How I was admitted to Caltech

It is a story about how I was admitted to the Caltech class of 2028 as an international undergraduate student. Here I share my experiences and give some advice that I believe will be useful for future applicants

“Caltech admits such a small amount of undergraduate students, that almost NOBODY gets in. It brings an impression that it does not exist” — said my high-school counselor, sarcastically. That was the first time when I declared that I would be applying to Caltech as a freshman international student in 2024. However, it was not the last time when I was told that it is nearly impossible not only for me but for the vast majority of excellent STEM applicants.

As for Caltech’s acceptance rate, when last reported — for the Class of 2025 — it had dropped to a rather mind-blowing low of 3.9%. As for this year, we’re still waiting for additional insights and statistics from Caltech officials. Stay engaged and watch for our updates on Caltech acceptance numbers, to be posted as soon as more stats are available. (credit: Crimson Education)

I was born and raised in Ukraine where I lived until 2022. I was attending school with a normal Ukrainian curriculum and for the 15 years of my life, I had never spoken to an English native speaker. At the beginning of 2022, I was completely sure that I would be applying to the local Kyiv University, as my parents, friends, and everyone else I knew did.

However, my life changed completely just in a couple of hours starting from 5 am on the 24th of February 2022. Because of the war, I moved to Belgium, where eventually I ended up studying for an A-level degree taking Maths, Further Maths, and Physics. Even though I gained the possibility to apply to top USA schools with international diploma, I still was a low-income international student applying to a need-aware school, which already has an acceptance rate of around 2%. So how did I get in?

There are hundreds of winners at the International STEM olympiads and hundreds of participants at science-engineering fairs such as ISEF, but still, only around 300 people from all around the world are admitted each year. The real key is that there are hundreds of winners at the international Science olympiads and hundreds of participants at science-engineering fairs. You need to do something that will distinguish yourself from thousands of excellent applicants. From my perspective on life and experience in university admissions, there are some key points on how I showcased my passion for STEM:

• The long-lasting love story with the subject
• Something unusual I have done in STEM
• Being yourself
• Challenges I overcame in life and working in STEM
• Nerdy humor

Astronomy and I

My love story is full of beautiful, but also painful moments. To start with — I am an astrophysicist. Of course, in my childhood, I was very excited by black holes and our Universe, but what brought me to do it professionally — was when in year 9 I could try on the role of astrophysics researcher at the local Kyiv observatory. There I saw how real science is done — and clearly, it was not as romantic as I imagined (I literally spent my early times crying at the computer because one specific astronomical software was not working on it). But the huge feeling of excitement made me carry on.

AZT-8 telescope of the Lisnyky observational station which I used for most of my research projects (credit: GRANDMA)

And here I am — this fall will be the third anniversary of me being an astronomer, and since I started I barely had any breaks in doing it. I just do not feel tired, and it has become my everything — my hobby, my work, my education, and my rest.

Looking back at 2021, it seems like a life-long journey till now — full of exploring software, coding, telescopes, conferences, competitions, writing papers, collaborations, and so on. That is why in 6 out of 8 Caltech essays I wrote about astronomy — and in each of them from completely different topics or perspectives. I showed very clearly how much I love this science and that I am ready to contribute to Caltech in different ways.

Unusual STEM activities

Here we come to the chapter which will show which things I did in STEM. I will not get into details, but there are main things I believe made me stand out:

• Since 2021 I have done 5 independent astronomy research projects, presented at 10 international research conferences, and co-authored/first-authored 15 publications (papers, circulars, and conference abstracts). One of my projects is about developing a method of photometric classification of transients, which is now quite a hot topic in astrophysics, and I got pretty good results in it.
• Since 2022, I have become a member of an international astrophysical collaboration GRANDMA (Global Rapid Advanced Network Devoted to the Multi-messenger Addicts) where I could participate in the astrophysical part of the LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA O4 campaign.
• I put a lot of effort into education as well. I mentored students on their research projects and mentored people of various backgrounds (from undergraduate to postdocs).

First of all, I could show how different experiences in astronomy impacted me in different ways not repeating anything, in other words, I showed well-roundness in astronomy. But the interesting thing that made me stand out is that in Ukraine I could do research not through a program designed for high-school students, and not working with professors in his/her area. I was given access to a telescope and software that I might need and received supervision under a request. Some of my projects were done completely by myself, and I needed to learn a lot about how to work in that field. I benefited a lot from it, now being able to produce good-quality work without any supervision.

