tealover

I have heard a lot of things regarding the core classes and in general the academic atmosphere at Caltech. I hope that some Caltech students, especially upperclassmen can help clarify things because I was going to attend Caltech next year, but I have recently been offered spots on 2 different waitlists :P And so I am back to reevaluating everything about the schools

1. The Core Classes, is it as intense as people say? Are people really given no time to take what they want freshmen and sophomore year?

2. I hear from Caltech kids that they work sooo hard that they have no time to do anything else. How true is that? (I am sure people work hard, but when I was a freshmen in high school, the juniors told me how hard it would be in junior year and ughh I chillaxed all year with 5 APs).

3. Premed. I know that most Caltech kids are usually focused on Grad School, but out of the people who are intended to be premed, how many acutally get in med school?

4. Referring back to premed. Do most students apply for MD/PhD or just MD?

5. Is the low med school rate due to the fact that Caltechers only reach for the best med schools? aka Harvard, UCSF...

6. Caltechers say that med school is hard for them because they have low GPAs. But isn't the average at caltech 3.3? so that's like a B/B+. I would consider a B/B+ pretty good in college.

Thank you very much for answering any questions!! I just wanted to know EVERYTHING before considering the two waitlists. I know that Caltech is amazing in terms of a reserach institution, the best, but I do want to to do premed.