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Thank you sakky for actually responding to my posts with more than just one-liners. It's been a real pleasure.
"It doesn't really matter who you admit . It only matters who you matriculate . You can admit all of the meritocratic people you want, but if they don't actually come, who cares?"
I actually disagree with this. Caltech admissions is on the whole, more meritocratic than MIT's is. The fact that most admittees choose to matriculate elsewhere is completely immaterial to the concept of what meritocratic admissions is.
It is true that people on the whole prefer HYPSM over Caltech. But don't you think there are examples of the reverse? A good Intel STS Semis + USAMO + USPhO friend of mine (mind the awards :-)) applied to Caltech EA 2 years ago and opted to matriculate without applying to other schools RD. The Caltech experience is not your typical college experience you'd get at HYPS - it's for certain people.
I would also actually say that Caltech is doing fine with its admissions. And plenty of "meritocratic people" choose Caltech - more than enough. What's the deficiency here?
I'm not saying the Ivies should get a "free pass." I'm just asking - why are people overall not as ticked off about getting rejected from an Ivy than getting rejected from say...MIT? Without a doubt, Ivy League admissions are more pleasing than MIT's - from rejectees' PoVs of course. We have to ask ourselves - why?
CAdream's answer above might be it. MIT admissions strives to be something of a somebody to everybody. When the institution was originally intended for something different, and MIT admissions tries to cater to every single Ivy-like application - then yeah...a lot of people are not going to be pleased with that.
I think it's also pretty clear that the average Caltech admittee is > the average MIT admittee. This is also most likely true for matriculants as well. Caltech is probably less appealing because of its small size, hardcore curriculum, 7:3 ratio, etc. etc. But once again, Caltech is for certain people...some of them who were only accepted by Caltech as you've stated.
But why does it matter if other people choose HYPSM over Caltech? Ben Golub has stated that Caltech doesn't care about yield. The class each year that matriculates to Caltech and graduates with probably the highest %tage grad school placement, doesn't care about yield. The people getting the best science education there is because the institution doesn't have to cater to lower-quality admits, doesn't care about yield.
What we're focusing on is admissions - not matriculation.
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