<p>Who cares if Harvard has Natalie Portman (actually, Harvard HAD Natalie Portman, because she graduated last year)? Caltech has…umm…let me think…err…OK,never mind. </p>
<p>However, I should point out that Harvard doesn’t really have a small student body. Harvard is actually quite a large school. Harvard has 6500 undergraduates, and about 20,000 total students (grad + undergrad). MIT isn’t all that small either, it has about 4000 undergrads and about 10,000 total students. Stanford has about 6600 undergrads, and about 15,000 total students. Compare that with Caltech, which really is tiny, with only 900 undergrads (yeah, I didn’t miss a zero, it’s really only 900), and only 2200 total students. The point is that if we REALLY want to talk about who has the smaller student body, Caltech really takes the cake. Caltech is without a doubt the least populous elite research university in the country. So if people really wanted to be at a place with the least crowding, then they should all be trying to get into Caltech, right?</p>
<p>Here are the numbers, so you can go see for yourself. Replace “hxxp” with “http”
hxxp://<a href=“http://www.news.harvard.edu/guide/students/stu14.html”>www.news.harvard.edu/guide/students/stu14.html</a>
hxxp://web.mit.edu/ir/pop/students/enrollment.html
hxxp://<a href=“http://www.caltech.edu/at-a-glance/”>www.caltech.edu/at-a-glance/</a>
hxxp://<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/home/stanford/facts/undergraduate.html”>www.stanford.edu/home/stanford/facts/undergraduate.html</a>
hxxp://<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/home/stanford/facts/graduate.html”>www.stanford.edu/home/stanford/facts/graduate.html</a></p>
<p>Now, to rtkysg, now we’re getting somewhere. Harvard and MIT have better brand names. So now the next question is, why is that? </p>
<p>Now, as far as for techie/science people, I’m not sure that Caltech really follows right behind Harvard and MIT. If that really were true, then that should be reflected in the Intel STS desired first-choice schools, right? The point is that you rarely see Caltech being mentioned, even by people who are undoubtedly interested in tech. That’s not to say that Caltech is a bad school - on the contrary, Caltech is without a doubt an integral member of the HYPSMC elite. But you gotta admit, there are a lot of people who have simply never heard of that place, and even those techies/science types who have heard of it often times prefer to go elsewhere, whether that’s because Caltech has a reputation for being too hard, or too geeky, or whatever. I do see places like Princeton, Stanford, even Yale mentioned more times than Caltech when it comes to STS winners (admittedly Yale doesn’t come up too often, but still, more times than Caltech). At the very least, if nothing else, then it seems that Caltech has an image problem. </p>
<p>But that’s beside the point. The real point is, what about Berkeley? Why isn’t Berkeley a magnet for all these techies? Why aren’t all these students who dream of being techies all naming Berkeley as their first choice for undergrad?</p>