<p>My HS is pretty unfamiliar with Caltech also, and we’re just a few miles from Anaheim. People get it confused with Cal Poly Pomona pretty consistently…it’s my impression that Caltech in general has very little street recognition, and is only really well known among people who are familiar with the sciences, and there it is very, very, well known. I agree Caltech is probably seriously underrated in the public consciousness.</p>
<p>I don’t think Caltech would be the same if it had name recongition of the sort MIT or Harvard has. This raises the percentage of people who are attending just to study science at Caltech–and not to try to pretend to be a genius to their friends. I don’t mean to make any sweeping generalities with this statement, but I know many people who want to attend the Ivies, Stanford, and MIT just to say they went there and flaunt the prestige of their admission. My impression of Caltech is that this is much, much less common there. This is one of the more important reasons I’m turning down MIT, for the record.</p>