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Re:The price students pay for a prized IIT seat by majormajor on Monday March 22, 2021 @05:58PM (#26547824)
I'm not sure I follow. MIT and Caltech are very niche, but inside that niche, seem to have a pretty clear reputational advantage over Harvard. (Stanford, on the other hand, has some more niche overlap in CS at least.) Sadly, it's not a niche that lends itself to "future President prestige." But is that really hurting either MIT or Caltech, or their grads?
Re:The price students pay for a prized IIT seat by caddemon on Monday March 22, 2021 @07:30PM (#26548923)
Yeah, and honestly "niche" is a strong word. Sure nobody is going to MIT for theater, but they have a great reputation across most STEM fields as well as in subjects like econ, business, philosophy, etc. When I think of niche I think more of a place like Juliard.

I also think it's even arguable that MIT has more prestige than Harvard - of course this will depend how you're defining prestige, but people definitely assume high intelligence when they hear a student goes to MIT in a way they don't for Harvard. Which I have to imagine is at least somewhat explainable by the admissions differences.

Caltech is a much smaller school and is maybe a better example of a school that's underrated by people who don't know better? But for any reasons that prestige would actually matter I doubt Caltech students have any problems either.

Re:The price students pay for a prized IIT seat by selimthegrim on Monday March 22, 2021 @06:37PM (#26548308)
Compared to Stanford and MIT, Caltech is not getting the same caliber student since the late 70s-early 80s (and definitely since the mid 2000s) when looking at international Olympiad winners, etc
Re:The price students pay for a prized IIT seat by 908B64B197 on Wednesday March 24, 2021 @02:27PM (#26571149)
> Caltech is not getting the same caliber student since the late 70s-early 80s (and definitely since the mid 2000s)

Citation Needed.

Re:The price students pay for a prized IIT seat by selimthegrim on Friday March 26, 2021 @11:14PM (#26599591)
I’m a Caltech alum. It’s common knowledge.