<p>There is a famous example of someone who didn’t do well freshman year but got into Duke (yet decided to come back to Caltech after a year at Duke… liked the social life better here.) I don’t know how typical that is. Too small a sample size. While Caltech’s difficulty would probably be accounted for in transfer decisions, you shouldn’t expect to get into Harvard or Stanford or MIT after not doing well at Caltech. A lot of transfer applicants those schools get get are Cornell / slightly- sub-Ivy students with straight A+'s.</p>
<p>A comprehensive summary of what Techers do after graduation is here: <a href=“http://www.career.caltech.edu/life/index.shtml[/url]”>http://www.career.caltech.edu/life/index.shtml</a></p>
<p>The top graduate schools are very competitive. While a 4.0 from Caltech, all else equal, sends a stronger signal than a 4.0 from most peer institutions, it’s a matter of luck and recommendations how you’ll fare with a 3.0 or below. A 4.0 from Harvard would probably be better (but isn’t all that easy to get either!!).</p>
<p>As NQO points out, what swings it for students whose GPA’s aren’t sky-high is often an impressive research paper (“so what if he has a 3.2? he has a Nature paper! we have junior faculty who don’t have that!”) or a strong recommendation from a well-known professor. Caltech affords you a lot more opportunties to do those things than peer schools, so this might factor into your thinking.</p>
<p>In answer to your final question: the graduation rate is low because Caltech is hard.</p>
<p>Note: the 80% figure is the four-year graduation rate. Almost 90% graduate in 6 years or less.</p>