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<p>Look at how the five undergrad colleges market themselves. According to the Consortium’s strategic plan, the Consortium would like to strengthen the Consortium brand in the marketing, but I see little evidence of that in the actual marketing by the five colleges. In fact, I think the five colleges do a poor job of positioning themselves as specialists within the context of the consortium, i.e. the consortium’s “tech” school, the consortium’s “econ, gov.” school, the consortium’s “language and arts” school, and whatever Pitzer is.</p>
<p>It’s frustrating to an outsider because that shared specialization is the thing most unique about the consortium and, as you point out, the key to understanding the schools. For example, without the Joint Sciences or the Art, Music, Theater, and Dance offerings elsewhere, Claremont McKenna doesn’t make any sense as a liberal arts college. It is so fundamental, that a description really belongs in the a-level “about CMC” sections of the website.</p>
<p>IMO, it is very difficult for somebody who doesn’t already know the arrangement to figure it out from the five college’s marketing. For example, when my daughter started looking at colleges and had Pomona and the other Claremont Colleges recommended to her, we had no earthly idea that Mudd was a specialty tech school and CMC was a specialty goverment/econ school. We just thought CMC was a little easier to get into than Pomona, which was a good thing. But, suppose an art history major ends up there for the same reason and finds out art history classes are all at Scripps? You don’t get that important piece of the puzzle from USNEWS or from the websites. That’s why I point out that Mudd, CMC, and Pitzer (and perhaps Scripps) are very unique schools.</p>
<p>Pomona, not so much. It would be ripped out of the consortium tomorrow and continue on pretty much unchanged as a broad-based LAC.</p>