California Institute of Technology
Motto:
The Truth shall make you free
California Institute of Technology is a private institution
that was founded in 1891. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 977, its
setting is suburban, and the campus size is 124 acres. It utilizes a
quarter-based academic calendar. California Institute of Technology's ranking
in the 2015 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, 10. Its tuition
and fees are $43,362 (2014-15).
Caltech, which focuses on science and engineering, is
located in Pasadena, California, approximately 11 miles northeast of Los
Angeles. Social and academic life at Caltech centers on the eight student
houses, which the school describes as "self-governing living groups."
Student houses incorporate an admired Caltech tradition: dinners served by student
waiters. Only freshmen are required to live on campus, but around 80 percent of
students remain in their house for all four years. The Caltech Beavers have a
number of NCAA Division III teams that compete in the Southern California
Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Integral to student life is the Honor
Code, which dictates that "No member of the Caltech community shall take
unfair advantage of any other member of the Caltech community."
In addition to its undergraduate studies, Caltech offers top
graduate programs in engineering, biology, chemistry, computer
science, earth sciences, mathematics and physics. Caltech
participates in a significant amount of research, receiving grants from
institutions such as NASA, the National Science Foundation and the Department
of Health and Human Services, among others. Caltech maintains a strong
tradition of pranking with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
another top-ranked science and technology university. Companies such as Intel,
Compaq and Hotmail were founded by Caltech alumni. Famous film director Frank
Capra also graduated from Caltech.
Campus
The tallest building on campus, the Millikan Library
Caltech's 124-acre (50 ha) primary campus is located in Pasadena,
California, approximately 11 miles (18 km) northeast of downtown Los
Angeles. It is within walking distance of Old Town Pasadena and the Pasadena
Playhouse District and therefore the two locations are frequent getaways
for Caltech students.
New additions to the campus include the Cahill Center for
Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Center
for Information Science and Technology, which opened in 2009, and the Warren
and Katherine Schlinger Laboratory for Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
followed in March 2010. The Institute also concluded an upgrading of the south
houses in 2006. In late 2010, Caltech completed a 1.3 MW solar array projected
to produce approximately 1.6 GWh in 2011.
Academic Life
The student-faculty ratio at California Institute of
Technology is 3:1, and the school has 62.7 percent of its classes with fewer
than 20 students. The most popular majors at California Institute of Technology
include: Engineering; Physical Sciences; Computer and Information Sciences and
Support Services; Mathematics and Statistics; and Biological and Biomedical
Sciences. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction,
is 97.3 percent.
Student Life
Caltech's Mascot, the Beavers
California Institute of Technology has a total undergraduate
enrollment of 977, with a gender distribution of 63.4 percent male students and
36.6 percent female students. At this school, 84 percent of the students live
in college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing and 16 percent of students
live off campus. California Institute of Technology is part of the NCAA III
athletic conference.
- Pranks
Caltech students have been known for the many pranks.
The two most famous in recent history are the changing of
the Hollywood Sign to read "Caltech", by judiciously
covering up certain parts of the letters, and the changing of the scoreboard to
read Caltech 38, MIT 9 during the 1984 Rose Bowl Game. But the most famous
of all occurred during the 1961 Rose Bowl Game, where Caltech students
altered the flip-cards that were raised by the stadium attendees to display
"Caltech", and several other "unintended" messages. This
event is now referred to as the Great Rose Bowl Hoax.
In recent years, pranking has been officially encouraged by
Tom Mannion, Caltech's Assistant VP for Student Affairs and Campus Life.
"The grand old days of pranking have gone away at Caltech, and that's what
we are trying to bring back," reported the Boston Globe.
In December 2011, Caltech students went to New York and
pulled a prank on Manhattan's Greenwich Village. The prank involved making
The Cube sculpture look like the Aperture Science Weighted
Companion Cube from the video game Portal.
Caltech pranks have been documented in three Legends of
Caltech books, the most recent of which was edited by alumni Autumn
Looijen '99 and Mason A. Porter '98 and published in May 2007.
Alumni
Stephen Wolfram, PhD 1979, creator of Mathematica and Wolfram
Alpha; one of the first MacArthur Fellows in 1981
Stanislav Smirnov, PhD 1996, 2010 Fields Medal winner
for his work on the mathematical foundations of statistical physics,
particularly finite lattice models
