This thread has jumped the shark. Caltech, Napoleon dynamite? Not Sheldon cooper? Really??? Lost me here. Unless you have real experience with MIT or Caltech, think before posting. I assume the OP wants true info
^ Yes. Sheldon Cooper belongs to Caltech. Howard Wolowitz belongs to MIT.
MIT students donāt know how to read. Harvard students donāt know how to count.
LOL - I gave my own college the painful pathetic Cliff Claven, and some jabronie complains that a different unworthy school got Shedon Cooper before his alma mater did.
Fine. Cal Tech is Dr. Strangelove.
Is that ok? 
I couldnāt sit through Napoleon Dynamite. The Caltech kids I knew (and I worked there for a year) and DH was a grad student there for five years were all super bright, knew how to throw amazing parties, found time to do some pretty amazing pranks, and were a bit nerdy. Most were pretty normal - especially among the grad students. The grad students were almost alarmingly normal - they played softball and tennis, read books, hiked and went scuba diving etc.
oh for goodness sake
Ok. New rules that apply to everyone - whatever school YOU went to or are associated with gets to be Indiana Jones and Hermoine Granger at the same time.
Only other peopleās schools deserve to have lighthearted fun poked at them
āPitzer is the baby of the bunch who lives in the shadow of the others, but he currently has the most potential. Heās the most hip, modern, and trendy, but he also deeply cares about community service and social justice.ā Hahaha I LOVE PITZER
@Prezbucky Post #133 had me rolling. Thx for that!
I shared your post with a Penn student and a Cornell alum. The Penn student thought they were all hilarious, especially the Penn description. The Cornell alum, whined ironically and good naturedly that, āCornell students are not whiny and annoying!ā lol
Harvard - elitist, mix of preprofessional and intellectual, they know they are top but they ll not admit it (they went to Boston for schoolā¦)
Stanford - cool, irreverent, unique school character/traditions, elitist but not stuffy, dynamic, exciting, work hard-play hard, only place that makes Harvard feel it has some competition across the board
MIT - nerdy with a surprisingly fun and strong social scene, super smart, down to earth, practical, intense but collaborative
Yale - old-school, elitist, waspy, intellectual, can get snobbish, hogwarts vibe
Princeton - even more old school, waspy, preppy, elitist, snobbish, very intellectual
Penn - preprofessional with a splash of intellectualism, work-hard/play-hard, intense, practically-minded, diverse, interdisciplinary focus on education, a bit insecure towards HYPSM
Columbia - mix of pre-professional and intellectual but more pre-professional, liberal, hipster-y, diverse, new york life, a bit insecure towards HYPSM
Dartmouth - fratty, social, not very diverse, skiing, probably the most conservative ivy
Brown - very liberal, open curriculum, more laid-back than the other ivy+ schools, intellectual
Cornell - pre-professional, work hard/play hard, rigorous, intense, beautiful campus, slightly insecure towards the other ivies, Stanford, MIT, make fun of Harvard for their gentlemanās As.
@Much2learn, Iām glad you enjoyed it. Putting that post together (133) was a mirthful escape.
