An analogy can be made. Regular public high school rigor is to UCSD as TJ/Stuy/Exeter rigor is to Caltech
No, I really think Caltech is its own category.
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Just a general comment- although our country is filled with hundreds of colleges where a motivated kid can get a fantastic education, find their “people”, and fall in love with artistic or volunteer or academic or social “extras” that make their lives meaningful… there are two handfuls of colleges which I think are very much “fit” places-- as in- it either fits the kid, or it doesn’t.
So BYU. Liberty. Yeshiva University. Julliard. Curtis. These are as much lifestyle choices as they are institutions of higher education.
And I’ll put Caltech in that bucket. I would not encourage someone who is ambivalent about the place to go there, regardless of price tag, admissions selectivity, distance to home, or anything else. The workload is the tip of the iceberg (and I agree with everyone’s comments that you cannot compare a rigorous HS to Caltech). But it’s every other aspect of the culture-- and it’s a monoculture. It’s not like U Michigan where you’ve got the jocks and the theater kids and the finance students and the sculptors and the frat members and the social justice warriors and everything else all co-existing in Ann Arbor. The culture is apparent when you walk onto the campus-- gorgeous landscaping and weather notwithstanding.
OP- if you aren’t in love with Caltech and the single-minded devotion to scientific inquiry and discovery, you won’t love it more when you’re working your tail off to maintain a B average in some of the hardest courses you’ve ever taken.
My pov…
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I mean, “monoculture” may not exactly be right. I’m pretty sure they have both D&D and SCA.
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I would do everything possible to make this a possibility. And don’t just do a tour of the campus.
- Sit in on a class or two
- Eat lunch on campus
- Talk to students, especially Jacobs Scholars, about their experience
- Perhaps talk with a professor (particularly if it’s someone whose research interests you)
- See if you can stay overnight with a student
It seems as though you have already visited Caltech, but it may be helpful to revisit the school and do these same types of activities there. I’d have a very hard time believing that someone wouldn’t have a strong preference toward one school or the other after two in-depth visits, as the schools offer very different experiences. Wishing you the best with your decision.
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This seemed the concern - unlikely anywhere given the major and interests, but certainly not at UCSD.
This and the parental pressure of Cal Tech.
Funnily, I haven’t visited either campus, but Caltech’s admitted student itinerary is very involved with all of those things you mentioned. UCSD’s core admitted student events happen to conflict, and as much as I’m trying it’s hard to convince my parents to allow me to visit because they’re dead set on Caltech (unless I visit and find my time there disastrous).
I seem to be unable to convince my parents, and since right now it’s still very much a 50/50, I will probably just end up at Caltech.
I just remembered another point in regards to the flexibility of UCSD. If I wanted to reach the top of the top, then everything takes sacrifice. I have to deprioritize what I enjoy but ultimately don’t get me where I want to go. I’m not afraid of hard work, but rather the sacrifice of personal life / character / dimensionality in higher success that might occur if I choose the Caltech grind. And now I sound cowardly for not choosing Caltech. 
I can’t tell if this is a life trajectory altering decision, or if it won’t matter in the end. I usually make hard decisions by thinking that it’s not as serious as I’m making it to be, but I feel like if I do that here then it’s a great lapse in judgement.
Coming from the Bay Area, the people I’m surrounded with tend to stigmatize schools that don’t come with built-in prestige.
I do see the peer group at Caltech being much more competent, but that doesn’t translate to sociability / kindness / responsibility. I can imagine classmates who are uncommunicative or petty at every school.
I also wonder which school would weather the current political situation the best. I know JPL at Caltech could receive hard hits, but UCSD is currently trying to slash budgets too.
Impossible to predict. Pretty sure both are going to be affected.
Wait, you go to Harker don’t you? (don’t answer that.) I can’t think of many Bay Area schools that would look down on UCSD or consider themselves as the workaholic equivalent of Caltech.
