<p>As a fairly long-time Californian, I can state that the Claremont Colleges are not very much in the news here. This may be why they are not as well known as they should be. I would advise them to ramp up their publicity, since it IS evident they are high quality schools, have good rankings, etc.
California is so big that there is a difference between N California and SoCal. Up here we are barraged with news about Cal Berkeley, Stanford…occasionally UCLA and USC and minimally about UCSD (should be a lot more in the news)
When I go back east, nobody expresses the slightest interest in Stanford, though Cal gets some response. This seems counterintuitive to all the apps to Stanford, but there it is. Yes, I am talking about highly educated people.
There are some small schools that are plenty known here (a highly educated city in CA): Oberlin, Middlebury for example.
I do think one should think carefully about attending a smaller institution (or consortium) because with a big school there is always more to discover.</p>