Transferring from Dartmouth to Pomona

ayzdad
Sat, 25 Dec 2010 08:04:48 +0000

14D-
You’re story strikes a chord here. My D applied to Dartmouth but did not get in (we live in the northeast, I think that might have been the problem), and in retrospect she’s glad she didn’t (and attends Pomona). 2 of her best friends go there and she said they seem to do a lot of drinking, which they didn’t in high school. My son’s best friend attended Dartmouth and he also said the drinking scene predominates. From what my D says drinking at Pomona is fairly suppressed. The alcohol at school sanctioned events is very controlled and so any drinking is done on the sly in dorm rooms. Depending on your RA, there may be more suppression or less, but it’s not prevalent. And there are certain things, like drinking games, that she says you can get in big trouble over. (Can you imagine Dartmouth without beer pong?) On the other end of the spectrum, she said Pomona can’t have a party without indoctrination sessions on responsible drinking, the dangers of drugs, respect for others, etc. She says it’s actually a little too politically correct-- you need to go to one of the other Claremont schools to go to party that’s any fun-- but she knew going in that Pomona is very PC, and there are some things about the political correctness that she likes-- like suppression of a predominating drinking culture. It may be more in line with what you want to do or don’t want to be around, but just understand that at Pomona there’s more supervision and less freedom in this regard than you have at Dartmouth.