I would argue that with its primary focus on STEM disciplines, Harvey Mudd isn’t your traditional liberal arts college.
Some posters on this thread seem to be suggesting that the Claremont colleges aren’t as selective as their acceptance rates would suggest because California is such a populous state and there aren’t many competing LAC’s on the West coast. Let’s compare the stats for Williams College’s Class of 2019 to the stats for Pomona listed in post #18:
“Williams College has extended offers of admission to 1,159 applicants for the Class of 2019. They were selected from a total applicant pool of 6,883, for an overall acceptance rate of 16.8 percent.” [Pomona acceptance rate 9.76%.] “28 percent hail from the Mid-Atlantic; 21 percent from the West; 15 percent from the Northeast; 11 percent from the South; 8 percent from the Midwest; and 5 percent from the Southwest.” “The admitted students’ academic profile is exceptional, with average SAT scores of 731 in critical reading, 720 in math, and 727 in writing. The average super-scored ACT is a 33. Eighty-six percent of the students who submitted high school rank are projected to graduate in the top 10 percent of their class.” http://communications.williams.edu/news-releases/3_26_2015_admits/ [Pomona median SAT scores 740/740/740, ACT 33, and according to CDS for Class of 2018, 91% were in the top 10 percent of their class.]
Everyone can draw their own conclusions from these numbers. I’m sure it’s true that the location of the Claremont consortium (nice weather, geographic accessibility) drives up the number of applicants but the Consortium colleges are also competing against better known LAC’s (especially Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore) and still come out with a lower acceptance rate and impressive stats of the accepted student body.
Back in the day when I was applying to college, Pomona did offer some significant merit money. It was then very much an easy admit for a strong B student. One high school classmate with that kind of academic profile went to Pomona; they’re now a tenured humanities professor at a single-initial school.
Coming from California, I lump Pomona in with Williams, Amherst, Swat et al in the same generic category of LACs for smart high-achieving kids. OTOH my NE friends’ kids who matriculate to Pomona are the ones earnestly explaining why Pomona is such a good fit for them, because folks haven’t necessarily heard of it.
And hey, Caltech isn’t mentioned on the list. Its admit rate was 8%. If they’re going to include Mudd, then Caltech should be the #1 most selective LAC. 
Re #20
Lots of other schools which people see as LACs are also academically “unbalanced”.
The vast majority of college students attend schools that are within a day’s drive of their home. When you look at elite liberal arts colleges within a day’s drive of Northeast and Middle Atlantic population centers, you come up with dozens of options, including some real powerhouses. For West Coast students, the options are MUCH more limited. High achieving students in California and nearby states who don’t want to fly across the country have a limited number of options. This also has an impact on enrollment and yield. A superior student who wants to stay in the northeast might gain acceptances to Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin, Swarthmore, Middlebury, etc. (not to mention multiple Ivy league schools), but can only attend one. For the superior student in California (or Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Washington State, Oregon, etc.) who wants to attend an elite liberal arts college without having to travel 4 hours on a plane for every break, the options are much more limited (Pomona, CMC, Reed, etc.). This has the affect of improving yield, which directly impacts selectivity.
I agree complete, @arcadia. There really aren’t that many choices for great LACs in California, especially when you compare it with the northeast.
I understand the point others are making that Pomona would be selective no matter what, but I do think that the other Claremont Colleges better illustrate the point (about how weather/location/consortium plays a big role in making them more selective).
22 Yes Caltec is a wonderful institution but it is Research University. Not LAC like Mudd. But Caltec is placed No. 1 for College with the highest SAT score. http://www.forbes.com/sites/schifrin/2014/08/04/top-100-sat-scores-ranking-which-colleges-have-the-brightest-kids/
@arcadia I acknowledge the truth of your point, since we are from AZ and quickly realized in our kid’s junior year that there is a dearth of elite LAC’s on the West coast. On the other hand it’s impossible to quantify that effect with the statistics available since we only have stats on the admitted students and not the whole applicant pool. And I’ll bet that in general the higher stats the applicant, the greater the willingness to travel far from home to attend college. The OP in this thread emphasized that he wasn’t suggesting that the 5C’s are the best 5 LAC’s in the country. Rather he was saying that the 2019 low acceptance rates show there is growing recognition of the strength and attractiveness of the consortium, and I think that much of that growth is coming from outside California. It would be interesting to know the data on the whole applicant pool and compare it over time to see where they are coming from and the overall strength of the applicant pool.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the Claremont consortium (specifically Pomona) isn’t great. We’re just urging caution about reading too much into the numbers.
