GleasSpty

if something happened now (e.g. won a competition, won an award, etc.) is it too late to tell them?

robinhood

Does anyone know when Caltech would let us know about the w.list decision?

How long would they give us to make a decision?

foo182

i think it's not to late for anything yet.. it's not even first of may yet.. but maybe they already have, like, discarded some of us, so if you're not among the discarded, it will help them to maybe decide to admit you. if you are among the discarded, then maybe it they'll take another look at you. wither way, you win

"How long would they give us to make a decision?"

hahah i don't know about you, but i wouldn't have any trouble deciding right away (well actually it would be like this, they give me close to a full ride, i go, they don't give me close to a full ride, i don't go, cause i ain't got the money to do it otherwise..)

and no, i don't think anyone can tell you when you will find out.. you can find out right away, probably if you're a very strong applicant, and they admit you, or if you're a very weak applicant and they reject you.. the middle will probably be "left behind" in case that some of the people that have been admitted from the waiting list decide not to go. but that's just me guessing it heheh


btw caltech class of 2012 on facebook -210 members and still going down! god, i sure hope there will be spot..

*Brahmin

I completely agree with foo182....hey guys I posted a thread in that facebook group to see how many in that group are rejecting Caltech. How many students should there be for the class of 2012? ...500?

And do you guys know if being an international will play a major role? Will Caltech try to maintain that same international quota? And would nationality play a role? Will Caltech reject a person from country X because there are enough people from that country?

robinhood

btw caltech class of 2012 on facebook -210 members and still going down! god, i sure hope there will be spot..

I thought Caltech gave admission to about 650 kids. Are you saying that only ~210 are actually accepting/going to Caltech? That's a very poor yield.
Then I think they will have room for all of us.

*Brahmin

haha..ya and its hard to imagine that around 300 students going to Caltech did not join that group in facebook!!

foo182

well actually 225 students per class is the usual number, if that's what you're asking

"And do you guys know if being an international will play a major role?"

that's a great question, i was wondering the same.. cause they don't mention anywhere if they have a "separate" waiting list for intl students.. i mean from 225 people, they usually have 15 as internationals. from the 675 people that they've admitted, round 40 should be intl. if we suppose that from that 40 people, only 10 enroll at caltech, will they aim to admit exactly 5 more from the waiting list? or if 20 enroll, they won't even look at the intl from the waiting list?



"And would nationality play a role? Will Caltech reject a person from country X because there are enough people from that country?"
officially, there should be no differences

foo182

"I thought Caltech gave admission to about 650 kids. Are you saying that only ~210 are actually accepting/going to Caltech? That's a very poor yield.
Then I think they will have room for all of us."


if you look at the previous year statistics, you'll see that only one third of admitted people enroll. they aim for a 225 students class, so they admit 675 people. it's a pretty basic math. the problem is that most of the people that get admitted to caltech, the 675 finest, get admitted to MIT, Harvard, Princeton, whatever, and choose those schools over caltech, because of it's bigger student body and diversity.. some even because of the fact that it's on the east coast. mostly people choose MIT and Stanford over caltech, if you look at the statistics.. it doesn't mean caltech isn't as equally good or even better in science than those colleges, it more means that most of the people don't find themselves in caltech rigorous core and 99% science orientation.

*Brahmin

wow dats low...225 is just doulbe the class of 2008 in my school (i didn't expect it to be that low)...ideally i would prefer a bigger class.
Even I would expect Caltech's yield to be less than princeton's, stanford's and MIT's...Most of the students who are top-class and have the choice might lean away from Caltech, unless they are very science oriented. MIT admitted 1500 students, out of which 1000 students will become their class, so they expecting 66% yield compared to Caltech's 33%.

*Brahmin

Hmm....225 and 210 in facebook...do you guys think there are people who want to enroll in caltech but are not in that group? Wouldn't everyone who apply to caltech be aware of facebook and the group? And if they are keen, wouldn't they join the group?

*Brahmin

Ideally, wouldn't Caltech admit less students than the expected yield demands and have a 250 or so in the waiting list? Because suppose more students than they expected say yes to Caltech, it would be a problem to accomodate more. They would give the waiting list a chance because it would be a safer option. That way they make sure the right number of students come in and not in excess.

