<p>@mynameisv: You’re right about the contrasting method of teaching in caltech and cambridge. But you know its not that different after all. If we were comparing say Cornell and Cambridge then yeah but Caltech itself is damn small so in actuality its actually rather similar to the environment at Cambridge. Of course there is time to make those decisions but yeah. </p>
<p>@Nishad: Not sure about the undergrad thingy but there might be some things that dont favour caltech. For eg its small, there may be some sections like breadth of courses in engineering or something for which caltech may not score well and so is penalised in the rankings. As for MIT>>>>Rest, actually thats not true. For engineering in the US, MIT,Stanford, Caltech are around the same level. Haha at least Caltech considers itself just as good, watch some TBBT, they’ll tell ya But i do know that unlike MIT, Caltech is a lot more specialised ie it probably has ****ty non-science, non-math, non-engineering courses! </p>
<p>@Putturani: IKR, in my school getting to MIT/Caltech is 12 times less likely!!! And you’re taste in weather is totally weird.</p>
<p>Alright this is a question/opinion for the whole thread. For all those worried about say LACs having a good rep and say smaller and difficult to get in colleges in terms of job prospects, think about this. If you wanna work in your specific field, then your college will be very well known and respected by your employer. Even if you wanna say do an MBA(like most engineers ) B schools require work experience so anyway you gotta work in your field a couple years… Is this a decently logical analysis?</p>
<p>Yes that’s a good analysis, but I am wondering if Indian employers in my field (which I have no idea what it will be) will know of the small LACs in the US. I wouldn’t mind working in other countries for a short while but I ultimately want to settle down in India. I am sure this applies in the US, but unsure if it applies in the rest of the world. I wouldn’t mind working where I live now but you need to know Chinese. </p>
<p>I wonder what kind of school you go to mysticgohan. In my school we have at least 3-4 Oxford offers but only one Ivy acceptance so far. Of course, the pool of people applying to the Ivies and to Oxbridge are different with some overlap. But the number of Ivy acceptances will (hopefully!) increase next week (and I’m really hoping to add to the tally). I guess a lot depends on what kind of school you go to. More British-oriented schools (GCSEs etc) might have more Oxbridge acceptances compared to American-style schools with lots of APs and SAT focus.</p>
<p>@putturani: Well so what exactly are you studying and what exactly do you wanna work as? Cause i have similar plans. I also wanna end up working in India. HK is nice barring the weather >.< As for the small LACs well Im pretty certain that for big firms the HR guys do their research on those kinds of unis. So if they know if you’re from HMC or one of the Pomona colleges im pretty sure they’ll rate you pretty highly. No real worries on that. If you’re really worried then maybe you could consider working in the US a couple years and then transfer to India or something. I was kinda considering the same. And as for the school I go to, haha we had 59 Oxbridge offers this year! Not sure about Ivies last year though.</p>
<p>Im sure Chinese is not compulsory in HK, its super globalised right? Its a lot like S’pore, everyone(almost) speaks a decent level of English innit?</p>
<p>I really don’t know what I want to study (hence I am planning to study in the US). I hope whichever company I work in, in the future will do their research. Let’s see, that’s four years in the future now. The number of Oxbridge offers in your school is mind-boggling! Our school is open admission though, so that may explain the relatively low number of selective offers. Actually, Chinese is a HUGE plus in HK, no matter what people say. There is a lot of bias towards locals here.</p>
<p>Well for research do you have any particular fields in mind? Yeah if you dont know what you want to study, LACs are the best! What places are you strongly considering btw? And wow I didnt know that about HK >.< Guess its out as a workplace And as for research you know there are few better places than the US right? If you wanna research in india you’re better off working in an R & D lab. And if im not wrong, R&D in India aint that strong :(</p>
<p>59 is unbelievable. Less than 40 Indians go to Oxbridge every year. And trust me, their yield is pretty high. You must be going to a stunner of a school. If you’re in Singapore, I strongly suspect that you attend UWCSEA. No other school can get 59 Oxbridge offers. I doubt if any British schools get these many offers (probably Eton college does). Wow! You’re a very fortunate person, mysticogan!</p>
