At least in the 70s, if you gamed your way into admission at Caltech by doing test prep, coaching, having someone else do your application essays, etc., you were going to be sorry. Because you would find it impossible to do the work required. Caltech did a good job of screening because the ones they admitted could do the work (though a lot dropped out simply because they didn't want to work). But there were a few that couldn't, no matter how hard they worked at it, and just wound up leaving.
A friend of mine dropped out of Caltech after a couple years, and disappeared. I ran into him many years later, and we did some catching up. 10 years after dropping out, he asked Caltech if he could come back and try again. They said sure (one of the nice things about Caltech's philosophy). He got straight A's. I asked him if he had gotten any smarter, he said no, he was just willing to work the second time around.
Of course, there were some students who just effortlessly aced everything. Hal Finney (yes, that Hal) was one of them. Being around people like that was just amazing.
For as far as I can remember, this is the same philosophy held at my alma mater: NJIT. I was admitted into the CS program in 07 and got put on probation my first semester. I transfered to community college and messed around with bad grades for a while until I got my act together. I was readmitted and from what I could tell, they essentially have guaranteed admission If you have at least like a ~2.6 GPA in a science related degree. Quite a low bar. However you are expected to work hard once in the program. That didn't change once I went back, although the school as a whole was a lot less scary and intimidating the second time around.
I think this is true for a lot of engineering schools. Maybe there just isn't as much of a demand to go to the pure STEM schools as there is the schools that have everything. Like I remember looking at requirements for Rutgers at the same time and essentially they had like a 3.2 (or maybe 3.4 GPA) minimum and you'd have to re-take all the core CS classes as they would not accept those classes from community college.
I observed the same admission principles at Georgia Tech (where I studied), and I am glad it was this way. GT was willing to give quite a lot of people a chance (especially if you were in-state), but it would not hold back punches once you were in.
For someone like me, who believed they could do it, but didn't have the "perfect" admissions packet (moving to the US midway through high school with very poor english and zero knowledge of how the US education/admission systems work will do that), it was the chance I needed, and I am immensely grateful for it.
> At least in the 70s, if you gamed your way into admission at Caltech by doing test prep, coaching, having someone else do your application essays, etc., you were going to be sorry.
I’m sure it’s still true today. Still, the incentive to game and coach through admissions is intense because of the potential rewards.
I went to my local 4 year which was nearly free, and I coasted through the CS program making it possible to do other things.
Still, my earnings were halved because of the lower quality of the CS program and I do wonder about the road not taken.
I think it’s even more
intense for students today; but it’s also true that the quality of student hasn’t gone up.
A friend of mine dropped out of Caltech after a couple years, and disappeared. I ran into him many years later, and we did some catching up. 10 years after dropping out, he asked Caltech if he could come back and try again. They said sure (one of the nice things about Caltech's philosophy). He got straight A's. I asked him if he had gotten any smarter, he said no, he was just willing to work the second time around.
Of course, there were some students who just effortlessly aced everything. Hal Finney (yes, that Hal) was one of them. Being around people like that was just amazing.