Cal Tech

Nickname for the California Institute of Technology.

Little college (1500 students, almost as many staff) chock-a-block full of smart people and leaders in their fields.

In astronomy, for example, Caltech runs not one, but many world class observatories, including Palomar, Keck (jointly with UC), OVRO and a sub-mm telescope (I think jointly with U Hawaii).

Anecdote: My wife, who is Australian, wanted to get a Commonwealth scholarship to go to CIT. The bureaucrat told her they didn't give money for people to go to the mere institutes, only real universities. She retorted that CalTech had more Nobel laureates on staff than Australia had ever produced in its history. She got the money. :-)

Then there's that other "mere institute", in Massachusetts...

Reminds me of a tale I heard at a Stanford graduation ceremony (it wasn't me graduating from Stanford). Seems some parents looking for a good college to send the kids to were considering Stanford--but balked when they heard it was a "junior university". (The full name of Stanford is Leland Stanford Jr. University--that is, a university named after one Leland Stanford Jr.)

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