<p>I think it is better to visit Cal Tech. There is more to do in the LA area. You can also visit USC, Harvey Mudd, UCLA, etc. all driving distance from Cal Tech. You can go to Disneyland, etc. if you have time.</p>
<p>We went to see Stanford and it was such a waste of money. Stanford is a lovely school, but the hotels near the campus were nothing great and very expensive. The area is pricey.
I am not a fan of San Francisco, but many feel differently. I would only go see Stanford if your child is accepted.</p>
<p>The only 2 kids that have been accepted to Stanford from my town in the last 5 years have declined to attend. They both found it ‘cold’ and didn’t care for the atmosphere. My son visited and didn’t even apply. But agree with others that visiting Caltech would be more informative. Be sure to visit Stanford though if you are accepted.</p>
<p>No one else has said this, but I think Caltech is lovely. There is some serious money going into the groundskeeping. There are some great little geeky touches: the reflecting pond in front of the bio building has a DNA tile mosaic, the rocks in the rock garden near the library are a range of samples with a legend provided to identify each one. In the spring when the wisteria are in bloom it is drop-dead gorgeous. </p>
<p>Not that anyone working or studying there notices. :D</p>
<p>So few would be happy at Caltech and so many would die to go to Stanford, it’s really about your kid.</p>
<p>Hard to see the same kid at Cal, Stanford and Caltech. Berkeley and Stanford are less than an hour apart in non rush hour traffic and caltech just an hours flight, so all are doable in one trip, though only Berkeley will have typical action during the summer.</p>
<p>Visited Cal Tech in the summertime with older son. There seemed to be plenty of students around and had the opportunity to meet with 2 faculty members as well, which was nice. Also saw Harvey Mudd on that trip, and spend some fun time being a tourist in Hollywood too! </p>
<p>Just had the opportunity to see Stanford and Santa Clara on a recent visit out there. They are beautiful schools (landscaping was gorgeous) and enjoyed the Rodin gardin and the museum at Stanford-- but that wsnt a college visit trip in the traditional sense. If you have a car, there are other things to do in the Stanford area. </p>
<p>Hard to say which to visit. I will say, though, that my older s found the visit to Cal Tech very helpful-- he decided he’d get caught up in the intensity of the school, so decided not to apply.</p>
I agree. In fact, I think it’s the prettiest campus in the country mostly because it’s so densely planted and so much blooms in the spring. It’s not just wisteria - there are myrtle trees, iris, some red flower vine on the Beckman Institute… Not to mention the little olive grove in the Dabney garden where we got married. :)</p>
<p>Trying to remember where that came from, as our visit was many yrs ago. IIRC, there was something said about classes not starting until noon, and that some classes (?) went til midnight, with many students commonly studying til 4 am. Thats purely from memory. Maybe someone can confirm??</p>
<p>*** just took a quick peek at the class schedule, as I wondered if I was remembering classes only in the Physics dept. Looks like, from quick perusal, that there are some 9am labs and some 10 am classes, but most look like they start at 11 am or later. Someone who has attended can hopefully respond.</p>
<p>The intensity was visible to my daughter a number of years ago, because her tour guide freely explained the core requirements and talked about how hard every student works. Like at MIT, it’s not that classes run until midnight, it’s that students commonly will work up to (and beyond) midnight to complete problem sets.</p>
<p>Some of the intensity has to do with the nature of student that chooses to attend, rather than core requirements or coursework. As at MIT, many students come in with quite a few advanced courses, sometimes enough to graduate a year early. However, the sort of students who choose either school usually are so interested/driven/curious/intrigued about their fields (and other fields, frankly), that they will choose to double major, load up on courses, and so on. </p>
<p>That intensity appeals to some students; it definitely appealed to my daughter, who’s now a physics major at MIT. She chose MIT because she wanted a larger physics department with a larger body of female physics students, but these days the number of females at CalTech is increasing. Maybe she’ll have a chance to go there for grad school.</p>
<p>Waiting to visit Stanford until finding out that your student has been accepted does reduce the risk of falling in love and having that love remain unrequited, given the 7% acceptance rate. On the other hand, I think it’s best to visit as many colleges as possible in advance of applying, since it can help determine the student’s interest levels and priorities.</p>
