<p>PCP</p>
<p>I don’t recall if your son visited UChicago or Caltech on admitted students’ days? That would have given him a chance to see how he felt about the peer group.</p>
<p>I’d also suggest you post on each of the college sites. Biology is a popular major at Caltech. The students are not so narrow as posters here seem to think.</p>
<p>I would also look at the Core at each school, and see which program appeals more to your son.</p>
<p>midmo, note that I said moderate educational debt for both student and parent. My parents will be taking on debt instead of spending retirement savings, but that is a personal choice of the OP.</p>
<p>So what does your son have to say about all of this?</p>
<p>At an open house, two years ago, the UMASS President flat out said that more students cross-register to attend UMASS classes than any other of the participating schools. As UMASS should have the broadest offerings, this made sense to me. That all of the consortium schools have areas that should be of interest to other students makes sense to me as well.</p>
<p>S1 is leaning toward Caltech at this point. He did say a full-ride debt-free UMass option is very appealing, but the idea of being one of the top five students there is not appealing to him, other than he may have an easier time racking up a high GPA. He instinctively feels UChicago is a better fit, but finds Caltech a better match for his field of interest. It will be hard to give up either one of these two opportunities. As soomoo puts it, “an education at Caltech or Chicago is a gift being offered” to my son.</p>
<p>He went to the Caltech prefrosh weekend and came back believing he can make it work there. “It was better than the low expectation I had going in”, were his words. While there, he interviewed with a very prominent bio professor, and the interview went so well that, as bovertine mentioned upthread, he was promised a freshman internship in genetics on the spot! Unfortunately he can’t go to the UChicago April Overnight Program for admitted students because of a schedule conflict. I’m encouraging him to go there next week on his own for an overnight visit before making a decision. He’s not sure if he can afford to miss two more days of school.</p>
<p>Sounds like kiddo is not pushing to this, pop? </p>
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<p>Darned, with faint praise? The bolded part is extremely risky. IMO, goodbye Pasadena! </p>
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<p>Hello Chicago.</p>
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<p>My son whined about missing 4 consecutive days of school. I made him go see his top two choices and I have to say it was well worthwhile. He made his choice comfortably and has no second thoughts. The monetary investment we are making in his education, I wanted to make darn sure that it was where he wanted to be.</p>
<p>Make him go. It’s april of senior year.</p>
<p>As someone who works at Caltech, went to grad school there, and was a postdoc at UMass years ago, I would probably recommend UChicago for the OP’s child ;). My daughter has a friend who was good at everything in high school, but accepted Caltech rather than one of her HYPSM school offers. She is now miserable with poor humanities courses designed to appeal to scientists, bad advising, and science classes taught by professors who would much rather be doing research than teaching. Caltech is not exactly the science LAC that it seems from its reputation, at least not at the undergraduate level. Even grad students have trouble getting attention from the profs. Basically, Caltech is a way for die-hard science students to go straight into junior grad school, if they can make it through 2 years of learning physics major level physics/math/chem somewhat on their own. Many enthusiastic science students simply burn out. UMass 18 years ago was nothing special academically and possibly the ugliest campus in a lovely setting that I have ever seen. The students were rowdy sorts, and the landlords that we rented from were very happy to get married post-docs rather than undergrads in their rental home. I don’t remember ever seeing kids from the other 5 Colleges in our department, despite the presence of a famous professor and ample bus service. On the other hand, UMass does offer a much more rural setting than the other two schools. UChicago is bordered by a rough neighborhood to the south, and the weather is awful. It also has a reputation for undergraduates competing with grad students for professor attention. However, for a student who loves humanities, this might well be the best choice. Sorry to be a wet blanket… Best wishes - I’m sure he’ll do well whatever his choice!</p>
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<p>Were you around long enough to hear about how those ugly buildings came to be? I think the one-word explanation is “corruption”. The library tower was designed to be an office building. Someone took a bribe, it seems, to use the plans for a library instead; the books were too heavy, so the bricks fell off the outside of the building.</p>
<p>However, I have been told that there is a new complex of science buildings “that look a whole lot better than the old Graduate Research Tower” (how hard could that be?) and that the library has been fixed.</p>
<p>It is a lovely setting, though, and I still miss the outdoor opportunities that are so close at hand.</p>
<p>Quote: “Caltech is a way for die-hard science students to go straight into junior grad school, if they can make it through 2 years of learning physics major level physics/math/chem somewhat on their own. Many enthusiastic science students simply burn out.”</p>
<p>This was my daughter’s impression of Caltech, when she visited several years ago. A conversation with a female professor there convinced her to apply to Caltech for graduate school (physics), but consider other options for undergrad. The University of Chicago is a phenomenal school … I do hope your son can visit and take a close look.</p>
<p>PCP-
Middle son is graduating in a few weeks from college. Says he has experienced the best 4 years of his life so far!</p>
<p>His was also admitted EA to Cal Tech, Chicago and his state flagship UNC-Chapel Hill. Also EA to Mit and a couple of others. He knew he was also applying a few RD. So he did and we waited.</p>
<p>He was an AP National Scholar junior year, had done genetics/cancer research at Duke and UNC’s med schools during his high school summers. He was a math/physics/bio/chem guy. </p>
<p>HOWEVER, big however, to him these were/are tools, tools to do other things. But it took him a little while, senior year, to figure all this out. He also made some visits, after acceptances, and it really put things into perspective for him.</p>
