Graduate school profile for Caltech

64lakers

I am an undergrad at Texas A&M, College Station studying aerospace engg. I started college this past spring and will be a sophomore this fall, meaning I start taking aerospace classes,finally! I am aiming to go to CalTech for grad school for the same, Can someone please provide what all I will need to have on my profile when I do apply. Since I had not taken any classes with my own dept my freshman year, I did not get any research there for the summer, but I have been working with CMS group at my univ for this summer.

GPA should not really be an issue, if hells falls down then maybe i drop to a 3.7 by the time I graduate, but I understand that is not enough for caltech, What really makes an Ideal profile for caltech?

Also does anyone have any idea how to get a SURF at caltech? I really want to do that, the research opportunities seem awesome, read some papers that came out from surf, i really want to do it. Any ideas on that?

Nano-Passion

Take a look at this forum, http://www.physicsgre.com/viewforum.php?f=3 , click on one of the stickies above to look at the credentials of those who were accepted or denied at X school.

However, the threads are based on physics majors so I'm not sure how relevant it is for aerospace engineering. Try searching google, or as some might say "googling."

Monocles

I did SURF at Caltech in 2011 - my advice (gathered from completely anecdotal evidence from other non-Caltech students) is that the best way to get into the SURF program is to know a professor who knows the professor at Caltech that you want to work for. Many of the professors get a lot of cold emails asking about SURF, and so a introduction/recommendation from someone that they already know goes a long way. That was essentially how I ended up there, and I knew a few other students who ended up there the same way. Though I can't say whether or not that is the most common way.