<p>Well aside from it being slightly inappropriate openly voicing deductions about which school I am from, I must say that your deduction is inaccurate nonetheless. As for it being fortunate studying in an elite school, not necessarily since an elitist environment can certainly be rather uncomfortable…That being said, i did enjoy school And btw where did you get the info that the QS rankings only consider UG studies? Id greatly appreciate it if you could send me the link thanks Have you looked at the UK Nishad?</p>
<p>I happened to chance upon this thread (I’m not from India)</p>
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<p>mysticgohan, sounds like you go to that school with lots of people who go to the Ivy League. Are you from that ‘Gateway to the Ivy League’ school because only that and one other school have admissions rates similar to that mentioned?</p>
<p>Well as for the article mentioning the Gateway to the Ivy League, ive only said there were plenty of Oxbridge offers from my school and thus it is not necessarily the Gateway. And it seems this gateway school is pretty famous eh? Unless of course, you’re from Singapore too…</p>
<p>Aniruddh-You’d asked somewhere about my Midd decision. I know this got lost somewhere between discussions about school and HK weather, but I got waitlisted. I was so shocked since I was completely certain they would reject me after this FA fiasco that happened around their FA submission deadline. I pretty much acted like I hadn’t applied there, so I opened my portal for the heck of it and nearly fell off my chair. The only fathomable reason I can think of is my interview, which must have shifted things ever so slightly in my favor. That, and the fact that I met the Dean of International Admissions when she came to our school, and asked her a really random question that seemed really lame to me at the time, despite my counselor saying it’s a good question.
Wow, you people go to schools that send 59 people to Oxbridge? And here I was getting excited over one of my friends making it. To be fair though, my graduating class is really small by Indian standards.</p>
<p>Sorry for butting into this conversation, but I must say I had the opportunity to interact with many kids from that ‘Gateway to the Ivy League’ school on two occasions. One was in the the global round of the World Scholar’s Cup 2009 that was held in Singapore and the second was in the World Schools Debating Championship 2010 in Doha. The kids from that school are quite smart and by the number of medals they won in the World Scholar’s Cup they were quite the overachievers (they won like 90% of the medals and it was hilarious because the prize giving ceremony lasted for like 1 hour and the announcer kept saying X from ‘Gateway to the Ivy League’ School , Y from … you get it).
But they are nice people too, in fact I still keep in touch with a couple of them that I met in Doha.</p>
<p>Yeah, let’s keep mysticgohan’s school confidential. LOL Hugs for the waitlist nemo, I hope you get in. I wish that if we were refusing an offer, we could decide who gets in instead of us. Last few days of school for me</p>
<p>Thanks puttu. I was mildly happy when I found out, then I looked up the statistics and the numbers sobered me up. In the past 5 years the number of students they pulled off the waitlist has ranged from 79 to 0. So I’m not very optimistic.
Haha, don’t we all? Sometimes I think a waitlist is a good thing, and sometimes I just curse US schools for adding an additional unnecessary level of uncertainty. It’s like the disappointment of a rejection (or complete shock at the lack thereof, as in my case) mixed with yet another prolonged agonizing wait where you continue holding on to the slightest sliver of hope.
I am such an insomniac. It’s 3:15 a.m. here. I have 10 more days of school left ever. Tomorrow will be my last A Week Monday. This feels surreal already.</p>
<p>Today is my last monday EVER! We only have five days of school left. Eeep! We’re dressing up this entire week and pulling pranks on friday. Well I am hoping that this year they take 79 off the waitlist. You know what, more than the waitlist itself, I hate how most internationals are disadvantaged in this process. If someone doesn’t have any acceptances than a waitlist is AGONY.</p>
<p>You know what my school did? CBSE schools declare holidays after January, so January is the last month we attend school. We had hoped to pull off some awesome pranks and do all that party stuff in the school. It was all set. Crackers were arranged, everybody in the my section and across the entire 12th class was bringing some stuff. Friday was gonna be hell of a day. Suddenly, in the last minute of the last period on Thursday, it was announced that this was the last day for 12th and we would not be attending school from Friday. Major disappointment.</p>
But i do know that unlike MIT, Caltech is a lot more specialised ie it probably has ****ty non-science, non-math, non-engineering courses! </p>
What places are you strongly considering btw? And wow I didnt know that about HK >.< Guess its out as a workplace 