Pomona vs. Harvard

Corinthian
Sun, 06 Sep 2015 14:56:22 +0000

My D is a freshman at Pomona. Her language class has 12 students, her critical inquiry seminar has 14, economics has 24 and chemistry has 26 (the lab is smaller). She’s met and chatted with the president of the college a couple of times since she arrived. (He joined her Orientation Adventure and also hosted the freshman class for a dinner in the garden next to his house.) Her adviser is a full professor. The professor of her critical inquiry seminar is hosting the class for dinner at his house next week. The atmosphere is definitely very personalized but I do not think it’s slower. She has a very large amount of reading to do this weekend, especially for the critical inquiry seminar. Her language class is fast paced. The chem textbook she ordered from Amazon hasn’t arrived yet so she’s borrowing one from someone in her sponsor group so she can get the chem assignment done. She didn’t mention what was going on in econ but so far seems to find the work challenging but manageable.

This is not to say you can’t have a great undergrad experience at a large research university. But the personalized touch and undergrad focus is definitely a main focus of LAC’s. I wouldn’t assume that means “slower” though. In fact, in small classes there’s no place to hide.