Antiquark

Warning: Wild assumptions ahead.

Caltech can't handle too many new frosh, which means that if they underestimated the yield, we're in trouble. My House has already reserved spots for the frosh, which could obviously be filled with upperclassmen if we get underfilled with new frosh. If the other Houses are reserving the same number of spots proportional to their size (assuming negligible dual memberships and that Avery is taking in the same number of people as it has the last four years,) that means Caltech is expecting a maximum of ~225 new frosh without going to the waitlist. I'm assuming the "ideal" class size is about 215, so I'm making the wild guess that they admitted a number such that they would expect to get [185, 225] (0.9 probability range) without going to the waitlist. I doubt they would admit so many frosh if they thought there was a larger than 5% of there being a housing shortage, though they have done this in the past, so who knows. Most years they go to the waitlist, and since this is a highly variable year, I'm guessing it is most likely that they'll take ~10 people off of the waitlist (205 from non-waitlist.) If my assumptions are about right, there is a large chance of them taking a non-zero number of people off the waitlist and around a 50% chance they'll take >=10 people off.

Trying to guess if they'll take people off the waitlist from Facebook group numbers is even worse than what I'm doing. I had never even *heard* of Facebook before I came to Caltech, and plenty of Techers I know still don't have a Facebook profile. Even if you ignore that plenty of people who have Facebook profiles don't join Facebook groups, it's a little silly to assume that nearly all admitted prefrosh will have joined the group, or that everyone who is still in the group is going to Caltech (or was admitted in the first place.)

Honestly, you should just relax and ignore everything having to do with the waitlist. There's not really anything you can do about it now (if you've already sent in extra information.) Assume you're rejected and that you're going to attend wherever else you may have planned.

zoogies

Avery has reserved something like 32 spots for freshmen (about the same as last year, more than in the first two years), and I hear max class size is going to be something like 250 instead of 225. It *probably* won't be that high (250 sounds like upper-bound-scenario), but who knows, since it is a highly variable year.

reaaaaallly though...stop analyzing the facebook groups...xD

Antiquark

250?! That would be the biggest class in Caltech history probably, right? The class of 2011 is pretty big too. I'm not sure why they've been increasing the class sizes -- it's already annoying enough having most people being forced off campus on average one year out of four.

foo182

antiquark, everything you said is quite correct, but all of that does not help on case to case basis (or what i'm meaning to say, yes it is true, and it's quite logical, cause that's how the waiting list actually works, but it doesn't help us to guess will they go to waitlist for the class of 2012)

"I had never even *heard* of Facebook before I came to Caltech, and plenty of Techers I know still don't have a Facebook profile. Even if you ignore that plenty of people who have Facebook profiles don't join Facebook groups, it's a little silly to assume that nearly all admitted prefrosh will have joined the group, or that everyone who is still in the group is going to Caltech (or was admitted in the first place.)"

ok, but you came to caltech what, last year, two years ago, three (i'm not sure how long does facebook exist even)? but as facebook "grows older", more and more people are joining it, it became a necessity (i mean, half of my school is on facebook, and we're in a country in the middle of nowhere, with only 10% of population if not less with internet.)..
next thing, if you're excited that you got into caltech, and even more if you're sure to go, ofc you're gonna join the group! that way you can meet a lot of people, and talk about things, and everything... caltech dosn't have a blog thingie like MIT, there is no communication to anyone inside caltech in anyway except by the facebook.
Next, it doesn't matter if all of the accepted students have joined the group, but everyone who is still in the group is probably going to caltech because I've been watching the group for the whole last week, and from 250 members it went down to 210. reasons why 40 people left right before or around the 1st may?... because it's the decisions day, and they decided to go somewhere else.. it couldn't be a coincidence.

and in the end, yes, ok, i know that all of this is like shooting in the dark, but as you said we should relax... well this makes me relaxed heheheh )) it makes me feel like we have some insight into what's going on.. i mean, if there were 250 members still in the group, i would start worrying, because that would probably mean there is 220+ students who will enroll (+ because of the people who don't have FB, and 220 because 30 members of the group are already at caltech) this way i know it's a 180+ number and it makes me feel a little better :P