Hi guys, just started this account to get/dish out more info.
I got the first letter that said that I was being "recommend for candidacy" on Feb 24th and I received the official one from the dean (with good news about the fellowship) yesterday, Mar 7th. Also since I happend to be in Los Angeles, I set up a visiting day with Christine and spent the whole day there yesterday. I was really impressed and had a really good time!
I'll give you guys my impression if you haven't visited yet and I'd love to hear everyone else's opinions:
-all the current students made it sound like the first year (which is purely classes and no research) is very very hard.
-the profs said that the focus of the school and the research is more on the fundamentals behind aerospace as opposed to specific applications (like they said MIT does)
-the campus is beautiful, but I'm biases being from LA and having spent the last four years with Boston winters.
-the school is really small, there's only 15-20 people per year. I still haven't decided if that's a pro or a con
-all the students seem to get along and everyone was nice
-the professors seem to encourage collaboration among groups and even among departments which they say is impossible at larger schools
-the connection with JPL may be a bit exaggerated. They don't really work hand in hand like I thought before, they seem to share projects every now and then but always with separate funding
All in all, I really liked it. Is anyone choosing between MIT and CalTech? I'm really stumped and I would love to hear other people's opinions and input. And if you got the letter about candidacy, I'd expect you probably already got, or will be getting shortly, the letter from the dean about admission. Congrats everyone.