<p>His impressions: MIT was not for him, location, campus, his peers, focus, athletics. He had a full NROTC scholie so money was not really a factor there. Cal Tech location he loved, campus, and again peers and focus not so much.</p>
<p>His top 3 choices ended up being Penn’s Jerome Fisher M & T (dual BS, econ from Wharton and BS biomedical engineering) program, Princeton and West Point. </p>
<p>Who he was as a person-character, discipline, athletics, personality- was suited best for West point. His goals research/academic was Penn’s program. And at Princeton there was no set goal, it was open, could major in anything and knew it would be outside his comfort zone.</p>
<p>He felt he learns and grows best when he is pushed and expected to really reach and stretch, like a muscle. (his example)</p>
<p>So my mathy, science guy on April 30th, after a very emotional discussion with the dante at the Point went with Princeton. He was sure for Chicago for math, caltech for physics, penn for the M & T, engineering at MITand a life-long desire to be a tank commander from the Point and went with his gut.</p>
<p>He just finished his thesis in healthcare economics (relying on 4 years of math, an major in econ, research at Harvard and Yale and the ability to write from his hellenistic studies certificate) and is applying to schools for his MBA/MD.</p>
<p>Sooooooooooooo, I did not expect that but with all he has done is just seems to be like the next step.</p>
<p>Maybe he would have ended up there with the other schools but probably not.</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>Did not mean for the above post to be blah blah blah about my son. Rather to show that I was wrong about his best fit, and he knew what was best for him, in the long run.</p>
<p>He wanted to be pushed, outside his comfort zone and is now where he wanted to be. Nowhere set. Nowhere pre-determined.</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>PCP, I don’t envy you. These are really tough things.</p>
<p>Apologies if this was covered upthread and I missed it - was it realized that Chicago and Caltech would be such financial stretches at the time of application? Did FA not come through as you had hoped? It almost makes you wonder how you’d be feeling if he’d never applied to UMASS in the first place. Maybe play that hypothetical out and see how he feels.
Or assign each of them paper-scissors-rock!</p>
<p>I visited UMass with my daughter this spring. The tour guide was quite clear that the vast majority of pollination is one-way: LAC’s to UMASS. And not much at that.</p>
<p>I think UMass clearly has a <em>large</em> contingent of weak students and party students. Although my daughter was accepted into the honors college, we thought that her liberal arts focus experience would be poor, given the first couple of years of general studies.</p>
<p>PCP, is your son motivated, disciplined, and mature enough to avoid bad influences yet still have a warm social experience ? If not, think twice about Umass.</p>
<p>As for CalTech, I have to agree that even the biology students are math nerds at heart. I doubt it is enough to be supremely competent in HS level math and physics to later flourish at CalTech; you have to <em>enjoy</em> math and physics as a hobby.</p>
<p>A lot of genetics and biology research today apply mathematical and computational principles, so a knowledge of mathematics is in fact very useful in some cutting edge genetic research. In fact Caltech was one of the first universities that combined the two areas and have a Computational and Neural systems option, often called Computational Biology or Mathematical Biology in other schools.</p>
<p>“My parents will be taking on debt instead of spending retirement savings” </p>
<p>In either case, that ends up impacting parent retirement options big time. It may be the right choice for a family, but it is a much bigger impact than eating into non-retirement savings accounts. Hopefully the students appreciate that.</p>
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This is flat wrong on two counts. Smith is the greatest net importer of cross-registrations among the Five Colleges. And it’s a non-trivial amount. Don’t have the stats at hand. The guide was misinformed…at best.</p>
<p><a href=“regarding%20debt%20vs.%20retirement%20savings”>quote=“colorado_mom”</a> It may be the right choice for a family, but it is a much bigger impact than eating into non-retirement savings accounts.
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True in technicality but false in spirit, because logically non-retirement savings would be depleted after the first year. I will not discuss my family’s personal finances, but I will give a counterexample: cover 5k a year of EFC by drawing on a total 20k home equity credit line, against a home with moderate equity and taken by someone with excellent credit (interest rate is cheaper than PLUS). Compared to borrowing against one’s 401k or withdrawing from an IRA, the tax implications for retirement of borrowing vs. withdrawing savings are much more attractive. Obviously, easily liquidated investments/non-retirement-protected savings have been exhausted by this time.</p>
<p>CalAlum,
My son went to Caltech as UG, and will join your d"s school for grad school. He did much better going to Caltech as UG, with the House system, the 2 terms of P/F (his Southern HS offered nothing in the way of advanced math/physics), his shy personality. My S’s nature is to always feel nervous entering such schools, expecting everyone to be smarter than he. He shifted majors several times, but always found supportive profs. Now he is in an integrated field. When his first job didn’t work out, he was hired by Caltech bio prof as technician. His job was suppose to be for a year, but they extended it to allow for smooth transition to grad school. </p>
<p>Bio majors are about 20% of population, plus the integrated fields. The Core is being revised to reduce physics. For specifics, post on the Caltech thread.</p>
<p>Even tho I am a Caltech fan, in no way do I presume to know the OP’s son. I encourage him to post on specific school threads, look at the Core courses, and, if possible, revisit schools to sit in classes.</p>
<p>PS–Son’s hobbies are writing and gaming, certainly not physics</p>
<p>Here’s a slightly different angle to consider. A gpa of 3.5 is very good. But unless your S’s HS was extremely rigorous/competitive, he might be in over his head at Chicago or Caltech. So while the other two schools are more prestigious, his quality of life might actually be a lot better at UMass/Amherst.</p>