"A weird-ass cross section of human" is a great description of Carnegie Mellon.
Also, for all of the article's bashing of "dumb jocks" athletes at Carnegie Mellon slightly outperform non-athletes in GPA (something like 3.23 to 3.16 while I was there.) I ran cross-country and track there with people who were studying Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Architecture, Physics, Biomedical Engineering, etc. -- the one who was studying Biomedical Engineering ended up with a 3.97 as well as being one of the best distance runners in school history (3:51 1500m, 14:40 5000m, runner-up at the DIII national track and field championship for 5000m.) The team has consistently gone to the DIII national cross-country championship in recent years as well. I was never good enough to go with them, but some of my best memories are with that team. That's an important part of college too.
Also, for all of the article's bashing of "dumb jocks" athletes at Carnegie Mellon slightly outperform non-athletes in GPA (something like 3.23 to 3.16 while I was there.) I ran cross-country and track there with people who were studying Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Architecture, Physics, Biomedical Engineering, etc. -- the one who was studying Biomedical Engineering ended up with a 3.97 as well as being one of the best distance runners in school history (3:51 1500m, 14:40 5000m, runner-up at the DIII national track and field championship for 5000m.) The team has consistently gone to the DIII national cross-country championship in recent years as well. I was never good enough to go with them, but some of my best memories are with that team. That's an important part of college too.
Caltech can have their famous losing streaks.