Re the Clarmont Colleges and the 5Cs, each college is a separate entity, with their own administration, faculty, admissions office, and board of trustees. Each as a particular academic focus, organizational principle, and purpose. The curriculum, including core curriculum is distinct to each college, and matriculation can be completed completely within each college without requiring courses at any other college. So, each school can be evaluated or ranked on its own. With the options to take courses at the other 5Cs, each school has its own rules regarding any limitations to the number or types of courses, or whether an off-campus major or minor may be completed at one of the other schools.
The colleges do share some common resources and facilities, such as a library, health center, religious centers, bookstore, and security. Performing arts and music recital areas, athletic facilities and other kinds of facilities may be constructed and operated by a college, but shared with the other colleges. For example, Harvey Mudd recently constructed a large maker space. Recent data indicated that roughly half of the users were from Mudd and half from the other colleges.
The comment above about the Oxford analog is accurate: The concept of the Claremont Colleges as a consortium of small colleges was put forth by the then president of Pomona College in 1923: “…instead of one great, undifferentiated university, we might have a group of institutions divided into small colleges - somewhat on the Oxford type - …” that would preserve the personal benefits of a small college with access to the facilities of a university [taken from a book on the 1st 20 years of Harvey Mudd College written by its first president, J. B. Platt.]
I note in some institutions, CS was also originally hosted by the Math Department. So it could work both ways (adding it for A&S students or for Engineering students).
The practical differences are then often mostly in the non-major curriculums. Like here is Michigan, for example, comparing their two paths:
In their case, at least, the CS requirements themselves are very similar, but the rest of the graduation requirements are different.
Among other things, that means you get a BS if you do it through LSA, and a BSE if you do it in COE. They also say it is easier to do a double major in other LSA subjects with the BS (LSA), and likewise for other engineering subjects with the BSE (COE), which makes sense.
As an aside, I note while this constituent college system has a lot of obvious appeal, it is also pretty expensive! Like there are a lot of potential scale efficiencies you are giving up with all the things that could be seen as redundant in a more integrated university.
The Claremont Colleges are wealthy, however, so they make it work. Same deal really with universities with robust “residential college” systems like Yale or Rice, to a bit less extent Harvard, Princeton, Vanderbilt or WashU, and so on–it takes money to make it work, but they have it.
As a real aside–although in some sense still about alternative ways of thinking about “small colleges”–Binghamton is one of the more generally-affordable universities to have a robust system like this. Most publics have at most an honors college with a residential element. But at Binghamton they are central to the undergrad experience:
You make good points about efficiencies given up. That said, I am not aware of anything else like the Claremont colleges in the United States. As someone whose D26 is applying to a couple of them, part of what they sell, and that attracts many folks, is the small school within a larger community of highly engaged learners. Many are attracted to the specific identity of certain colleges with little to no interest in some of the others. My kid has 2 she likes a lot, one that she’s “meh” about and two that would be no way! The unique model sets the Claremont Consortium apart in a way that I think attracts a lot of top students they might otherwise not get if they were perceived to have one dominant culture as a school. But as you say, they have the luxury of wealth (though there are huge fans between the wealthiest and the least wealthy of them) to be able to do this.
As an alum of one of the 5 Claremonts - they are not really the same as being part of one whole. I don’t think of myself as an alum of “Claremont”. It is not a single community of learners. In fact each college is quite different and there is only one other I would have even considered a fit. The closeness of the campuses is a huge asset and they are able to hold 5C events, concerts, speakers, etc which brings a lot more variety than a single 1500 or 2000 person school would have. But they are indeed very separate as well. Admissions, financial aid, dorms, etc are all distinct. Though I could eat in any of the dining halls, I only ever ate at a different campus a handful of times, and the same for cross registration for classes.
There are several colleges in the United States that have residential college systems or similar. The redundancy may be in dining halls, but those that also have faculty housing may not be causing any additional expense per se. I don’t believe that in these days most have any special academic provisions.
When I was in college, each of our dorms back, then had their own dining rooms and kitchen staff. That was changed during our college years and they created a central dining system. Sure miss those dining rooms. You could go down to breakfast in your bathrobe and slippers, read the New York Times, have a cup of coffee and go back to bed. We also had faculty house fellows in each of the dorms. That is something that still exists. It provides a great opportunity to establish a relationship with faculty members while also knowing that there is a support system or resource available if need be. They are a great advantages to residential college systems and similar housing arrangements.
One of my sons went to a college with a residential college system. When he first started college, He was just recovering from a hospitalization for a nasty G.I. infection and it was nice to know that there were adults available there if he needed anything. When he returned to campus a few years later with a broken leg and having to ride a motorized scooter, we notified them of the situation. He lived on the third floor walk up so they had to make some temporary arrangements for him before he could transition to crutches and get up and down the stairs.. his roommates also carried him a time or two before he was able to be weight-bearing. Because of the nature of his injury (femur fracture) and surgery, his leg was not casted so they had to be super Duper careful. As a parent, I was very grateful for the support and hands-on attention if needed.
Me either. I think some of their virtues are shared in some measure in other situations, but the total package they offer is to my knowledge unique in the US.
I know Yale still has what it calls residential college seminars, but that is just a very small part of the overall curriculum.
Probably more significant, including in terms of cost, is the academic advising provided through the residential college dean system.
Then the dining halls would definitely be the largest operating cost, but they do also have other student facilities that might be more concentrated in a different system.
Just curious which schools other than Yale, Princeton or Harvard offer those additional residential college services?
I have a friend who is a house fellow (or whatever the correct term is these days) at one of the residential colleges at Yale. I’m pretty sure he has some opportunities with the students of his residential college, though I don’t know any specifics.
I don’t recall any special services other than what I mentioned above for my son who went to a different school with a residential college system (although the house fellows did show up to some of the intermural sports games with snacks and homemade baked goodies and invited some of the students over for holiday meals too)
There are some schools with learning communities, but I don’t consider those specifically to be residential college systems. Does Vanderbilt offer special classes for its RC students?
Are you saying that there is minimal interaction among students from the different colleges? Boys and girls don’t get together if they’re not from the same college? My cousin’s daughter went to Scripps and she doesn’t describe her time there the way you do.
What do you think happens at a larger university where there in a Nursing School, a School of Education, a College of Engineering, a Business School, and a Conservatory? How much interaction do the students from those 5 colleges have? Where are their identities?
A college which has its Health Sciences campus miles away from the main campus is going to have much less interaction than a college where the bio labs, chem labs, psych labs, etc. are in the middle of the same buildings where the Arts and Sciences kids take those classes. A conservatory could be a bus ride away- or across the street.
Caltech has their “house system” which Wikipedia describes as based on the Oxford residential system. Students become affiliated with a particular house, they take their meals there, and a lot of their social life revolves around their house.
Some students take advantage of the other colleges more than others. Students who are on the varsity athletic teams compete on either the Pomona-Pitzer team or the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps team and musicians may perform with two different orchestras. There are many 5C clubs and organizations. As I mentioned above, there is the Mudd Maker space that is used by a lot of other students. Again there are many students that take many of their courses on other campuses. Finally, I am aware of many cross-campus couples and marriages.
