To understand this better, perhaps you could say at which type of school your son has access to a CS professor?
Yes, that is what he is most afraid of about Caltech. He wants to understand whether one even gets time to think and develop in such an environment. He has connected with some undergrad and grad students and will meet them around DiscoTech to get an idea.
May I ask what other schools is your son considering along with Caltech?
There is a lot of mental health consultation that occurs at Caltech.
I didnāt want to bring that up. One of my sonās roommates had a serious issue that I donāt want to bring up.
You canāt just look at the ārankingsā for Caltech and how difficult it is to get in. These are human beings in a very stressful, academic environment who are placed in very lonely independent situations.
You have to look at how mentally healthy your child will be while there and if they will be successful in that kind of environment.
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Often on CC, when comparing schools, people will say School A (with more of an undergraduate focus) offers a superior experience to School B (with more of a focus on research). From what I have seen, whether it is for top tier jobs or grad school acceptances, undergraduate research is often the difference-maker. If you think he would enjoy it, all the better.
Caltech isnāt for everyone. Still, you will never know if it is the right fit for him without taking a shot. Life is all about taking risks. If the powers that be at Caltech believe in him enough to accept him, I think it is a risk worth taking.
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Bias disclosure: I was rejected from Caltech
I do not know about Harvey Mudd, but I do know that Caltech is very small, and as a result, you might not find the academic/research opportunities you want. When I was researching about Caltech during application filing season, I was hoping to find really good labs and course tracks focused on computer engineering, but I was disappointed to find that their were none. The majority of the CS professors were focused in a few small areas within CS (e.g. AI).
Personally, I find that what you research is far more important than doing cutting-edge research in a field that may not interest you. At larger universities, there are an ample number of diverse opportunities, so you shouldnāt have too much difficulty finding what you want. Caltech, although it prides itself very heavily on research, doesnāt seem to offer too much if you arenāt interested in one of itās super popular research areas like AI.
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Delete.
I totally agree with what you are saying, even though that didnāt come through in my previous post. Different kids thrive in different environments for sure.
Also, just to be clear, I view the academic level of Harvey Mudd as being the same as (undergrad) Caltech. I feel that most grad schools and many people that work in technology share that point of view. I was just pointing out that the Caltech name is better known outside of those circles.
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Will DM you. Honestly, I suspect many of the students (and parents) attending DiscoTech will have the same concerns.
Thereās absolutely no reason to subject oneās self to the grind if that not the cloth youāre cut from. It could be a perfect fit, but if there are warning signs that it isnāt, do not try to stuff the square peg into the round hole. There are simply too many great options to ignore fit.
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Harvey Mudd is consistently ranked at the top of PHD producers and professors there are hired in part because they have a plan to meaningdully involve undergrads in research. So research in itself is not a differentiator - probably more relevant would be what research is being done that undergrads can participate in.
Both are unusual : CalTech basically grad school for hyperfocused, hypertalented 18-21 year old scholars, HarveyMudd more a college for the Renaissance (wo/)man, with intense STEM academics but also high expectations in Social Sciences&Humanities on a 7,000 student campus with colleges closer to the āCambridge collegeā model of housing/academic units abutting one another.
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IMO this weighs in Muddās favorā¦ Both are known (among those at the highest level of STEM education) to offer and excellent and intense STEM education, with CalTech professors more famous and focused on their research, and Mudd professors more focused on engaging the students in meaningful student education and research. While the focus is different, both prepare a large portion of their students to continue their studies at the highest level graduate programs. (They are always the top two Ph.D. feeders per enrollment for Physics, Math, CS) But Mudd also offers access to the other four Consortium schools, and their students and faculty, many of whom are brilliant in and beyond STEM. In my opinion Mudd strikes more of a balance between intense focus on STEM and the "traditionalā University experience.
All that said, it seems you lean heavily toward Cal-Tech for reputation reasons, and if your kid agrees with that, then you have your answer. And it is no doubt a great school. But if other factors enter into it, further investigation might be warranted.
(Iāll add that it is probably going to be difficult to get a good read on Harvey-Mudd during a few hour visit. The buildings arenāt pretty (unless you like brutalism), and the Mudd portion of the large Consortium campuses is quite small. Iād recommend reaching out to students and professors to get a better sense of what the place has to offer.)
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Right, thank you. As pertains to this topic, then, the source for
seems to be a local (to you) college professor. I asked for clarification because the statement, perhaps, seems excessively opionated and limiting. In my opinion, anyway, for a divergent field such as CS, the foundational preparation from an excellent school such as Harvey Mudd would be suitable for nearly all highly accomplished students who intend to major in computer science.
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No, he is not local at all.
Honestly not invested enough in continuing this discussion to argue about. I have deleted the post. Hope this satisfies you.
I wish you had read my reply literally. My first words thanked you for your response.