What I was suggesting was only that geography and demographics may be driving up the number of applications (and hence driving down the admit rates) to those colleges, relative to the numbers submitted to many other LACs. It would be wrong to leap from that suggestion to any conclusions about how easy/hard it is to be admitted to the Claremont colleges, compared to other LACs.
However, yesterday I calculated “selectivity” for 75+ colleges, based on a weighted composite of test score, admit rate, and class rank numbers. See post #66 here:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1766153-top-ten-lacs-are-their-safeties-p5.html
FWIW, I did conclude that Pomona is the most selective LAC in America (after considering not only admit rates but also test scores and class rank). Mudd is #2. Claremont McK and Scripps are not too far behind. They not only get many more applicants than they can accept, they also do get enough very strong applications to fill their classes with high scoring, high ranking students. Pitzer also makes my list of the top 75 most selective colleges, according to this formula.
“The vast majority of college students attend schools that are within a day’s drive of their home”
arcadia makes a fair point, but follows this observation with the statement …“When you look at elite liberal arts colleges within a day’s drive of Northeast and Middle Atlantic population centers, you come up with dozens of options, including some real powerhouses. For West Coast students, the options are MUCH more limited.”
Both statements are true, standing alone.
However, IMO, the logical fallacy is: Second statement does not necessarily follow from the first.
In other words, while it is true that the vast majority of students DO attend schools within a day’s drive of their home,
it doesn’t necessarily follow that students at ‘elite liberal arts colleges’ fit this pattern.
National LAC’s, which could also be considered ‘elite’ (say, the top 10-20 according to most rankings) draw their students from everywhere…not just domestically, but internationally.
Taking just Pomona and Claremont McKenna as examples, for the class of 2019, Pomona’s class hails from 47
states, with over 14% of the class being international (with 32 countries represented); likewise, CMC’s class comes from 46 states, with 19% international (from 31 countries).
So, while i do appreciate the fact hat there is indeed a dearth of outstanding LAC’s on the west coast compared to the northeast, i think this factor is not that significant when considering selectivity.
Pomona is actually the school on the west coast with the lowest percentage of in-state students (~25%, fell from 33% in usual years), after Soka, which is an international based school in the US.
The geographic diversity of enrolled students may or may not reflect equal geographic diversity in the applicant pools. I suspect that for an applicant from Maine or Delaware, Pomona is less selective than it is for an applicant from California … but I don’t really know for sure. If it is, I do not know by how much.
FWIW, here are the percentages of in-state students enrolled at a few other LACs.
Sources: CDS section F1
35% Whitman
21% Willamette
7% Reed
16% Colorado College
47% St. Olaf
15% Carleton
14% Macalester
17% Kenyon
5% Oberlin
19% Dickinson
13% Swarthmore
39% Hobart
25% Vassar
37% Holy Cross
11% Williams
17% College of the Atlantic
11% Bates
10% Bowdoin
Thanks tk21769…that is quite interesting. I believe, for class of 2019, Pomoa has 25% from out of state, and CMC 30% out of state. I found Oberlin’s stats amazing!
I don’t know this year but class of 2017 Student profile Pomona shows 28.5% are from California International 10.8% so, rest of them are must be out of states students. Harvey Mudd class shows 38% are from California and International is 14% so, both schools have great number of out of states students.
OOPS!..thanks for catching that, bambi0611…what I meant, of course, was that Pomona has 25% from IN-state and CMC 30%from IN-state, for this year’s entering class.