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Presenting at the conferences also was quite an unusual experience, as the youngest presenters were me with my high-school friend and some Ph.D. students. As I was always attending alone, it was quite fun when people automatically assumed that I was a PhD already.

Science is a collaborative field. That is why being able to work in astrophysical collaboration taught me a lot of new things. I will be always grateful to GRANDMA (Global Rapid Advanced Network devoted to the Multi-messenger Addicts), that they allowed me to join their work. There I saw one single project as a big workplace, where different people do different tasks to publish a paper in an impactful journal in the end. I tried on different roles and was able to contribute to frontier science.

I had my own unique way in STEM, which I sometimes call “pseudo-PhD” because my research experiences are somewhat similar to some graduate student experiences. Find your way in STEM that suits you the best — and do not be afraid to try on some things that at first sight might be impossible for you.

Be yourself

The most common advice that you can give for university application to top USA schools is to be yourself. From my own experience, it will play a crucial role when you are applying to a university to which you feel you belong. You might have heard about a thing which is called: a fit to the university. For me, there are two main ways to approach it:

1. Try to research the main values of the university and adjust your extracurriculars and personal essays to that
2. Try to research that university for which your extracurricular and values would match

I prefer the second method and believe that it is the right one. For me, it was pretty easy to understand which university was the best match for me. When I surfed the websites of almost every famous prestigious university in the USA, in each university I found something that I liked particularly for my future research career — research group, interesting course, and so on.

But when I entered a Caltech website for the first, second — even when now I am looking at it, it hits differently. Every sentence there describing science or social life found an immediate reflection in my soul. Everything seemed perfect. And of course, Caltech had unique research groups and facilities that perfectly suited my interests. I had a feeling that Caltech would help me become the happiest I have ever been.

There are a lot of words about well-roundness as an attractive quality to the admission officers. It absolutely will be, if you are really genuinely interested in a few unrelated things. But if you are a very focused person like me, please, do not try to waste too much time becoming well-rounded just for it.

In all of my applications regardless of the focus or values of universities, I stated that I am interested in physics and astrophysics. Of course, I have different activities that I enjoy doing alongside, but 90% of the time I spend on my biggest passion. The things that I am going to contribute to the university: community service, clubs, and social events — all of them will be connected to my biggest interests. Well, I was admitted only to 4 universities out of the 20 I applied to (Caltech, Stanford, Columbia, and Brown). But those 4 definitely match my values, and I am sure that I will succeed in either of them.

Challenges to overcome

When you approach STEM professionally, there are obviously will be some challenges with the technical or scientific part. Especially, when you are just starting your journey in research. In my Caltech essay, I shared a story of challenges I needed to overcome when bringing novelty.

My biggest challenge was to overcome the fear that my work was not worth publishing and presenting. When I was applying to a conference with limited spaces, I was sure that I would not be accepted. Furthermore, the project that I was going to present consisted of a new approach to the problem, which is different from the widely used, so I was afraid that experts would reject my ideas immediately. In the end, I was not only accepted, but also my work received a lot of positive and enthusiastic comments. That taught me that science is about taking risks and proposing new ideas — a crucial part of discoveries and innovation.

Challenges you faced and overcame straightly show your commitment and passion for what you do, and also your readiness to solve even greater challenges as a scientist in the future.

Nerdy humor

Another way I approached STEM differently was by adding nerdy humor. One of my essays described an entertainment that scientists usually have during academic conferences when all presentations are done. When I experienced that for the first time, it was very interesting to see how scientists have fun. This way, I showed that professional science is full of lots of non-serious moments for me, and I am ready to share them with my future Caltech mates.

One of the biggest pleasures during the conference — exploring local towns (photo: Malta, Valetta)

Summary

I believe that what helped me the best is that in my application I showed STEM from different prospects. You can show your passion and true love to the subject through your story, and emphasize some unique set of things you have done. Overcoming challenges will definitely help to showcase your perseverance and problem-solving skills.

STEM is not only about olympiads, robotics clubs, or research papers — it is also about community service, social engagement, and of course lots of fun.

Therefore one of the ways to show your love for STEM — is to show how differently you engaged with it, which demonstrates that you will never get enough of it. As I showed in my example, to show diversity you do not have to engage in different STEM fields, sometimes it is enough to devote yourself to one subject.

Good luck to everyone next year!