4 of 5 most selective LACs in Claremont

Colleges and Universities A-Z Claremont McKenna College
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Might as well post this on CMC site also.
I recently posted the following on another site…copied here for CC.

What I find remarkable is the following fact:

Of almost 3,000 Liberal Arts Colleges in the US, four of the five most selective LACs in the country, are part of the Claremont College consortium in Calfornia. This, according to numbers just released for the Class of 2019.

The most selective LAC is actually a tie between Claremont McKenna College and Pomona College. Here are the results, from what I’ve been able to gather:

  1. Claremont McKenna, 9.76%.
  2. Pomona, 9.76%.
  3. Swarthmore, 12% (only non-C in top five).
  4. HarveyMudd College, 12.7%.
  5. (Surprise!) Pitzer College, 12.9%.

It is noteworthy that the only Claremont College not in the top 5 is Scripps, the all-women’s college. Scripps, however, still came in at a respectable 28% acceptance rate, which I believe is the same as Wellesley, generally regarded as the top college for women (although Barnard’s rate of 19.5% trumps both…LOL!).

Women’s colleges, generally speaking, are not seeing the same % increases that top coed LACs have been experiencing in the last several years.

As much as I love Claremont, however, I am not so presumptuous as to imply that these are THE five best LACs in the country, although they are right up there.…Pitzer better than Williams or Amherst? No Way. But, IMO, CMC and Pomona stand on a par with any college, including (GASP!) The Ivies, for a first-rate undergraduate education. Harvey Mudd likewise, vis- a- vis MIT / Caltech, for the budding scientist.

What this does speak to, is the growing recognition/awareness of the benefits of getting an undergraduate education in Claremont, the only true consortium in the country, modeled after the Oxford system.

Many, especially on the East Coast, are not familiar with The Claremonts. I would strongly encourage anyone interested in a Liberal Arts education to look into them.

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Thanks for the information. Here is a page with similar information. http://campusgrotto.com/hardest-colleges-to-get-into.html

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http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/scripps-college/1767958-4-of-5-most-selective-lacs-in-claremont.html

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Love CMC. I’ve heard a lot about the Claremont Consortium being modeled after the Oxford system, but I fail to see the resemblance. Anyone care to explain?

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@Woandering http://www.cuc.claremont.edu/aboutcuc/history.asp

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The 5 colleges have integrated many of their ‘institutional’ aspects, so registration for classes, etc. is unified. The consortium is pushing the analogy (in the way that the ivies did), to borrow some of the shine of the name,
but there are at least two fundamental differences between the Oxbridge structure and the consortium. First, at Oxbridge, while it is true that each Oxbridge college has it’s own campus, students and faculty (to quote the consortium’s description of itself), admissions and testing is through the university-wide academic faculty, in conjunction with the colleges. So, if you apply to study history at Oxford, you apply to a college, but the history faculty across all the colleges vets applicants to all colleges, and all history students sit the same finals, no matter what college they took the course in. Further, when you graduate your degree is from Oxford or Cambridge, not from your college. If you go to Pomona you get a degree from Pomona, not The Claremont Consortium.

In other words, it’s more a marketing thing than anything else. As far as I can tell, it’s not that much different than the Five Colleges Consortium or the Tri-College Consortium.

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@Corinthian The site doesn’t really connect the Oxford system with the Consortium. The two systems share a few attributes, but both are really unique.

The biggest difference I see (and what really makes them different): Oxford University organizes its lecture classes for the colleges, whereas individual Claremont Colleges organize their own classes, although the classes can be taken by other students. Therefore, going to one Oxford college vs another will not typically give you an advantage or disadvantage in your course. However, going to HMC, for example, will give you a disadvantage vs CMC, if you were trying to study the social sciences, or an advantage if you were trying to focus on the natural sciences.

Claremont Consortium is a really unique collaboration between colleges to pool resources, and I love it (CMC in particular), but I don’t see how it’s similar to the Oxford system.

