Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:That is no different from most peer LACs. Williams, Amherst, etc are only 40% submitting SAT, while Pomona is 37%. A lot of people in California apply test optional since the UC system is, so that explains the little gap almost entirely.
Then why do we/most people assume Williams and Amherst are academically rigorous and have high concentration of intellectual kids? Is this just based on pre-Covid, pre-test optional prestige? We know Caltech kids are smart bc they have high mid-50% SAT.
I don't know. I generally look at test optional schools as more rigorous if at least a majority of admitted students submit scores. For LACs that are well below the 50% mark (Claremont McKenna, Pomona, Williams, Amherst, etc.) I suspect the "test optional" loophole has been serving them so they can bring in some recruited athletes with lower scores.
In contrast, many in the Ivy Plus/New Ivy crowd have 70+% submitting scores out of admitted students. That speaks volumes to having an objective standard on academic preparedness.
Pomona has a pretty tiny athlete population. More likely the DEI admits
25% of students participating in varsity athletics in a given year is not “pretty tiny”. The number of recruits is higher, but some choose not to play in later years, so it’s closer to 30% who were specifically recruited for D3. Furthermore, Pomona has a very competitive D3 program that almost always ranks top 30 nationally (they were 15th last year).
Not sure why any of this seems like an exaggeration. Pomona has 50 states, 5 US territories, and 65 countries represented among just 1700 students. 6-7% acceptance rate for the last five years. Ranked by Niche as #1 or #2 most diverse college or university in America during the same duration. Among the top 10 colleges and universities with the highest Pell Grant percent between the top 25 LACs/universities- ie. the top quartile for socioeconomic diversity among well ranked schools. Even after the Supreme Court decision banning AA, it remains one of the most diverse colleges in terms of minority enrollment.
Pomona is very particular in crafting its class. That’s not me boosting the school, that’s objective reality. So yes, if a high stat student doesn’t add to an institutional priority, it is hard to get into Pomona.
The point about Posse students being high class from Miami is wrong by the way. Posse is a full tuition minimum scholarship and Pomona only gives need based aid with very rare exceptions (only 2 students overall with under 20,000 in merit aid, no first years with merit aid). Pomona gave all 20 entering Posse scholars at least a full tuition need based scholarship according to the Common Data Set. Also, it is a science cohort that focuses on students underrepresented in those fields, so again, it is an institutional priority.