiority of the technical
education vs. liberal arts, but the evidence he provides that this is actually
the case is rather thin: the author seems to expect the reader to accept this
point of view by default. It would have been better if the author could have
made this argument explicitly.

~~~
danyoel
Although Caltech isn't a liberal arts school, undergrads are required to take
one humanities or social science class every term (for a total of 12). You
occasionally see Caltech alumni with a BS in Literature...

------
flip-flop
Comparing Caltech to any other college is plain unfair. They have one of the
biggest endowments in the country because they are affiliated with JPL. I'm
pretty sure just about any college could rise to that level of prominence
given resources like that.

~~~
HistoryInAction
This is factually incorrect. The endowment is separate from the operating
budget, which is where JPL comes in as a factor. The endowment is large
because of several 'home runs,' in the fundraising parlance, specifically
Gordon Moore's $600M donation in 2003, the largest donation to higher
education ever and hundreds of millions in smaller donations by the Moore
Foundation, as well as other large ticket donations by successful Caltech
alumni and LA notables, like Eli Broad. The JPL budget is separated out from
the Caltech general operating budget, which you can learn more about here:
<http://annual-report.caltech.edu/>

We were actually offered Los Alamos, too, after several security breaches
under their UCLA managers, but our faculty board turned it down, resulting in
UCLA getting the contract again. Amusingly, the result of UCLA management's
security failings was that they got paid a higher rate for the same duties.
Gotta love the government sometimes, heh.

