Why is Pomona so special?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Went to Baldy all the time so I don’t know wtf the other poster is talking about.

When I was there (80s) Baldy was terrible (maybe 4 lifts) and if we wanted to ski we drive to Mammoth.

Baldy was excellent this winter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like what makes it stand out? Why is demand so high?

It's one of the best LACs in the nation. People also choose it for its location (you can ski and go to the beach on the same day). Being part of the five Claremont Colleges is both positive and negative. Students can live in any of the dorms, eat in any of the dining halls, and take classes at any of the five schools. This gives you lots of flexibility, but it also means students from other schools in the consortium can hijack the best parts of your school. My friend's kid went to Harvey Mudd and complained he couldn't always get the computer science classes he wanted because they filled up so quickly with students from Scripps, etc. He also said HMC had the best food, which meant the longest lines because students from the other four colleges converged on the dining hall at mealtimes.

[Anonymous]

I find it very hard to believe HMC does not prioritize its own students over those from Scripps for high-demand CS courses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it very hard to believe HMC does not prioritize its own students over those from Scripps for high-demand CS courses.

That's what I was told by good friends (parents to a student at HMC). It may be that there was a deadline for HMC students to sign up for their own classes, and the classes opened up to the consortium thereafter, and their kid didn't sign up in time, or something like that. I don't know the details. My friends speak very highly about HMC, though, despite their concern about that issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a street with some mom and pop stores on it like Highland Ave in Los Angeles. Nothing extraordinary about it all and whe done with walking up and down it where are you going to go? San Berdoo for a big night out? East coast people forget that California is a car culture. It’s very difficult to get around without one. You aren’t going to pop on the 5, the 91 etc just to Sanger over to the beach. How are you going to get from LAX? Fly into Ontario? My relatives went to the Claremont colleges. I understand Pomona is way up there in rankings (I don’t understand why - I would go to Williams or any other of the east-coast SLACs over Pomona) and Claremont is good but Scripps? Pitzer? Not with the money. East coast students have stars in their eyes about SoCal which is quickly destroyed once they get out there.

+100
I went there and I agree.

+1. Sister went to Pitzer. I was accepted to Pomona but went to Oxy (not great). This is all true. The SoCal schools are not what east coasters are expecting. They want the look of Pepperdine but with more academic chomp.

Who are these deeply stupid people that PPs are talking about? DS thinks some things about his experience don’t live up to expectations, but “stars in their eyes” (whatever the f that means) isn’t part of the issue. Most DMV kids travel a lot (DC has lived in 4 countries), and they know how to read a map.

[Anonymous]

NP. I am a Pomona grad coming up on 20 years, eek! I loved my time there. Excellent professors, beautiful campus. I made lifelong friends and married a Pomona grad. I think it’s possible to have a great college experience pretty much anywhere… but I do think there is something special about Pomona. Probably true of many SLACs idk.

[Anonymous]

I think Claremont McKenna is special too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Location isn't that great either. Very far from the beach and downtown LA, very smoggy.

It's one of those cases where "it's great because everyone thinks it's great".

Basically the beaches are at one end of LA county and the school is at the other. DD really liked the campus - as well as Pitzer - but the drive from our hotel in Santa Monica to the Claremont campuses, then back in one hot afternoon was not lost on her.

Umm she would be living on campus. If she cares so much about proximity to the beach then go to Occidental or Pepperdine. I don’t think this kid would do well at Pomona anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Location isn't that great either. Very far from the beach and downtown LA, very smoggy.

It's one of those cases where "it's great because everyone thinks it's great".

Basically the beaches are at one end of LA county and the school is at the other. DD really liked the campus - as well as Pitzer - but the drive from our hotel in Santa Monica to the Claremont campuses, then back in one hot afternoon was not lost on her.

Umm she would be living on campus. If she cares so much about proximity to the beach then go to Occidental or Pepperdine. I don’t think this kid would do well at Pomona anyway.

Occidental is in Eagle Rock, near Pasadena on the east side of L.A. It's not near the beach. Pepperdine is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. I am a Pomona grad coming up on 20 years, eek! I loved my time there. Excellent professors, beautiful campus. I made lifelong friends and married a Pomona grad. I think it’s possible to have a great college experience pretty much anywhere… but I do think there is something special about Pomona. Probably true of many SLACs idk.

+1 same feelings, but 30 yr grad! The Popovich work study PP was likely my contemporary & I second a lot of what they said. I have a cousin who also went to a SLAC (Carleton) & I think my impression is that a lot of SLACs have good community that persists over time as well.

[Anonymous]

It’s not. It’s a poor excuse of a school still struggling to become as popular as the New England lacs, which are hardly popular.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not. It’s a poor excuse of a school still struggling to become as popular as the New England lacs, which are hardly popular.

I can't imagine circumstances in which I'd have such personal animosity against a college that I would dig up an old thread just to hyperbolically crap on it. Some of you need therapy and/or time away from the Internet.

