<p>What makes Pomona special?
First, please allow me to apologize for repeating any of the excellent comments posted above.
In any event, IMO, Pomona is recognized to provide one of the finest liberal arts educations in the country-amazing faculty and resources. You will NOT be disappointed in the education you receive. It is second to none.
It is located in beautiful, sunny Southern California and you are less than an hour away from the mountains (skiing, hiking, etc.), beaches, Los Angeles (museums, concerts, sporting events, etc.), Orange County (Disneyland, more beaches, etc.). There is mass transit (Metro Link) that goes from campus directly to downtown Los Angeles. You will certainly know someone with a car.
Pomona is most certainly a national, if not international school and environment. Only about 1/3 of the students are from California and the student population is very diverse. It tends to be liberal and very “politically correct” (perhaps too much so for some).
Pomona is a beautiful campus, designed by the same gentleman who designed Stanford, Occidental College, the Hollywood Bowl and many other venues. All facilities (classrooms, sports, etc.) are first rate.
Immediately adjacant to the campus is “The Village”, with wonderful shops, restaurants, music stores, etc. and the area is being expanded to include “fine arts” theatres, a "Bed and Breakfast, more shops … There is also plenty of other shopping, movie theatres, concert venues, restaurants, markets within a very short drive of campus.
The dorms at Pomona are very nice and the food is tremendous (not just for dorm food, it’s great food). There is cable TV hookup and, of course, necessary computer/internet connection.
The students, faculty, administrators at Pomona are simply the friendliest people you will ever meet. There is a reason Pomona students have been found in surveys to be the “happiest” college students. Many refer to it as an excellent summer camp with classes. I think it’s more like Disneyland, “the happiest place on earth”.
I could go on and on, but with all of the above, what puts Pomona “over the top” IMO is the Claremont College Consortium. Including Pomona, you have 5 schools, plus two graduate schools that share resources (academically and otherwise). For example, a student may eat in the dining hall at any of the 5 schools, so you have a choice of 11 dining halls. If there is room, I believe you can even live in the dorms of another campus (guys, just don’t try to sneak into Scripps). In sports, Pomona and Pitzer form one athletic program and Claremont, Harvey-Mudd and Scripps form one. With this, you have a duplicate of every type of sporting venue/facility (two gyms, two weight rooms, two football fields, etc.). With this, there is always something going on, sports and otherwise, as each school plans events open to everyone.
With the 5 schools and with them being very different, you are exposed to even more diversity, opportunity, etc. You can take classes at any of the 5 schools, with some limitation. You are truly getting 5 schools for the price of one. Best of all, unlike the “sister” school arrangement of say Haverford, Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr or the “5 colleges” in the northeast, the Claremont schools are immediately adjacant to each other, forming one large campus. If not for the fairly dramatic change in architecture from one school to the next, you’d be hard pressed to realize you are going from one school to another.
The only thing I can imagine missing from the Pomona experience is if you want big time sports, 100,000 people screaming at a football game, etc. this is not the place. If you want to be anonymous, this is not the place. Otherwise, you could not pick a finer school. I would conclude in noting that I have had the chance to meet people from all the 5 Claremont schools and alums, both recent and stretching back for decades and have NEVER spoken to one who regreted attending Pomona or any other of the Claremont colleges.</p>