Canāt compete with @prezbucky and other luminaries of this thread, but here are my soundbites on the Ivy+ schools:
Harvard: oldest, richest US university with top worldwide brand; probably broadest and deepest academic strength at undergraduate and graduate levels; large, relatively impersonal and decentralized; hyper-competitive undergraduate student body containing all kinds of leaders who may prioritize ECs higher than leniently-graded classes; in lively town and close to Boston but surprisingly limited social scene
Yale: tops for humanities and performing arts in the Ivies, with broad range of strong graduate/professional schools; second-richest / -oldest Ivy; less broadly strong in engineering / some STEM areas; generally happy place with Hogwarts vibe; best residential system in the Ivies; surrounding small Connecticut city improving but still a mixed bag; social life centered on campus and small number of frats/societies adjacent
Princeton: academically strong in a broad number of areas from humanities to engineering; old-school, very wealthy and sporty; primarily focused on undergrads; elitist vibe (e.g., social scene centered on eating clubs); smallest of HYPS; most southern Ivy geographically, in tone and population; in a rich town in central New Jersey with few social options for students; most loyal alumni in the Ivies; unfortunate school colors
Stanford: strongest university outside the Northeast and increasingly a threat to Harvard, with little local competition; top-tier big-time sports; very intense students under great pressure not to show it; very strong academically (particularly known for STEM/CS although excellent in many areas) but vibe is more pre-professional than HYP; Silicon Valley / entrepreneurship-focused; huge campus; surrounding California city not really a college town
MIT: tops for STEM but surprisingly strong in some other areas (e.g., Econ); students more fun than youād think; shares Cambridge with Harvard
Columbia: academically strong in many areas with highly-ranked graduate and professional schools but only in recent years became super-attractive because its identity is totally entwined with New York, which, with Columbiaās neighborhood, has had a renaissance; extensive core curriculum, unlike other Ivies
Penn: most pre-professional (in part because of strong professional schools) and party-focused Ivy; significant boost to reputation in recent years as neighborhood / city of Philly have improved and yield / selectivity have risen (in part due to high reliance on early decision)
Brown: most relaxed vibe and least structure academically of the Ivies; smallest endowment; generally known for being politically liberal; in medium-sized city of Providence but on a hill and self-contained
Dartmouth: most outdoorsy and smallest Ivy; in small-town New Hampshire; sporty; fratty with deep alumni network; politically conservative; quarter system
Cornell: largest student body in the Ivies, of which it is the youngest; very pre-professional; lovely campus in the middle of nowhere; some unusual specialized schools
^^ Penn, not Princeton, is the most southern Ivy, geographically.
Youāre right, @Multiverse7. Iāll correct to āsecond-most southern Ivy geographically, most Southern in tone and population.ā
^yeah I agree Princeton is the most Southern in tone and population. Correct me if I am wrong but i also think that Princeton historically was the school of choice out of HYP for the southern elites.
I calculate that Princeton is about 60 miles north by latitude from Penn, but it feels far to the south of it. Although Princetonās as global as its peers now, in the mid-19th century, the student body was majority Southern, Woodrow Wilson, president of the university early in the twentieth century, was raised in the Deep South, and the university didnāt admit blacks until the mid-1940s, long after Harvard and Yale began to do so.
It was and known to be such to such an extent that even in the 19th century it was known as āthe southern Ivyā for that reason.
These descriptions are hilarious (& perhaps contain a kernel of truth?)! Anyways, I grew up at Stanford & wanted a school that was a lot like Stanford but not 1 mile from my parents. I ended up at Duke ā which was similar in vibe (brilliant students with big D1 sports & a fair amount of sunshine & laid back vibe). While those characteristics are not unique to Duke & Stanford, they do make them similar (still to this day). However, looking at these schools again with my son, I kind of came to the conclusion that I donāt like either school much. Stanford feels like Beijing or Amsterdam during rush hour ā watch out or you WILL get run over by a bike! Stanford is a pain is the a$$ to get around (bikes are crazy & parking is non-existent). Itās a huge campus & like, Duke, under constant construction. Duke, meanwhile, has trended IMHO decidedly douchey. Now, perhaps I was immune to all the dbags there when I was a student, but Iām kinda relieved that my S has decided Duke is not for himā¦ Maybe itās not a surprise that heās applied to Cornell CALS.
@Steglitz90 I sometimes say that if Duke and MIT had a child that lived in California, it would be Stanford.
@DeepBlue86 And obnoxious younger child USC
I think USC is the love child of Notre Dame and NYU. It has one pugnacious parentās obnoxious love of sports and leadership; from the other it gets its excellence in drama and its cosmopolitan flair; and USC gets its business sense from both. Much to its fatherās chagrin, it beats Notre Dame in football about as often as not.
NYU wanted her son to be free of the shackles of an organized campus, but Notre Dame convinced the Trojan to provide a more traditional campus.
lol