I’ve just had the craziest, most overwhelming, and most exciting three days of my life by being taken off the waitlist for my dream schools Pomona College and UCLA, and I’m so grateful for all of this!!! Now comes the fun part, making a decision! For context, I’m an Applied Math major for UCLA and a Mathematics and Statistics major for Pomona, and I am definitely interested in attending graduate school. Here are some pros and cons for each school has for me:
POMONA COLLEGE: Pros:
4-year housing, with many singles/doubles available!
Very low population, so it is much easier to gain relationships with professors and research opportunities, as well as joining the class I want to; plus the community is very supportive!!!
Grade inflation?!(according to people I know who go to Pomona, and I assume the grade inflation is at least better than UC’s)
Cons:
$60k in total, which is barely affordable for my family!
Claremont is a bit isolated from LA, but I thought it was a cute little town when I visited!
There are of course many positive aspects of a smaller school, but I’m still a bit worried I may feel a bit suffocated by it
UCLA: Pros:
$40k in-state, so it’s affordable for my family!
Many opportunities on campus and in the classroom for Iranian students such as myself!!!
Great location in the heart of LA, and there’s a close proximity to my family members!
Cons:
4-year housing, but likely triples!
Very large undergrad population, so there is definitely going to be competition for classes, research, and extracurricular opportunities😬
This is definitely not a comprehensive list, and I can’t attest to some aspects like grad school outcomes or the quality of the mathematics departments in each school as they seem pretty equal. I’m really stuck between these two though, so any guidance or advice is very much welcome, as well as any questions that can guide me to an answer!
Since you intend to go to grad school, I would suggest Pomona for undergrad => UCLA for grad
(The reverse is impossible).
Pomona is very, very strong for grad school preparation and its graduates have lots of opportunities, including job-wise if you change your mind abour grad school. In addition, it’s part of a 7,000 student campus, so, not that small. Finally, the resources per student are simply not comparable to what a public university can offer (even an excellent, well-funded public).
The only issue is whether the costs will require parental loans or simply “belt tightening” for your parents (if they’re willing to do that).
I wouldn’t consider this completely definitive (and there are more things to consider including cost), but this study of Math and Statistics PhD feeders has Pomona as #4 per capita, after only Caltech, Harvey Mudd, and MIT:
UCLA is #3 gross, but still. In fact we can do a little better–Pomona had 26 math PhDs in the study period, UCLA 88. According to the NCES College Navigator, UCLA had 748 primary majors in that year in math majors, Pomona 21:
That’s comparing a 5 year window to a 1 year window, so if we multiply the majors number by 5 and then divide the PhDs by that, we get:
Pomona 24.8%
UCLA 2.4%
That’s all very crude, but still–for PhD placement purposes specifically, I would definitely take very seriously the possible benefits of going to a place where you can really get to know your professors, and your department seems to be able to place a relative high percentage of students in PhD programs each year.
Would Pomona require debt for you and/or your parents? Impact your family’s lifestyle or parents’ retirement savings? You don’t have to answer these questions here, but something to think about and talk with your parents, especially if more schooling is in your future.
One other point is that it would be easier at Pomona to change majors (don’t have to declare until end of soph year anyway) than UCLA.
Have you visited? Have you looked at the professors and courses in your major at each school?
I’d go with your gut as they will be very different experiences. FWIW my D loved the atmosphere at her LAC but my S felt LACs were just too small and chose to attend a university. This is a case where two reasonable people could make two different choices.
Both are very diverse. Most would assume UCLA is a better location. I mean who wants to be deep into the Inland Empire living in smog ?
The flipside is that the resources and class sizes will be superior at Pomona.
In some ways it’’s odd that these are your two favorites as they are opposite of one another - big bureaucratic public vs smaller private (with the benefit of consortium).
Are you local - can you run by both - just take a breath again on each campus? See which feels right.
If not, go with affordability - is it $20k total as you say or $20k per year. If total, you can likely make it up with internships. If $20k per year has to be UCLA.
Finally as an Iranian I suspect you are fine at both. But you might want to check the surrounds to see if you are comfortable - especially in the Claremont/ R Cucamonga area.
I had the opposite reaction. Since grad school is in the picture, UCLA would be the wiser choice, imo. The OP notes that Pomona would be barely affordable for their family, whereas UCLA is within budget. Grad school can be expensive, depending on the program (yes, PhD programs are generally funded, MA programs are often not, and even in a funded program living expenses very often exceed stipends). So, from a financial point of view, the less expensive undergrad option makes more sense to me. Better to start putting some money aside for that, which sounds less possible with Pomona.
One of our kids (and consequently, us) faced a similar financial dilemma, with about $20k difference between Pomona and the UCs… per year. As several others have noted, the big question for you is whether that difference requires expensive loans or simply scrimping and saving. For us it would have been the latter, and for our kid, at least, Pomona was such a clear choice that we ended up suspending retirement contributions, skipping vacations for 4 years, and continuing to drive a couple of old cars into the ground - among other things, with the stipulation that paying for grad school was their responsibility. Well, the kid just became a doctor and has “promised” to build a granny flat in their backyard to take care of us in our later years to make up for the retirement thing, so I guess it might eventually pay off for us… As an aside, take a look in your FA package for an interest-free loan opportunity (I think Pomona might offer it to CA high school grads). They didn’t make a big deal about it (probably because they do make such a big deal about not including loans in the main FA package), but we took advantage of that, too.
I’ve drank the LAC kool-aid and think Pomona is amazing. I’m sure you’re well aware of Pomona’s advantages—e.g., smaller class sizes, closer professorial relationships, crazy funding for student opportunities, etc. Were the costs the same, I might lean slightly toward Pomona for fit considerations.
That said, were it me, I’d probably pick UCLA because of the money difference. $20k a year is a lot, and it sounds like it’ll be a potential strain on your family.
It’ll give you the similar opportunities as Pomona, but you’ll just have to work harder to find those opportunities and take advantage of them.
Folks on this board love LACs and are often implicitly skeptical of big public schools, noting most of their faults. Yet, despite its warts, UCLA ranks extremely high in student satisfaction, retention, and graduation rates (while traditionally maintaining an infinitely more economically diverse student base).
I got to know some of my professors extremely well because I attended office hours and did two independent study projects (one-on-one courses with an individual professor).
Things may have changed since my time in the 90’s, but I spent two years living with friends (doubles) in Westwood, where there were plenty of opportunities to do so.
There is an advantage to have graduate programs and students on campus—you will get a great opportunity to see what graduate school is like and whether it’s for you.
At least in the 90’s, there was a substantial Persian population at UCLA, including a former roommate of mine.
Last point: UCLA has an amazing math department and boasts the greatest mathematician of this generation (Terrance Tao).
Yes, if the difference is not comfortably affordable, you can go to UCLA with the understanding you just need to hustle to form the necessary relationships for grad school.
