Dilemma between Caltech and Columbia

cadad
Tue, 18 Apr 2006 12:48:47 +0000

Sac and Artiesdad,

Thanks so much for your input. My S is a quiet person who does not like social too much. During his high school years, he rarely parties. He embraces science with passion. He details every questions and often annoys his teachers because he asks too many questions. He gets good grade after spending hours of studying but yet to find his classmates get about the same grade witout sweat. He is a very dedicated student with extreme perseverance. He can submit 50 pages of science paper while other students do not submit more than 10 pages.

He is pretty outdated with the current event. He does not like politics at all. He likes languages a lot, but hates every class which requires presentation.

That said, Caltech seems his type. Four years after, he will still be same old himself. He won’t have chance to turn himself into another person who can articulate his thought in public, not being able to join discussion and show his intellectual side.

I asked him, if you choose between


Stanford and Columbia, which would you choose?
" Stanford"
because Stanford is well rounded. Stanford has huge grade inflation.
Columbia and Caltech
" Caltech"
Because he hates cold weather and Columia seems to emphasize too much on humanity.
Princeton and Caltech?
" Princeton"
More prestige? maybe…


But Princeton is in NJ, the weather is very cold too.

I smell something fishy. The issue might not be the weather, not the science excellence . I kind of sense he does not think Columbia is a top Ivy. People always say HYP, but not HYPC… and that bothers him. If he can accept Princeton, then he should be able to accept Columbia because they are all the same type of well rounded schools.

He attended classes while visiting Columbia, UPenn, Brown… The problem is he can not really tell how the class is because the students do not ask questions. He can only conclude he likes the teacher or not, but no way of knowing how intelligent other kids are, what kind of test will be expected.

Only two weeks left for decision!!