<p>One of my students was accepted to Caltech but is reluctant to accept for fear of failing out. This student is qualified, very bright, and hard working. However, he is the first in his family to attend college, and he wants to make a realistic decision. He is most interested in Caltech, but he knows that a prolonged period in college would be hard for his family and wants to avoid taking an extra year. He also wants to be realistic about his preparation versus the preparation of the average Caltech student. He took the most challenging courses available and studied on his own, but he has online contacts who had much more challenging coursework in their city high schools and still struggled at Caltech. He understand that there is a minimum number of hours you must pass each term to stay in. </p>
<p>Does anyone have stories or personal examples of failing out and being readmitted? What specifically did they have to do to get back in? Has anyone failed out two or three times and been readmitted? If so, what did they have to do? Did they eventually graduate? What happened to their scholarships and financial aid? If they were not readmitted or did not reapply, were they able to transfer to another top school? If not, did they have to go to an unchallenging school? In other words, how big of a risk is it if you’re not sure you’re well prepared but have been accepted to multiple top schools? </p>
<p>This student won’t be satisfied with encouragement. He wants facts and figures, and so I told him I’d post a thread and see what people said. Is it an objective process, or is it more subjective to allow for varied circumstances and options?</p>
<p>In other words, what are all the things you might have to do to be readmitted to Caltech if you fail a term, and what are your options if you either are not readmitted or decide it’s too much of a stretch for you?</p>
<p>There are certainly a small number of students at Caltech as there are at less rigorous colleges who “fail”. The reasons for failure are most often due to personal issues. For these students the college typically provides a safety net. The college will often allow them time off with some assurance that they can return in a semester or two and resume. But for students who fail because they cannot do the work it makes little sense to “return” and retry. In practice prestigious as the college may be the student’s final college GPA has a strong impact on his ability to get a first job, to go to graduate school, to start a career.</p>
<p>So, what are the options if a student decides to leave after failing classes? This student looked around at his state universities and they seem to require two years of college for a transfer student. What top university (read “very challenging school but a notch less extreme than Caltech in workload”) will accept a student in that position? Isn’t there something about “failing in” because you can’t go anywhere else? Would a student ever get into other colleges who accepted him after he failed in a slightly more challenging school? I know when my son got in, there were double admits who went to MIT because they were afraid to go to Caltech. I wouldn’t think MIT would be enough of a notch down in that situation, if at all. (No offense, MIT). Carnegie Mellon maybe? Duke? What is that transition like? I think he can do it, but he wants to know what happens in that case.</p>
<p>AlwaysNAdventure, you’re asking legitimate questions here, probably best directed to the Admissions Office and whatever administrative office handles transfers. (Some engineering schools call this, rather euphemistically, the “Office of Transfer Studies.”) What percentage of students leave after the first year, for any reason? What percentage of those who have left reapply – what subset is readmitted? This will tell you a lot. What percentage of students graduate within four years of matriculating? Within six? (I think this is part of the Common Data Set?)</p>
<p>My father attended Caltech for undergrad many years ago, my brother attended for grad school. My understanding is that the approach is very theoretical, as opposed to applied, so your student will likely do best if he/she is a big-picture thinker.</p>
<p>I would like to agree with the statements above, i.e. if they admitted him, he’ll be able to do the work. But, unfortunately, this thinking is overly simplistic given the very advanced preparation of many Caltech students, a good number of them international. And some very challenging schools such as Caltech still aim for a set percentage of students to fail from the incoming classes, despite the extremely high caliber of the current students. I encourage you to contact Caltech directly and ask them the hard questions. Best of luck in obtaining answers to these perceptive inquiries, and best of luck to your student as he makes up his mind. He’s fortunate to have you helping to guide him.</p>
<p>That’s utter nonsense for a small college such as Caltech. The theory of “weeding” out may apply to large universities with low admissions standards. But surely not to Caltech.</p>
<p>There’s is nothing truly special about the level of coursework at Caltech as compared to UC Berkeley, or CMU, or … If you take the advanced version of physics, or chemistry or math the course is ultimately the same regardless of where it is taught.</p>
<p>Caltech is a very small college. Anyone who struggles at Caltech is very visible to everyone … especially to the TAs, to the RAs, to his fellow students. The general response is not “too bad” but “what’s wrong … and what can be done to help.”</p>
<p>The first two quarters at Caltech are pass/fail. This pass/fail approach was introduced years ago (in the 1960s) to ease the transition of students from high school to college. MIT copied this approach, and the first semester there is pass/fail.</p>
<p>Frankly my sense is that the OP is over-thinking the transition from high school to college, and in the process likely creating unnecessary angst.</p>
<p>I would tend to agree with jeancocteau here. Caltech does have lower degree completion statistics than other “elite” colleges. It may or may not be any worse than other elites if you limited their data to the same majors, but we don’t have the data to know that. The most recent data from [College</a> Navigator - California Institute of Technology](<a href=“College Navigator - California Institute of Technology”>College Navigator - California Institute of Technology)</p>
<p>Students who started in Fall of/ 4 year grad rate/ 6 year rate/ 8 year rate
2003/ 73%/ 89%/ 92%
2005/ 76%/ 87%/ TBD</p>
<p>So having a concern about being able to complete a degree in four years is quite reasonable.</p>
<p>I believe most of first year is pass/fail (2 out of 3 terms?) so that students can get acclimated to the pace at Caltech.</p>
<p>Fear of failure based on some other students’ abilities is one of the worst. It is unwarranted. The best of the students may have lower gpas at graduation but they are not flunking out of Caltech.</p>
<p>@fogcity, perhaps a better way for me to express this idea would be to say that the curve at Caltech has likely remained the same while the qualifications of the admitted students have continued to advance. Given the advanced preparation of almost all incoming Caltech students, it can be a shock to find oneself at the bottom of the curve. I would expect the four year graduation rate to remain fairly stable over time, which might be good evidence of the stability of the curve overall.</p>