<p>My first reaction is identical to webhappy’s. Sure MIT might not be the right place, but MIT really does seem to appeal to a broader number of tastes than Caltech. Could you be more specific, OP, about what in MIT is making you unhappy? That might give some Caltech (or Mudd) students a better chance to figure out what you’d feel like at either of these schools. </p>
<p>I go to a very large school myself, and the trick for me has been to find a subset of the population that connects with me. It can’t be that tough for someone who loves subjects like math, science or engineering to do that. I’d recommend first actively try to build a community of students at MIT; they are all supposed to be pretty friendly people after all. Of course, Caltech sounds like it might be a somewhat better fit if you really value community that much, because it’s easier to get to know people like that, but even so, MIT should be far from impossible to work with. You may find that transferring ends up being anticlimactic.</p>
<p>Good to see such a swell, informative geek_mom post there too. I’m sure that’ll be very helpful in looking inside HMC and Tech.</p>