<p>I myself was deciding between Cal (with Regents scholarship) and Caltech.</p>
<p>Pro vs cons of going to Caltech vs. Cal</p>
<p>Pros (of Caltech):
Small size: You get to know pretty much everyone in your house and your grade. No 200-300 people lecture classes.
Houses: These are easily one of the best things about Caltech. It a built in family/support system and they’re really fun. At the dinners at the house I stayed at during PFW, you got to throw food at people!
Core: You get to learn a lot of science and math!
Tunnels: The tunnel system is really cool and has a lot of history! I got to see where Feynman lived for a month in the tunnel!
Pranks: You get to build random stuff/cause consternation @ MIT with financial and moral support from the administration!
Weather: SoCal is nearly always sunny!
Nerdy people: Caltech only has simultaneously really smart, funny, and scienc-y people. I really like being able to make a math joke and everyone around me understands instead of quizzically staring at me.
Interhouse: Approximately monthly awesome dance parties!
Research: Tons of research to do on campus especially with SURFs. If you want to do research, you easily can with almost any prof you want.</p>
<p>Cons:
Small size: This is sort of a fear of mine and I can’t speak from experience at Caltech but I come from a school that is ~half the size of Caltech 450 vs. 1000 at Caltech. You can be bored with people. Sometimes I want to go out and meet some new people but not really as possible at Caltech although mitigated somewhat because everyone will be more like you. At Cal, you could meet 2 new people everyday and never run out.
Core: Core is intimidating and scary especially as you want to be a bio major. This could be a big sticking point if you are really only interested in bio/pre-med and not science in general. 5 quarters of phyiscs and 5 quarters of math is a big deal compared to probably 2 semesters of each at Cal. Possible but painful.
Not pre-med friendly: Caltech is not really set up to be school for getting people into med school. Great for grad school/PhD’s but not med schools. Core/hard classes punish your GPA and not a lot of people doing pre-med things (like volunteering at hospitals although this is made up by the great research opportunities). </p>
<p>I think it boils down to whether you want to be a part of a small, quirky school and do lots of math and science or a big, more diverse school where not everyone will be doing math and science?</p>
<p>I myself decided that even though Caltech is is not as good as Cal for EECS, I would have a lot more fun being there hanging around my own people. </p>
<p>Also, definitely check out the Caltech class of 2015 Facebook group. We had someone ask a question about doing pre-med at Caltech and if you post your question there, you’ll get some responses from actual Techers!</p>