The Claremont Colleges actually lose a ton of potential enrollees to California schools. Stanford is the #1 school Pomona loses to, with 16% of the non-enrollees choosing to go there; 93% of non-enrollees choose a university, while only 7% pick another LAC (this is internal data from 2006-2009). Stanford and Pomona have historically been the most frequently attended schools over CMC, while USC, UCB, and UCLA are all in the top 15 (there are no other LACs- the rest of the T15 are some of the Ivies, UChicago, Georgetown, Duke, and WashU). I know Mudd loses a ton to Berkeley, UCLA, Caltech, and Stanford, while the out-of-state competition is MIT/CMU/Olin/Cornell- its overlap doesnât seem to be with other LACs. I donât know as much about Scripps and Pitzer, but I wouldnât be surprised if they see similar trends of losses primarily to universities or other CC members, not other LACs.
I see the element of competition mentioned a lot, which would lead one to think the Claremonts have a capital on prospective applicants, but it doesnât seem to be the case. Pomona got fewer applications than several Northeast LACs last year- Swarthmore, Amherst, Wesleyan, Colby. CMC got ~6300- a little under Carleton, above Davidson and W&L, below every top 10 New England LAC. Mudd got ~4000, and the others got ~2800-~3800, which is on the low end for the top 30ish LACs. One would think that Californiaâs massive population would result in more apps, but they are not usually on the radar for most California high school students. They could change that, definitely, with massive marketing and free apps like other schools are doing, but I think theyâre content with where they are in terms of finding qualified students.
Pomonaâs acceptance rate is expected to dip below 8% this year, so they shouldnât waste any of their 2 billion dollar endowment on a marketing campaign.
No⊠it really isnât. You donât get the benefit of the smaller school community within the larger consortium at Tufts. And Tufts STEM isnât close to Muddâs.
You could make a case that Tufts overlaps with Amherst/Pomona, Mudd/Olin, or CMC/Babson. But itâs hard to see where Tufts proves a womenâs college experience comparable to Wellesley/Scripps, or a funky alternative college experience comparable to Pitzer/Hampshire.
I wished my Smithie would have been a Scripsie but she wouldnât apply. Something about seasons and greenery. But the Claremont colleges are all that and more. Surprisingly, they are not as well known in California because of the major universities in the state (Stanford, UCLA, Cal, USC, UCSD, etc) and west coasters tend to not favor LACs as readily as the NE. But those who will need to know (graduate programs, professional programs, top firms), do know.
The analogy has already broken down in likening Mudd to Olin. Both are small, high-end STEM schools with non-traditional approaches, but they are non-traditional in completely different ways. If the applicant pools overlap (which they well may), students deciding between Mudd and Olin have a very distinct choice between two dramatically different experiences.
Likewise, Pitzer and Hampshire may both be âalternativeâ in personality, but Pitzerâs curriculum isnât anywhere near so un-structured and self-directed as Hampshireâs. When a student at, say, Scripps, looks at majoring through another college, there is no less structure to a Pitzer-based major than a Pomona-based one. (For example, you can major in Linguistics through either Pitzer or Pomona. The departments have different emphases and philosophies, but they both have traditional, professor-led classes and clear requirements.)
I donât think you can really think of the 5Câs as akin to mashing any five currently-unaffiliated schools together. The Claremonts have shaped one another. Pomona (which is twice the size of any of the others) is the only one that could even remotely break off as an independent college and retain its current character. Muddâs core curriculum is relatively separate, but it depends on the others for infrastructure and for breadth outside the core. Keck Science is joint among CMC, Scripps, and Pitzer - they are intimately conjoined. (This is not true of the 5-college consortium in MA, where the crossover is much more optional.)
In my view (as a Scripps parent) this has many benefits - the âbest of both worldsâ aspect of a small school within a mid-sized pseudo-university - but it also has downsides. The greatest downside is that no one college has evolved to be as well-rounded and multidimensional as it would have been on its own. The codependency can lead to a tendency for each school to become a caricature of itself, with the stereotypes of each community becoming self-perpetuating. This can get tiresome, and it can take some work on the studentâs part to transcend the fragmentation. That said, I think (hope) the preoccupation with stereotypes may be a freshman behavior that people grow out of. (Certainly my older daughter experienced variations on the same behavior in a completely different setting.) The reality is that the 5Cs offer a dynamic community of 6-7K very bright and accomplished and interesting students, and a wealth of academic opportunities. Managing the quirks requires a learning curve, but every community has its pros and cons.