[Anonymous]

Since some dingdong bumped this thread, I'll offer an answer as a Pomona parent.

First off, "special" is a loaded term and there's no consensus on what it means, especially on a board as contentious as this one. But l'll interpret it to mean "qualities that set it apart from most of its peers--i.e., other elite LACs."

Second, all LACs have certain special qualities. Williams has tutorials, winter term, and USNWR pedigree. Amherst has an open curriculum and amazing preprofessional placement. Swarthmore has its honors program, proximity to Philly, and a reputation as an academic bootcamp. Bowdoin offers a rigorous education while still being friendly and offering great food and dorms. To be fair though, beyond geography, such schools are much more similar than different in terms of endowment, resources, opportunities, admissions, etc.

As for Pomona, here is what sets it apart from most of elite LACs:

(1) The 5C Consortium: Pomona itself has about 1,750 students but exists in an extremely interactive consortium of about 6,000 undergrads. Cross-registration is easy and the 5Cs share a lot of social events and clubs. For a student who likes the liberal arts model but is worried that that LACs may seem suffocatingly too small, Pomona offers a good compromise, arguably offering the benefits of both a small LAC and a mid-sized university.

(2) Location: Pomona is one of the few LACs on the West Coast and offers weekend access to a major city. It also offers weekend proximity to world-class outdoorsy stuff from the beach to Joshua Tree to the Eastern Sierra. Plus, while the Inland Empire isn't great, Claremont Village itself offers much more than most LAC college towns.

(3) Laidback nature: Pomona has a reputation for being rigorous and intellectual but still more culturally laidback than Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore. Pomona students aren't competing in misery olympics or comparing achievements and seem to have an active social life beyond the library. To be fair though, I think Bowdoin has a similar reputation. Also, I present this as a reputational anecdote among the WASP schools, not a fact.

(4) Within the 5Cs? The other 5C colleges offer most of the qualities above, so what makes Pomona different from Mudd, CMC, Scripps, and Pitzer? All four of those schools are great and offer something unique within the 5Cs. A student might pick Pomona over those schools because they want a traditional, coed liberal arts education, whereas Mudd, CMC, and Pitzer are somewhat more focused/specialized and Scripps is all women. Pomona also offers the most liberal financial aid and its campus along with Scripps's are arguably the nicest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since some dingdong bumped this thread, I'll offer an answer as a Pomona parent.

First off, "special" is a loaded term and there's no consensus on what it means, especially on a board as contentious as this one. But l'll interpret it to mean "qualities that set it apart from most of its peers--i.e., other elite LACs."

Second, all LACs have certain special qualities. Williams has tutorials, winter term, and USNWR pedigree. Amherst has an open curriculum and amazing preprofessional placement. Swarthmore has its honors program, proximity to Philly, and a reputation as an academic bootcamp. Bowdoin offers a rigorous education while still being friendly and offering great food and dorms. To be fair though, beyond geography, such schools are much more similar than different in terms of endowment, resources, opportunities, admissions, etc.

As for Pomona, here is what sets it apart from most of elite LACs:

(1) The 5C Consortium: Pomona itself has about 1,750 students but exists in an extremely interactive consortium of about 6,000 undergrads. Cross-registration is easy and the 5Cs share a lot of social events and clubs. For a student who likes the liberal arts model but is worried that that LACs may seem suffocatingly too small, Pomona offers a good compromise, arguably offering the benefits of both a small LAC and a mid-sized university.

(2) Location: Pomona is one of the few LACs on the West Coast and offers weekend access to a major city. It also offers weekend proximity to world-class outdoorsy stuff from the beach to Joshua Tree to the Eastern Sierra. Plus, while the Inland Empire isn't great, Claremont Village itself offers much more than most LAC college towns.

(3) Laidback nature: Pomona has a reputation for being rigorous and intellectual but still more culturally laidback than Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore. Pomona students aren't competing in misery olympics or comparing achievements and seem to have an active social life beyond the library. To be fair though, I think Bowdoin has a similar reputation. Also, I present this as a reputational anecdote among the WASP schools, not a fact.

(4) Within the 5Cs? The other 5C colleges offer most of the qualities above, so what makes Pomona different from Mudd, CMC, Scripps, and Pitzer? All four of those schools are great and offer something unique within the 5Cs. A student might pick Pomona over those schools because they want a traditional, coed liberal arts education, whereas Mudd, CMC, and Pitzer are somewhat more focused/specialized and Scripps is all women. Pomona also offers the most liberal financial aid and its campus along with Scripps's are arguably the nicest.

To add, they’re now at over 8,500 students in the whole system. It’s a small university, which is very different from the other LACs. Additionally there’s a ton of special opportunities like the Downing Scholars program, the Cambridge program, Inside out/generational courses, and even freshman cohort programs

[Anonymous]

Agree with a prior poster who said something about the school and environment is calming. I love driving down the tree lined College Avenue to get to my DC’s dorm at Pomona. It does have a cozy homey feel. Not to mention amazing food!