Pomona vs. USC Trustee— thoughts?

JAlfredPrufrock
Sun, 01 Apr 2012 15:03:53 +0000

I found out this week that I was admitted to Pomona, and also that I got a full-tuition Trustee Scholarship from USC. I got financial aid from Pomona, so USC will cost ~15k and Pomona will cost ~27k.

I visited both schools in September just to tour the campuses; I visited USC again in February to interview for the scholarship. On my second visit to USC I got to stay overnight and go to classes, which I haven’t done at Pomona.

Yesterday I went to a reception for Pomona admitted students in Chicago which was really wonderful, all the people were so nice and interesting and in love with Pomona. Then I came home and found out about the USC scholarship, and didn’t know what to think.

Pros and cons:

Pomona
pros:
-Small classes, lower student-to-faculty ratio, closer interaction with professors= better, more intimate LAC academic experience
-Students who are super smart while still laid-back and happy and fun
-Students on financial aid can take music lessons for free
-Five college consortium offers extended resources beyond the small college
-Great food, including Snack
-Beautiful campus, close to the mountains, nice small town
-awesome outdoors club, Farm
-closer to the mountains

cons:
-smaller social scene, tending to feel a bit like high school (this can be lessened by making friends at other schools, but still)
-more difficult to study abroad/double major
-farther from west side/downtown/beaches, some say it’s in the middle of nowhere compared to USC
-Pomona bubble could be difficult to escape, could get slightly boring
-more expensive for me
-no name recognition (though I don’t really care about this)

USC
pros:
-12k per year (48k total) cheaper
-Thematic Option honors program offers small, stimulating classes similar to classes at Pomona
-Tons of opportunities for paid travel through both study abroad programs and summer programs (Problems w/o Passports, SURF, SOAR)
-Lot’s of opportunities for research and internships
-very easy to earn multiple majors or minors
-2 credit classes available to take each semester pass/fail, available classes include Sailing, Surfing, Martial Arts, Classical Guitar…
-great school spirit, happy vibe
-ability to live in the honors dorm with other students who would be choosing USC over top schools
-closer to west side, downtown, beaches
-outdoors club is still good, from what I’ve heard
-more attractive girls?
-Alumni network, though I’m sure Pomona’s would serve me just fine

cons:
-Academics would not be as strong overall
-larger classes, classroom experience not as engaging
-less interaction with professors
-less intellectual environment, less universally nerdy-yet-fun peers
-more focus on big sports; I love sports, but I’m more into outdoors, sports like beach volleyball, tennis, ultimate frisbee, hockey. I’m not that into football or basketball
-much more of a Greek scene, which I’m not really interested in, and a somewhat exclusive party scene— I’ve heard that guys can’t get into parties unless they’re in a frat?
-name recognition has a lot to do with party school/football team, at least where I live, and is less know to be a great school academically

Any thoughts? I know that I’ll eventually have to make this choice on my own, but I’m looking for lots of input from a lot of different people. Parts of me love both schools, and I might say that I love Pomona a smidge more, but the money makes it about equal… I would feel bad making my parents may the extra money when I could be happy at both places, but I just have a hard time turning down the amazing environment at Pomona.