I think you can thrive in either place. The folks I know from Caltech are pretty colorful – definitely not two-dimensional grinds. One is a professional caliber violinist who who does medical research; one is a hard-charging CTO of a major media company and parent of at least three, maybe four kids now? One is a typically stoned theoretical physicist who likes to read philosophy in his spare time. One is a long-distance cyclist/quant jock. One is a crazy maker-type dude who turned a sofa into a semi-road-worthy vehicle and took it through the local drive-through. That same guy also had chickens. He has wild parties. One is a totally normal-seeming mom. One is a serial founder who has also become a published expert in disaster preparedness. My husband somehow managed to race bikes, play chamber music, screen movies, do research, make friends, and get good enough grades to get into every grad program he applied to. Most of them have this in common: they are polymaths and they are good at initiating and getting things done.
The kids I know from the Bay Area who got into UCSD are the ones who got straight As and did all the things in high school. (what they call “average excellent” around here) And some of those kids got waitlisted, actually. (including my son’s good friend who has gotten one sub-A grade his entire time in high school, does a bunch of different extracurriculars at a high level, and is probably going to Georgia Tech.) I think if you go to UCSD you’ll be surrounded by kids who are used to operating at a very high level. If you’re imagining Caltech folks to be more competent, you’re splitting the tiniest of hairs (after all, a lot of people who have the capacity to go to Caltech are going to places like UCSD because their parents have no interest in spending twice as much for college.)
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@Gumbymom – if the OP chooses (or is compelled by their parents to choose) CalTech over UCSD and ends up not thriving at CalTech, would there be a straight-forward transfer path to UCSD in the future?
Although I imagine the OP would be giving up the Jacobs Scholarship if they didn’t enroll as a Freshman?
OP – have you visited either UCSD or CalTech yet?
There’s no need to do official admitted student events. Going on a regular day is just fine (and, many argue, even better).
Caltech and UCSD are about 2 hours from each other. Do the admitted students day at Caltech and then the next day go and visit UCSD (or vice versa). Tell your parents that it will help minimize the travel hassle of needing to make two separate visits down to southern California by just doing them both at one time. Tell them it will quiet the voice in the back of your head with all of the whatifs. Tell them it will help you to start college gung ho about the school you’re enrolling in. But get them to okay a visit.
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This is why I suggested printing out the US News rankings for the top schools in artificial intelligence. All of these schools are very good. All are highly ranked for AI and CS. UC San Diego is however the highest ranked for AI, and it really is that good.
One issue is to figure out which school is a better fit for you. Another issue is how to convince your parents.
Other than how strong UC San Diego is for both AI and CS, the other thing that comes to mind as a possible argument is the cost of graduate school. Master’s degrees are rarely funded, except by parents or debt. Given that you have a younger sibling, the cost of your bachelor’s degree, plus the potential cost of a master’s degree, plus the same cost applied to your younger sibling, could add up to quite a bit.
Before our older daughter started university we set a budget based partly on the principle that education might not end after four years. Now, years later, with two kids in graduate programs, we are glad that we did (and we are glad that we can still help them both to some extent).
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Is there something you aren’t sharing with us? Why do they want you to go to Caltech? Do they feel it would be a better fit for you? Do they feel it has something that the other schools don’t?
Unfortunately, I have a travel grant (funny considering full pay) for Caltech, so scheduling isn’t that easy. I am trying my best. When I raise all these concerns about fit and stress they just point me to Columbia instead due to prestige.
I showed them the rankings, the professors field of research, etc. but they believe when it comes to a resume review UCSD will make a bad first impression (an euphemism for their concern about prestige).
And again, I’m still 50/50, but I’m still the most concerned about mental health / burnout struggles, which I had a lot of in high school (it could’ve just been related to specific circumstances, but is more likely to be aggravated by a likely more stressful environment at Caltech). Ultimately, I think if I cannot convince them otherwise, I won’t be too disappointed to not have a choice.
Can you convince them to let you take a gap year? (I guess you’d have to give up the Jacobs, though, which would be a bummer.)
I don’t see why taking a gap year here would be the solution (being home is part of the problem)
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Why don’t you have a choice?
It’s your life.