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80% Graduation Rate.

davezhandavezhan 304 replies81 threads Member
edited April 2009 in California Institute of Technology
wikipedia.org wrote:
Caltech has a relatively low four-year graduation rate, compared to most leading US universities. This rate is currently about 80 percent."

80% is pretty good for a top-tier tech school, which boasts an extremely rigorous curriculum. Think about it.
edited April 2009
14 replies
Post edited by davezhan on
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Replies to: 80% Graduation Rate.

  • python38python38 1096 replies208 threads Senior Member
    Maybe it's just me, but that does sound pretty low, all things considered; although I guess that that might be because it's quite a "different" university - not necessarily bad, just different, and a lot of people aren't aware of that difference when they choose to attend, and they end up dropping up because they didn't know what they were signing up for.

    It's a great university, though. I'm applying this autumn. :)
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  • dLodLo 328 replies0 threads Member
    It's actually quite low for a top tier school. Most of them are at least 90% if not 95% and higher. I think I remember scanning down a set of rankings once, and the first school to be around 80% other than Caltech was some random state school.
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  • lizzardfirelizzardfire 1550 replies27 threads Senior Member
    python--I think your assessment is pretty dead-on. I would agree with that.
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  • JNTJNT 110 replies0 threads Junior Member
    Another factor is probably that some people here take five years to graduate
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  • QuelloquialismQuelloquialism 65 replies3 threads Junior Member
    Data for the class entering Caltech in Fall 2001:
    - Total number of students entering the university: 214
    - Total number of students graduating in four years or less (before August 2005): 175 (81.8%)
    - Total number of students graduating in five years or less (before August 2006): 189 (88.3%)
    - Total number of students graduating in six years or less (before August 2007): 191 (89.3%)

    ...but I'm too lazy to look up the numbers for other universities, so I'm still not exactly sure how this compares. =P
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  • BalaylayBalaylay 367 replies27 threads Member
    That's slightly terrifying.
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  • urichimaruurichimaru 49 replies10 threads Junior Member
    Oh my gosh, it makes Caltech sound crazy hard. Is getting a pretty good GPA pretty manageable and not stressful?
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  • FlipYouFlipYou 24 replies1 threads New Member
    o0o0o crazy
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  • QuelloquialismQuelloquialism 65 replies3 threads Junior Member
    Bear in mind that not all majors are of equal difficulty. It's possible that these graduation rates are deflated by majors which either have a large number of requirements, or else include some courses which are very difficult or something like that. Just guesses, though, I don't have any numbers to back that up--it sounds reasonable, though. As for whether good GPAs are hard to come by, I don't really know--I'm just a frosh, so I haven't had anything on real grades yet.
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  • webhappywebhappy 265 replies13 threads Junior Member
    LOL, it's so amusing when the 80% figure comes up. Hell, I remember thinking it looking pretty daunting. But if you talk to the alums from two decades ago, they will mention that ~1/3 of the people would fail out of Tech (or transfer, presumably)!
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  • QuelloquialismQuelloquialism 65 replies3 threads Junior Member
    Funny story, you don't even have to go back that far to see some of the really scary stuff.

    Data for the class entering Caltech in Fall 1996:
    - Total number of students entering the university: 216
    - Total number of students graduating in four years or less (before August 2000): 156 (72.2%)
    - Total number of students graduating in five years or less (before August 2001): 177 (81.9%)
    - Total number of students graduating in six years or less (before August 2002): 183 (84.7%)

    But this isn't really cause for concern, I think, because it's getting better. Clearly, if we assume that the rate of change of the four-year-graduation rate is constant, then the current prefroshies here should enjoy a four-year graduation rate of 97.1%. And by the entering class of 2011, more than 100% of entering freshmen will graduate on time! Yay!
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  • silver-ymssilver-yms 148 replies2 threads Junior Member
    It's still around 80%.

    I graduated last year, and I remember being surprised by how few of the entering freshmen in 2004 didn't get their degree in four years.

    Stats (based off manually counting from http://pr.caltech.edu/commencement/08/bs.pdf with help from donut, facebook, and memory):

    Entering freshmen: 212
    Graduated in four years with honors: 96 (45.3%)
    Graduated in four years without honors: 69 (32.5%)
    Didn't graduate in four years: 47 (22.17%)
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  • fizix2fizix2 3388 replies182 threads Senior Member
    http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/596884-usnwr-2009-looking-data-xxi-4-year-graduation-rates.html

    well we're certainly not georgia tech
    4-Year Graduation Rate , National University

    90% , Notre Dame
    90% , Georgetown
    89% , Princeton
    88% , Harvard
    88% , Boston Coll
    87% , Yale
    87% , U Penn
    87% , Dartmouth
    86% , Columbia
    86% , Duke
    86% , Northwestern
    85% , Vanderbilt
    85% , Brandeis
    84% , U Chicago
    84% , Cornell
    84% , Johns Hopkins
    84% , Brown
    84% , U Virginia
    84% , Tufts
    84% , W&M
    83% , MIT
    83% , Wash U
    82% , Caltech
    82% , Emory
    80% , Stanford
    79% , Wake Forest
    78% , Rice
    78% , NYU
    72% , Lehigh
    71% , U North Carolina
    70% , Carnegie Mellon
    70% , U Michigan
    70% , U Rochester
    66% , UCLA
    66% , USC
    66% , Rensselaer
    66% , Tulane
    64% , UC Santa Barbara
    63% , U Illinois
    61% , UC Berkeley
    59% , Case Western
    58% , Penn State
    56% , UCSD
    53% , U Florida
    51% , UC Irvine
    48% , U Washington
    48% , Yeshiva
    47% , U Wisconsin
    47% , U Texas
    43% , UC Davis
    33% , Georgia Tech
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  • python38python38 1096 replies208 threads Senior Member
    Maybe Caltech is also the type of school that traditionally "introverted" people go to...? I'm going out on a limb here, but it's an interesting thought.
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