<p>Meh. Freaking out over college rankings is a really futile activity; from my experiences with Occidental vs. Claremont faculty, i’d say you have every reason to opt for the larger, more accomplished and active Claremont staff than Oxy’s. The social life is nearly interminable: Oxy only has 2,000 students, total. With the consortium, Claremont has almost three times that. Even better, all of the different schools have very different recruiting profiles, making the student body even more diverse.
Worsening matters, The school is located in Eagle Rock. It may be a bit poorer than Claremont, but it’s certainly nice. The problem is that Eagle Rock is less friendly to Oxy than Claremont is to the 5Cs. You’re closer to Pasadena, which is nice if you want to go to nordstrom’s, but it’s rather upmarket for students. The result is that it’s hard to get off campus or meet a wide variety of people. All my oxy friends have gone stir-crazy.</p>
<p>Academically, it’s pretty nifty, but at 2,000 students it just can’t compete with the variety and quality of Claremont’s faculty. There’s two possible exceptions. I have one friend who’s studying to become a vetrinarian at Oxy. They have a very good program there; Claremont doesn’t offer one. The second is in Diplomacy & World Affairs; they have a very active and engaged student body and they offer a unique UN internship program. The problem is that they just best latin american expert retired and they inexplicably fired (i think. and i think for budgetary reasons) their best, alas untenured, russia/central asia expert. </p>
<p>But as for Oxy v. Pitzer, I’d say Pitzer’s a clear choice. Between the different claremont schools, i’d say there’s something for everyone.</p>