California Institute of Technology

Pros: bright minds; resources and facilities; comprehensive curriculum; challenge; research opportunities
Cons: school is your life; good lecturers can be tough to find; social life missing

I pondered for a while how to make my 50th review on Epinions extra-special and ultimately decided to write about my undergraduate Alma Mater: The California Institute of Technology, also known as Caltech. Not CalTech or Cal Tech, as some carelessly ...

Pros: academic excellence, student spirit
Cons: lack of academic breadth, cost

(This is my first E-pinion. It's been re-edited for spelling only.)

California Institute of Technology, known as CalTech, or 'Tech, is located in Pasadena, the smog capital of Southern California -- but don't worry, if you want a gas mask,...

Pros: Best academics in the country(for Math, Science, Engineering)
Cons: Extremely Focused, Poor social life

I love Caltech. I hate to leave. It's a wonderful and magical place, kind of like Disney World with a bad male:female ratio and too much work. However, if you don't like a little bit of pain, don't come here. Caltech is not about social activities,...

Pros: Outstanding faculty
Cons: Ivory tower

Since graduating from Caltech, I have returned as a Microsoft recruiter, and for a couple of alumni functions. I attended Caltech from 1965 to 1969 and got my diploma in the usual four years. After my freshman year I seriously considered transferring...

Pros: academic challenge, small college, research
Cons: price

Reading the title of this review, you must have thought that I am crazy and that nobody thinks about where to go to college when they are as young as eight years old. I might be crazy, but I did. And still now, my choice to do my best to attend this ...

Pros: non-competitive, everyone plays
Cons: losing record in almost every sport

If you just want to enjoy a competitive match, but don't care about winning this is a great school for you. I came from a high school where winning was everything. It was hard to enter into this atmosphere, where winning is not only everything is also...

Pros: Leading College, Professors, and Campus
Cons: Very exclusive but worthwhile

Perhaps you already have an impression of Caltech. But no, all the students are not all geniuses. Or that all they do is study. But in fact, students spend much of their free time on things like sports, music, and drama, with a flair for inventive...

Pros: Well funded, everyone is very talented
Cons: It's difficult to stand out as excellent

When people ask me if the Caltech experience is right form them I tell them that the Institute is, hands down, the finest and most demanding undergraduate academic experience available anywhere. This is a two-edge sword: If one wants to be among the...

Pros: weather
Cons: plenty of nerds
no social life
few women mostly ugly

my phd at caltech was a total waste of time.

i regret not having gone to MIT as former caltech grads advised me to do.

this said, the weather is great, people are usually nice but professors can be pompous pricks. also caltech can be a stimulating environment. i butted head with the former dean and i cannot stand the french president; his all patronizing persona gives me the creeps.

the school and my advisor could have done much better. (two former post-docs and one foreign faculty told me he was not very good. I now agree with them)

i advise anyone who would like to attend caltech for graduate school to do a background check on the advisor (ask current and former students, colleagues and pay particular attention to detractors because they can be right - in my case they were!!!)