What does it cost me to apply?
How are offers of admissions decided?
What about financial support?
What about support for the second and later
years?
Do I have to take the Graduate Record Examination?
I am a foreign student. Do I have to take
the TOEFL?
Is it a lot of work to apply?
Will I get a Ph.D. degree, or will the faculty
try to "weed me out?"
Do applications have to be
received by January 15th?
I don't know if I qualify
for Caltech. How do I know if I'll be
accepted?
How many openings are there?
Does Caltech accept transfers
from other schools?
Does Caltech admit students
before fall?
If I was turned down because
of lack of space, can I reapply?
What does it cost me to apply?
The Caltech application lists an application fee for
admissions. If you apply online you will also be asked
to pay a fee. If you are a U.S. resident, we promise that
the fee *will be* waived for you, and paid from our admissions
budget. When you send in your admissions materials, include
a letter with salutation: "Dear Graduate Office:",
stating that you would not otherwise have applied, or that
the fee is a hardship for you. A couple of sentences will
do, well worth $50 or so. We do not discriminate against
applicants who have requested waivers for whatever reason.
In fact, we admire your courage since you may have a natural
suspicion that your odds are better if you send money.
(Sorry, we can't refund money after you already sent it.)
Historically there has been no application fee for graduate
applications to Caltech, and we are trying to maintain
this spirit within the Materials Science option.
How are offers of admissions
decided?
Completed applications are reviewed by the Materials Science
faculty and rated. The undergraduate transcript is generally
given the most weight, followed by letters of recommendation
and GRE test scores. The statement of interest is not as
critical as is often thought -- most students have a range
of interests that can accommodate a range of research opportunities.
(Every year a couple of students write ridiculous statements
for the purpose of attracting attention to their application.
This is poor policy. Don't do it.) The ultimate decision
to accept a graduate student also weighs the research interests
of the faculty, the abilities and interests of the top
applicants, and the amount of financial support available
that year for new students.
What about financial support?
All students (foreign and domestic) who are admitted for
graduate study in Materials Science are offered financial
stipends and tuition support. We encourage students to
apply for "outside fellowships" for which they
qualify such as NSF, DoD, GEM, Hertz, NSERC (Canada). Besides
helping us financially, these outside fellowships will
look good on your future resume.
What about support for the
second and later years?
In the past 12 years there have been no cases where the
financial support for a second year student was less than
the support for the first year. Most second year students
are supported as research assistants, as opposed to fellowship
support for first year students. This is rarely an issue,
however, since second year students should be engaged in
research and should be formulating ideas for their Ph.D.
thesis. In many cases the support for second year students
is significantly higher than for their first year because
some second year students elect to serve as teaching assistants
to augment their income and gain teaching experience. There
have been a couple of cases where the stipends for very
senior students (>5 years) have been reduced, but this
is done only in individual cases.
Do I have to take the Graduate
Record Examination?
Yes, you must take it, but you do not have to take a subject
test.
I am a foreign student. Do
I have to take the TOEFL?
Yes, or you may take the IELTS test. We expect students
to be able to understand and use English. English as a
spoken (not merely written) language is required for Graduate
Teaching Assistantships, which are one form of graduate
support that can be offered to students. ESL (English as
a Second Language) classes are available. To advance to
Ph.D. candidacy, a student must "demonstrate the power
of clear and forceful self-expression in both oral and
written English".
Is it a lot of work to apply?
Most students now use the on-line application procedures
of www.embark.com, which makes it easy to prepare duplicate
applications. In general, we request only information,
not presentation. You can photocopy your application to
another school and send it to us, provided it contains
the information we request on our application forms. You
don't even have to bother reprinting your statement of
interest from another school. Recently a student was admitted
with full financial support even though his statement expressed
a desire to attend "University X" rather than
Caltech. (It was otherwise a fine statement.) We do require
an official transcript and letters of recommendation, and
you must sign something that says you are applying to Caltech.
Will I get a Ph.D. degree,
or will the faculty try to "weed me out?"
The rite of passage in the Ph.D. program is the "candidacy
examination." All graduate programs have an examination
such as this one. The Caltech format is an oral examination,
taken in front of 5 faculty at the end of the second year
of graduate study. This is a serious examination. It takes
up to 3 hours, and all students remember it in detail for
the rest of their lives. Since we admit only excellent
students, however, the failure rate is well below 10%.
More students leave the program for personal reasons than
academic ones. In all cases where the student's adviser
has left Caltech, the graduate students were able to transfer
to another group and complete the Ph.D. program.
Do applications have to be
received by January 15th?
Yes, almost. There are frequently more qualified applicants
than available openings. Applications which are completed
on time are reviewed earlier. Even if your application
is excellent, when it arrives late other strong applicants
will have been reviewed ahead of you. (A somewhat incomplete
application is preferable to a perfect late application.)
I don't know if I qualify
for Caltech. How do I know if I'll be accepted?
We make offers to students we think will succeed at Caltech.
While we do require a strong math and science background,
there is room for both students who are strong in laboratory
work and students who are strong in theoretical work. Remember,
application is free.
How many openings are there?
The number varies. As a practical matter, our policy of
supporting all graduate students with aid such as fellowships,
teaching assistantships, and research assistantships limits
the number of students who can be admitted. We would like
to be able to admit more students, but for each student
we admit we must already have financial support.
Does Caltech accept transfers
from other schools?
Because we have limited space in our program, we rarely
accept transfers into our graduate program from graduate
programs at other schools. We have different prerequisites
from other schools, so transfer students may need additional
courses to qualify for the Ph.D. candidacy.
Does Caltech admit students
before fall?
We often admit new students in the summer, before school
starts. Normally we do not admit students in the winter
or spring terms.
If I was turned down because
of lack of space, can I reapply?
Yes, but the competition starts anew. If you reapply,
please send additional letters of recommendation (and new
transcripts if you have continued your education) to show
what you have done in the intervening time.
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