| Full-time graduate program |
Getting admitted to graduate school at Caltech requires primarily a good
undergraduate program in your field of study, and superlative
performance in that program. It is not impossible to be admitted from a
less well-regarded school, but it would require a superlative such
as "best student I've seen in 5 years" from a reference, as opposed
to "among the best students this year" which would work for say, an MIT
or Stanford. It is helpful if your references are influential in the
world of academic research, preferably Caltech PhDs themselves. Your
GPA and GRE scores are secondary to high quality references, but be
aware that there are more than enough students with 4.0 GPAs to fill all
the spots here, so if you are not in that group, you will need
especially good references. Your personal statement is not meaningless,
but it is close to meaningless. If you applied for a national
fellowship, and if you are applying to Caltech then you should be doing
this as well, just use that document for your personal statement.
Whatever you do, don't tell some sappy life story--the Professors won't
care, and other people who see your statement (hosts at visiting
weekend, eg) will make fun of you.
You apply directly to the option (Chemical Engineering, Biology, etc..)
that you wish to study in, but the admissions forms are centralized and
all done online.
If you are admitted, you will be invited to visit campus. Hey a free
trip to Pasadena in the winter, with three days of food and beer! Why
not?
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California Institute of Technology: Graduate Science/Engineering Degrees Admission & Application Surveys