Harvey Muddās upper level CS courses (listed at CS Course Descriptions | Computer Science | Harvey Mudd College ) cover most of the expected upper level CS topics, with only a few gaps (security / cryptography and hardware). However, a student wanting to go into more niche topics or more in depth to more advanced level courses in a particular topic will not find them there.
Caltechās upper level CS courses (listed at Filtered Courses - Computing + Mathematical Sciences ) show a much greater selection of niche topics and more advanced level courses in various CS topics. Whether or not any given student will find such offerings of interest in comparison to a department that has ordinary good coverage of the upper level CS topics is student-specific.
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My husband, sibling, and a number of our friends went to Caltech. I know a couple of folks who went to Mudd. Husband had an amazing time at Caltech, after a shy and awkward high school experience. The house system creates smaller communities within the community. He talks a lot about the stacks they planned for ditch day, about the chamber music class he took, the club sport he played, the movies he screened. He was able to do research. He also got into every PhD program he applied to with an NSF fellowship. And he is still quite close to several of his friends from college. He is good at self-discipline and quite smart but not, like, winning national math and physics awards in high school smart. I think he found grad school both socially and academically more challenging. (Less collaboration among peers, lab work and coursework tricky to synchronize, harder to make friends when people werenāt living in a concentrated cluster.)
My sibling struggled at Caltech due to untreated ADHD and depression issues that predated college. It is possible that theyād have had an easier time at a slightly easier school. (Not Mudd.) I think one needs solid executive function skills to truly thrive at either school.
I know enough different people who thrived at Caltech as undergrads to believe that it is a special place and Iām glad youāre going to visit. Mudd seems to be wonderful and certainly offers a bigger social pond due to the consortium. But I think if one can do well academically at Mudd, one should be able to hack it at Caltech.
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Replying to this thread because, in many ways, your student sounds very similar to my kid (several years ago) ā very much interested in Machine Learning (AI), obsessed with research, and not very fond of requirements to take humanities classes. Full disclosure, he investigated, and we toured, both CalTech and Mudd and in the end he chose not to apply to either. But here are some thoughts on what I have read in this thread.
Iām not in the camp that feels that research schools short-change the undergraduate learning experience. In my experience, research universities provide expanded opportunities for motivated students to apply learning, make valuable personal connections, and get published. The ability to be exposed to top-world-class researchers in lab environments can be transformative! If your student is attracted to research, I would focus on finding out just what each school offers. Many schools have āresearch opportunitiesā but your questions need to go deeper: How many research labs are there and how many are in areas that he is interested in? How do students join labs and how soon can they get involved? Can participation in research labs count as classwork?
I think that students, especially those focused on AI, should not shy away humanities classes because it adds depth to their college experience and prompts them to consider AIs implications to society. BTW, at many research schools you can find humanities classes built around AI simply because of its implications to society ā making them more palatable to more students.
Finally, all students will encounter stress and some schools may induce more stress than others. But it is very dependent on the student, and if that student is studying something they love stress can be more manageable. You know your ked the best ā so choose wisely.
Our S made the most of his large research university (and yours can too):
- Classwork heavy on what he loved (AI and Reinforcement Learning)
- Surrounded by world class profs and like-minded students
- Expanded breadth with humanities classes that investigated the implications of AI on society
- Joined an AI lab led by world-renowned researcher in 2nd quarter of freshman year
- Published in 3 AI papers from the lab (second name on last paper)
Currently he is in the research group of a late-stage startup in Silicon Valley where he leads a team focusing on Reinforcement Learning. He has published two more papers during his employment and is working on more. He regularly attends AI conferences where he runs in to people from his old lab ā some ae still there, a few are in academia, and others are in the private sector.
Good luck on your search. Lots to choose from ā lots to consider in making your choice.
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Thanks a lot. Your suggestions are really helpful and we will keep these questions in mind. Yes, my son is very interested in research and has been working in a world famous Profās lab at a local university for over four years and has even published a few first authored journal and conference papers with him. He spends more time there than even his school. So he definitely wants to go to a place where he can immerse himself in research. Caltech has 5-6 researchers working in his area of interest and his current research advisor is very well connected to a few of them. So we know he will have some connections there. The question he is struggling with is whether it is better to go to a hard place where he may struggle in classes and thus, may not get time to do research and then get burned out or go to place where he is confident of doing very well in classes and thus, can spend time on his independent work. We are visiting these two contrasting choices and meeting faculty members and hopefully, he will be able to decide which one interests him more.
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It sounds like Caltech would be a better fit for him - although HarveyMudd is different, itās very intense too so if he wants something less intense than these 2 he should look into his acceptances to the strongest flagship for his major+Honors/Scholars/Research program (as this would allow him to choose easier classes alongside intense ones.)
Thanks a lot. Looking through courses and online searches, that is what I felt too that someone who will succeed at Harvey Mudd can be successful at Caltech. I also attended a University which had a very strong house culture and absolutely loved my experience there.
We just wanted to start narrowing down the options and the research possibilities at Caltech does seem to tilt the balance between these two towards Caltech.