My son focused on small liberal arts colleges (he ended up at Williams). He concentrated on schools in the northeast to Ohio, though quite a few of his friends chose Pomona. The quality of education among academically rigorous LACs is excellent across the board, and career opportunities are equally available. The overlaps in student personality traits are many â energetic, intellectually curious, multi-faceted and multi-talented.
Iâd say the major points of differentiation between the Claremont consortium and schools throughout New England, upstate New York and other areas of the east coast is both climate and culture. My son liked the seasons and had fun in the snow. He would have missed that in California. The consortium concept wasnât a draw for him. He liked the insular intensity of belonging to a small close-knit campus community.
Culturally, the differences are more nuanced. My observation (as an American who has lived in Asia for decades) is that the Claremont schools offer a stronger âNew Worldâ link â to Asia and to Central and South America, and to the new economy of the tech industry, whereas the east coast elite LACs are better connected to the east coast power centers â New York, Boston, DC, Europe. Of course this is a wide generality, and graduates of all of these schools are globally mobile; however, the Claremont schools are deeply influenced by California culture, which can be a positive or negative, depending on the culture you aspire to be part of.
My Dâ18 will be attending Scripps in the fall. We live in the Boston area. Other schools she was considering include: Claremont McKenna, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Occidental, Bryn Mawr, among others. We visited 3X. She fell in love with the 5Câs the first visit. She loved the fact that the students were self motivated, enjoyed learning, were very involved in a wide range of things and the ability to cross-register at other 5Câs. And of course, the incredible weather played a part in her decision, although it was not high on the list. I told her if she sends me a picture of herself in flip flops and shorts in Feb she will not be returning the following fall.
Say what, you donât know, Pomona has ski-beach day every March? Lots of snow and skiing available, AND the beach. You have the best of both worlds. Canât be beat
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thatâs all they all wear. Be prepared to buy a wardrobe of only shorts and flip flops.
The analogy was not meant to be taken seriously. The point was simply to highlight both the academic diversity and the physical proximity of the Claremont Consortium LACs, which no East Coast LAC Consortium can match.
That âphysical proximityâ, also results in 3xs the student density of a ânormalâ LAC (as basically, all of them together comprise a campus no bigger than Wesleyan). The constant foot traffic at all hours of the day may be the very thing that is most striking about the 5Cs. If this is what the OP is looking for, then weâre back to Tufts, Rochester, Brandeis, or perhaps, even - Barnard - as east coast alternatives.
The Claremont schools are great. Pomona is undeniably a peer of the traditional Amherst/Williams/Swat triangle, and Harvey Mudd is second only to CalTech as the best small tech college in the country. The weather is great and the proximity of the other schools is a big plus.
However, I donât think anyone needs to bash on the top East Coast LACs to pump up the Claremonts. The Claremonts have their plusses, but each of the top East Coast LACs has their own plusses as well. 4 out of the 5 Claremont Colleges have tiny, almost cramped campuses (Pomona is the exception).
Amherst has a campus over twice as big as the entire Claremont Consortium combined, including a wildlife sanctuary with rivers, ponds and forests. It also runs the Folger Library, the largest Shakespeare collection in the world. Williams has its renowed tutorials and an art/art history program that is the best anywhere. Swat has far easier access to Philadelphia than the Claremont schools have to LA, and the whole campus is a beautiful arboretum. Amherst and Williams are both targets for Wall Street recruiting, and they in particular have closeknit and powerful alumni networks that the Claremont colleges have not yet developed.
My daughterâs favorite schools were Amherst and Pomona, and I would have difficulty arguing that either of them is âbetterâ than the other. Itâs a matter of personal choice.
I didnât think anyone was bashing any northeast LACâs. The original question was about the consortium experience vs northeast LACâs. Some of us were just making the point that the physical proximity of the campuses in the Claremont consortium is uniquely beneficial. I agree about Swat having easier access to Philadelphia. My Pomona D has a car and hates the LA traffic. Bottom line for me is that the Claremont consortium is unique, although that doesnât necessarily make it better for any given student.
Not sure what you mean by foot traffic. During the day there is crossover - just to hazard a guess, I think most students probably average one class a semester st one of the other schools. But while my kid socialized a bit on the other campuses and occasionally ate in their cafeterias, it isnât like a herd making a ruckus throughout the 5Cs night and day.
^Oh, come now. Donât be so modest. Thereâs always stuff going on when you have 7,000 young adults within one square mile of each other. Unless things have changed drastically within the last few years, Mudd gives the best parties; CMC has the most interesting speaker series. And, you canât even practice music without requisitioning a room at Scripps or Pitzer. Pomona may be the most self-sufficient of the bunch, but, even their students must travel across campus to use the library.
