<p>i won an axline scholarship from caltech a few months ago (100% full ride merit scholarship all four years), and i turned it down to go to mit. i also got into stanford, brown, and random other places. no, i am not crazy.</p>
<p>i liked mit better than caltech because caltech seemed 1) way too small - it really bothered me that all the humanities offerings at caltech could fit on three pieces of paper, that i could see everything at caltech in about one hour, and that it wasn’t much bigger than my high school - and 2) very “grinding” - people at caltech had a hell of a lot of work to do, and it was a source of a lot of complaining because people really didn’t believe that all that work was really meaningful and educational. moreover, the core curriculum at caltech is restrictive and hard to get out of (as someone who’s taken a lot of university-level math and science, this was a big negative), and for what i’m interested in (nanotechnology, bioengineering), mit seemed to have better programs and research opportunities. moreover, cross-registration with harvard was a big plus. access to math 55 is pretty amazing, and there are other humanities courses at harvard that i am drooling over.</p>
<p>as for fluffy subjective things: i liked the people at mit better. at caltech, when i told them that i was deciding between mit and caltech, they would rail on diffusely about how much mit sucked. at mit, when i told them i was considering caltech, many students tried to give an honest appraisal of the differences between the two. some people even recommended caltech over mit if i was looking for certain programs or a certain kind of college experience. also, i have many friends going to mit/boston. not so much in california. mit is also closer to home, which is nice. finally, and most vaguely, i felt that i just fit in more at mit than at caltech.</p>
<p>i am pretty convinced that all this stuff justifies turning down a full ride. if anyone else finds themselves in the same position, consider the following – caltech itself reports that only 20% of the 24 people who get axlines take caltech up on the offer (the link is somewhere, can’t find it right now) – this is actually lower than the general yield of ~33%. i know five other axline recipients who are turning them down, four of whom are going to mit.</p>
<p>edit: i agree with the poster above me on many counts, too. CPW >> caltech’s prefrosh weekend!</p>