Degradation

OK, Adam, snap out of it. This further confirms that not only do I need to buy you booze, but I have to get you coked to the gills (if you recognize that reference you're a goner).
Your Christmas present: abduct you to a seedy opium den...have sex with 19 groupies...etc.

You wouldn't want Josh's words coming true, would you? Cheer up emo kid.

Now you're really starting to scare me...

Adam, get a grip. You got into Cal Tech. Sure you wanted to get into MIT, and I'm sure it's an ego blow, but sometimes that's just what we need- ego blows. You're not perfect (nor am I, apparantly) and this process is ridiculously arbitrary. You probably had the same chances of getting into MIT and not Cal Tech. I mean, seriously. Don't kill yourself over this.

The weather is better at Caltech anyways, the residential system is really nice, you'd be near my sister (if she gets into Oxy) (if you care) and Jon to a lesser extent, and it's a really, really good school too. I say, even if you do get into MIT, go to Caltech.

Hmm... To be near Colin's sister--it'll have to be Caltech then.

Just kidding. But seriously now, why is everyone so concerned about weather? First, it's my Dad who claims that no one in their right mind should ever attend U Chicago because the weather is bad there. Then it was Jonathan and his parents who, in addition to finding it unfathomable that anyone would want to attend anything other than a small, liberal arts college, can't imagine wanting to attend anyplace without homeostatic and balmy temperatures. After that, Leeor implored that the primary factors for college selection for any sane person should be (in order) location, weather, social life, food, culture, some more stuff, and finally academics. Now, are you too suggesting that weather should be the tipping point in the decision? It's just odd because I never thought of weather as being a factor at all. Granted, if Caltech or MIT were located in some place like the Sahara Desert or Alaska, it might be a different story. Even then though, I think I would stomach the risk of death by exposure for some good academics.

The weather down there is actually something I've really gotten used to and am liking. It's like 70 every day and maybe 50 at night, but it's sunny and clear almost all the time. It's not too hot, and not too cold. You never have to worry about raincoats or getting frostbite on the way to class. Also Caltech is in like one of the best locations ever. It is right by old town Pasadena, which is an awesome place to do fun stuff even if you don't have a car. You're also reasonably close to probably a lot of friends (5 C's, Oxy, UCs maybe), Hollywood (music!), and tons of everything else. Going by Leeor's ratings I'd say Caltech is pretty freakin cool, location, weather, social life (oh right there are no girls...that isn't so good), food (so many Indian places in Old Town), culture (LA), etc.

Too bad we probably wouldn't be able to hang out, I'm trying to leave Oxy and Caltech is too hard to transfer to and HMC doesn't sound all that fun.

Where are you going to transfer to? Do you not like Occidental? I guess we sort of had that conversation when you came back for fall break. Go to some place like Chicago or Berkeley. That's probably where I'll end up, all things considered.

I'm not saying that weather should be the biggest deciding factor in choosing a college, but merely something to be considered. Comparing MIT and Caltech, if one decidedly has better academics, then by all means go there. But I was under the assumption that they are pretty equal by that standard, leaving room for weather in the decision-making process. But if you honestly don't care about weather, and will spend all your time researching in the library and none socializing in the outdoors, then by all means ignore the weather.

If we're talking about weather here, may I point out that MIT has four seasons. Naturally it would be a change, coming from the Northwest....And you know Boston is the college playground Adam. (Continuing from the first post, you could always join in the Socorro Threesome Josh, Lindsay, and I are in. It would be FUN AND KINKY. What is more to life? jk)

Chicago over Caltech? I'm not even bothering to apply to Chicago. The weather is bad and I hear the X-side gangsters would pop me like corn in the microwave.

You're so funny, pretending you're surprised and everything. Bravo on the acting.

If I were a political science or maybe film major Occidental would be the perfect school (nice campus, really small, good food, nice weather, dorm life is good) but for physics (now) and engineering (soon) I don't think it's going to do it for me. Everything I've heard about the rest of the physics professors doesn't sound great and our engineering department is non-existant. I guess I should have forseen that a person more interested in hard sciences and tech wouldn't fit as well in a liberal arts college but that's how I feel now.

I never checked out Chicago but I almost went to Berkeley (my decision came down to Oxy and UCB). Berkeley is in a sweet location and the academics are pretty good, the sheer amount of students and lack of available of professors made it less attractive to me *shrug* Oh and Berkeley ended up being like 39,000 a year versus maybe 34,000 at Oxy. I'm thinking about Carnegie Mellon because that would definitely be a more technical environment but we'll see what happens.

I don't think you'll have the problem I did wherever you end up. MIT, Caltech, U of Chicago, Berkeley, they all have a lot of everything and especially a lot of science.

You should go to Chicago if I end up there. Hopefully your extra height will attract the attention of the gun-slinging Hyde Park gansters away from me.

Adam... Cal tech... that is 20 minutes away from Pomona. We can hang out. Further, would you really want to go to school in a place where you have to put on 5 layers just to go outside. NO! By comparison, the LA smog that drastically decreases your life expectancy seems like a vacation...literally... until you get the death cough.

So the real question, then, is: "Which lowers my life expectancy less on average: south side Chicago gansters, or LA smog?"

Actually, the smog's worse in Claremont than in Pasadena.

Claremont is a worse place to be I'd say. Pasadena has downtown areas that are actually fun to go to while Clarement has the village which is sort of cool but would get boring after about a week. And Pasadena has literally 4 Indian restaurants and 2 Thai places within three blocks. And they are all good. The weather is better in Pasadena too. Claremont is further into the desert which means it's like 5-10 degrees warmer during the warm times and colder at night.