House system at the California Institute of Technology

The house system is the basis of undergraduate student residence at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Caltech's unique house system is modeled after the residential college system of Oxford and Cambridge in England, although the houses are probably more similar in size and character to the Yale University residential colleges and Harvard University house system. Like a residential college, a house embodies two closely connected concepts: it serves as both a physical building where a majority of its members reside and as the center of social activity for its members.

The houses resemble fraternities at other American universities in the shared loyalties they engender. Unlike in fraternities, however, potentially dangerous "rushing" or "pledging" is replaced with two weeks of "Rotation" at the beginning of a student's freshman year, and students generally remain affiliated with one house for the duration of their undergraduate studies.

Freshmen have historically gone through a process known as Rotation for a week before term through the first week of classes, leading to their eventual house assignment by way of a matching process. This process has rules associated with it to try to give freshmen a chance to choose among the houses in an unbiased way.