<p>I don’t know if academic intensity is ever visible from tours. When we toured I remember the tourguide talked about how you’ll never see a multiple choice test again and how they liked the honor system which meant you could take exams wherever you liked unproctored. She also said it was quite typical for students to take an exam, run out of time - draw a line on their exam showing when their time was up and then continue working just to prove they could get the right answer even if they weren’t speedy enough. They also talked about working on problem sets in groups. Most kids work really hard, but they have time for pranks, pretty wild parties etc. When we walked through a dorm we met kids sitting around the lounge area eating pizza, not studying frantically. The only current student I know (young woman in bio) is doing very well there.</p>
<p>My husband was a grad student there, and I worked briefly in a non-science library on campus, but that was quite a while ago!</p>
<p>I think it’s more that most students here don’t wake up in time to get to classes before noon, if they even go to any of their classes in the first place.</p>
<p>I’d say visit Caltech since it is an extremely different school from pretty much all other schools out there. The undergrad house culture is something you really need to be interested in in order to attend, and I think there’s a lot more here you can’t get off of a website than at Stanford.</p>
<p>Their pecan rolls (only available Sunday mornings in our day) are delicious, but they make great pies. It’s within walking distance of the campus.</p>
<p>Our first visit to CalTech was in summer when my son has raising sophomore. He liked it so much that it became his dream school and he will be joining this fall.</p>
<p>Are you visiting Harvey Mudd also. Is about a 1 hour drive and has a totally different feel to it. Please PM me if you have any specific questions.</p>
<p>Again depending on your time, there are lots of places in LA area for you to see, just depends on what you want.</p>
<p>Just wanted to echo the suggestion of visiting HM too. My DH did his undergrad in physics at HMC and then did his PhD at Caltech. For him, that was probably the best way to go. I’m not sure he would have been ready for Caltech right after high school. He ended up doing extremely well there for his PhD (finished it in just over 4 years which is remarkably fast for Physics and particularly there and was always near the top of his group of entering grad students on things like tests, quals, etc. Also wanted to mention that he had a lot of interaction with the undergrads … he actually coached XC and Track for a while when they were between coaches, so he had some pretty decent perspective about what it would have been like to be there as an undergrad. For him, it wouldn’t have been a great fit (he liked the 5 College atmosphere of Claremont, wanted a heavy concentration in humanities (he did literature and french) in addition to Physics, and sports were important to him). For some kids, it was a great fit, but might be worth exploring HMC and the 5 Colleges too.</p>
<p>As far as restaurants in Pasadena, we lived there 15 years ago, but if you want good, upscale chain options along with some great independent restaurants, I’d hit the Old Town area. For pretty high end, we used to love Parkway Grill… On the low end, our favorite places were In 'n Out and The Hat (best pastrami anywhere)</p>
<p>When we were touring Cal Tech, we also did the Warner Brothers Studio Tour in Burbank less than half an hour away - very interesting for the whole family. The tour guide tries to personalize the tours a little to accomodate the taste of his or her group. We had a lot of Gilmore Girls fans so got to see a lot of those sets. DH and I were in Pasadena another time and greatly enjoyed the Norton Simon Museum.</p>
<p>DS’s tour of Cal Tech is what decided him against applying. He didn’t like the suggestion of English boarding school ambience for one thing. He did love Stanford; we all did; but alas they didn’t love him as much.</p>
<p>We visited CalTech and Mudd (and Pomona) spring break of junior year. My son/engineering seemed to like CalTech ok until he visited Mudd. He liked the undergrad emphasis and Claremont consortium (Mudd, Pomona, Scripps, Pitzer, CMC). Mudd became one of his favorite schools. He didn’t apply to CalTech. But other students may like the grad school atmosphere. </p>
<p>Note that Stanford, CalTech, and Mudd are all “lottery schools”. There is almost no resume that will guarantee acceptance since there are many qualified applicants and a lot of subjectivity in selection. It does no harm to visit. And it makes sense to work diligently on the application if it is the right fit and the student is up for incredibly intense academics. But students need to have a level set that acceptance is a bit of a crap shoot. </p>
<p>Also know that these schools have FA but not merit $ (except for a $10K scholarship at Mudd that is verrrrrrry hard to get). If your budget is limited, make sure you student know that he/she can’t go if they’ll need family to pay more than $xx,xxx/year.</p>
The only current student I know (young woman in bio) is doing very well there.</p>