After three years experience at Scripps...

scrippsscience
Sat, 02 Aug 2014 00:31:00 +0000

As a current Scripps student, I wanted to share a different opinion. As students, we tend to call home and talk to our mothers about things that upset us (the problems) and spend a lot less time gushing to our mothers about all the little things that make us happy (not to say we don’t do that too).

1. Financial Aid is a messy business and the rising cost of higher education is a national problem. Only really knowing my situation, I won’t comment on financial aid for all Scripps students. I will mention that Scripps, unlike many other colleges, still offers merit aid for high-achieving students. The James E. Scripps scholarship is one of them.

2. Scripps gave out over 100 internship grants this summer. Considering that number is around 10% of the total school population and certainly an even larger portion of those who wanted to pursue unpaid internships, I would say that the availability of internship grants has certainly increased.

3. I’m a science major, and I certainly didn’t get that from Core (I did get it from AISS, which is an incredible interdisciplinary science course), but as hopefullyhelpful says above, Core is controversial. Some love it. Some don’t. I loved Writing50. Again, some do, some don’t.

4. While getting into a CMC Econ course is exceptionally difficult, I would say that about half of my courses so far, and 3/4 of my classes next semester are on another campus (neither Scripps nor Keck Science). There is occasionally an extra hoop to jump through, but cross-registration is still a significant asset of the Claremont Consortium.

5. Double majoring involves writing two thesies. Many students are dual majors. If students with some of the most demanding science majors can be dual majors, almost anyone can with enough planning.

6. Yes, Scripps does have a housing crisis. There are still people living in those beautiful, incredible rooms; they have not disappeared as you seem to imply. Scripps has had the option for students to live at Pomona for some time now.

I do not believe that Scripps is perfect. I do, however, believe that Scripps was the right fit for me and many of my classmates.