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The link was to the history and the original vision. Even Blaisdell in 1923 said “somewhat of an Oxford type.”

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Well, they are still trying to associate themselves with Oxbridge: http://www.claremont.edu/

“The Claremont Colleges, a consortium of five undergraduate liberal arts colleges, two graduate institutions, and Claremont University Consortium, which provides shared institutional support services, is reminiscent of the Oxford-Cambridge model.”

None of the other consortiums that I found name-check Oxbridge…

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The principal difference between the Claremont Consortium and the Five Colleges Consortium or the Tri-College Consortium, in my opinion, is that The Claremonts are essentially one large campus, and there is virtually no limit to the amount of classes a student at Pomona, as an example, may take at Claremont McKenna, Mudd, etc. When i attended CMC circa 1970, the rule was,you had to take at least half your classes at CMC.

Not certain, but I think I recently heard even that loose requirement no longer is set in stone.
In fact, I was perusing a senior thesis online just this week, on some type of computer model-cutting edge topic having to do with Parkinson’s research (way beyond my pay-grade…lol!) written by a CMC senior who is a CS major (which I didn’t think the college even offered), under the auspices of the facilities at Pomona and Mudd.

Anyway,its not easy to explain the unique quality of the 5C if you haven’t physically seen the place. I don’t know whether you have, collegemom3717, but - if not - i would recommend checking out Claremont McKenna’s website,
and clicking on top, where it says ‘MAP.’ There is a cool, 3D map of the colleges,color-coded,etc. which should provide some insight in this regard.

Also, i was just on-campus a couple of weeks ago, and ate in Collins Hall,the main dining hall for CMC, and noticed an inordinate amount of attire with logos from Pomona, Scripps, Harvey Mudd, and Pitzer, which is when I learned for the first time that, if you attend one of the Cs, your meal-card is interchangeable at any of them. Very cool. I was thinking, I attended 40 years too early.

Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I believe the two consortia mentioned on the post are separatdgeographically,equirig a bus ride to take course at another participating member,no?

This is what I was referring to when speaking to the unique quality of The 5C Consortium, at least in the US.

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I believe there is a limit, though I don’t know what it is off the top of my head (and may be different for students of each campus?). But I believe it’s pretty open, so one might consider it “virtually no limit”. And there are sometimes limits in the classes themselves as to how many from another campus can enroll. But again, with 5 campuses all offering so many classes, it’s pretty wide open.

I can’t speak to how much or little it resembles Oxford…but I will say that I really like the setup they have in Claremont (yes, that’s why I’m “ClaremontMom” — I am a mom to a “Scrippsie” and a “Mudder”). Each school has it’s own focus and unique style but together they can offer more services and opportunities (including those 7 dining halls stagalum referred to).

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Just returned from a tour at Pomona and CMC - (I am also a CGU grad - CGU is the grad school - There are actually 7 schools if you could the grad schools). There are limits to classes depending on your specific school. I know they said at Pomona you can only take 50% of your classes on another campus. CMC stated that you can actually have an off campus major! So it is safe to say it varies from school to school.

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I believe that is true at all the schools…but only if the school you are at doesn’t offer the major you are interested in.

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@ClaremontMom I think that is was limited to a list of specific majors, and I don’t think it was at every school. The folks at Pomona did not mention this as an option.

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I recall them saying at Pomona that you cannot do an off-campus major, but you can propose a “special major” for approval at Pomona. http://catalog.pomona.edu/content.php?catoid=7&navoid=390

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I guess I just assumed it to be true at all schools because I heard that quite a bit (I’ve gone on a tour of each school at least once and in some cases more than once!) so I don’t really remember. Being the largest of the schools (and I assume having the most majors available), it’s probably not necessary for Pomona to offer majors at other schools.

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It is possible to major off-campus if your major isn’t offered on campus. There is no limit on the number of non-CMC courses you can take each semester either. I’m speaking as a CMC student, of course.