California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology, or CalTech, is a private research university that occupies a 124 acre campus in the city of Pasadena, California, just 11 miles from Los Angeles.
In September 1891, philanthropist Amos Throop founded Throop University. In 1907 astronomer George Ellery Hale joined Throop University’s board of trustees and started transforming the university into a world class center for engineering and science. Later, chemist Arthur A. Noyes and physicist Robert A. Millikan, and his successors joined with Hale and plotted the university, which had been renamed to the California Institute of Technology by then, on a course for scientific and academic excellence.
According to the common data set, 69% of CalTech’s enrollment of 987 full time students identify as students of color, and 31% of them are international students. CalTech students come from across the country and 25 countries for the class of 2026.
CalTech has an endowment of over $4.6 billion.
Distinguished alumni from CalTech include Howard Hughes - businessman, aviator, and film director, Richard Feynman - physicist and scientist, Charlie Munger - investor and businessman, and Frank Capra - film director and producer, among many others.
Costs of attending CalTech 2022-2023
Tuition costs - $58,479
Fees - $2,385
Housing/Room - $10,815
Board/Meals - $7,791
Books and Supplies (est.) - 1,428
Personal Expenses (est.) - $2,700
Total Estimated Cost of Attendance - $83,598
Access CalTech’s Net Price Calculator
CalTech Statistics at a Glance
| / | STUDENT DEMOGRAPHICS | FINANCIAL AID | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enrollment | 987 | % receiving financial aid | 52% | ||||
| Women | 45% | Average financial aid | $55,957 | ||||
| Men | 55% | % Pell Grant recipients | 11% | ||||
| Students of Color | 69% | ||||||
| International Students | 31% | ACADEMIC INFORMATION | |||||
| First Generation (Class of 2025) | 8% | Student - faculty ratio | 3:1 | ||||
| Instructional faculty (fulltime) | 366 | ||||||
| ACCEPTANCE RATES | Average class size | ND | |||||
| Class of 2026 | ND | Classes with 19 students or less | 71% | ||||
| Class of 2025 | 4% | ||||||
| First year retention rate | 99% | ||||||
| ACADEMIC STATISTICS | 6 year graduation rate | 93% | |||||
| Average GPA | ND | ||||||
| Number of majors | 28 | ||||||
| Standardized Test Scores | Number of courses | 1,000 | |||||
| SAT 25th to 75th percentile | 1530-1580 | ||||||
| % submitting SAT scores | ND | Number of students who study abroad | ND | ||||
| ACT 25th to 75th percentile | 35-36 | ||||||
| % submitting ACT scores | ND | STUDENT LIFE | |||||
| % submitting test scores | ND | Number of student organizations | ND | ||||
| Students who live on campus | 93% | ||||||
| Class Rank | |||||||
| % in top 10% of HS class | 91% | ||||||
| % in top 25% of HS class | 100% | ||||||
| % submitting HS class rank | ND |
Sports at CalTech
CalTech belongs in NCAA Division 3, and the NCAA rules and calendar for athlete recruitment apply to athletes interested in being athlete recruited to CalTech.
CalTech has an undergraduate enrollment of 987 students and plays a total of 16 NCAA sports, 8 of them for men and 8 for women. In the 2021/2022 season, Caltech had a total of 289 NCAA athletes comprising 29% of the total student body.
See:
What NCAA Sports does CalTech Play?
Caltech’s athlete recruitment policies
What you can expect from CalTech
CalTech’s mission is to enhance human knowledge and be of service to humanity through research combined with education. Their goal is for students to tackle the world’s most difficult problems in science and technology and to give students a world class education to be productive members of society.
Is CalTech hard to get into?
With an acceptance rate of 4% for the Class of 2025, CalTech is a difficult university to gain admission to.
As of June 2020, CalTech has enacted a moratorium on requiring SAT and ACT scores which will last until 2025. This means that not only are test scores no longer a requirement, but will no longer be considered. However, before this date, the reported middle 50% range for SAT scores was 1530-1580 and for ACT it was 35-36.
What this means is that CalTech now relies heavily on grades and rigor of classes taken by the applicant as a proxy for college readiness in the absence of a test score.
An applicant to CalTech today must present as a high level academic achiever and a unique striver in his/her activities as well.
Where do CalTech graduates work and what do they earn?
According to CalTech, 92% of their graduating class of 2020 students were in graduate school or at a full time job, and 98% of students who applied to graduate schools were accepted to one of their top choice schools.
Highlights of employers who hire CalTech graduates:
NASA
Northrop Grumman
Apple
The Aerospace Corporation
SpaceX
US Navy
Xenon Health
Myriad Genetics
Rapid7
Arete
ClearView
Gilead
Jane Street
Miso Robotics
Molecular Instruments
Omniscience Science
Singular Genomics
Western Asset
Earnings Data for CalTech Graduates
With the costs of attending college becoming prohibitively expensive, it is hard to treat the college experience as a strictly educational and developmental one. You have to think about your earnings potential as well. Unless you are very lucky, chances are that you will graduate with some student debt. Whether you can afford to pay it off in reasonable time, and not have this debt interfere with your ability to live your life without a overhanging debt burden depends on what you can earn when you graduate from college.
Knowing what you can earn with the the degree you earn and the college you earned it at is essential for planning your life. The data we provide here is meant as a guideline only as there will be variance between individuals based on many factors including the types of jobs and employers they pursue.
Data from Payscale based on 234 responses
| Median Starting Salary | $82,900 | Number of respondents | 234 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average Base Salary | $118,000 | |||
| YEARS OF EXPERIENCE | ||||
| BY MAJOR | Entry level | 9% | ||
| Computer and Information Sciences | $122,300 | Early career | 34% | |
| Engineering | $83,100 | Mid career | 23% | |
| Physical Sciences | $73,200 | Late career | 16% | |
| Experienced | 17% | |||
| CAREER AVERAGES | ||||
| Early Career Salary (1st 5 years) | $98,900 | |||
| Mid-Career Salary (10+ years experience) | $164,600 | |||
| BY JOB TITLE | ||||
| Software Engineer | $120,077 | |||
| Data Scientist | $119,831 | |||
| Research Scientist | $102,525 | |||
| Mechanical Engineer | $85,000 | |||
| Aerospace Engineer | $91,500 | |||
| Senior Mechanical Engineer | $117,498 | |||
| Research Engineer | $122,084 |
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