4 of 5 most selective LACs in Claremont

Colleges and Universities A-Z Pomona College
1

Might as well post this on other 4 sites 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.

2

Stagalum, thanks for sharing this remarkable info. Here on the East Coast, mention of the Claremonts still often invokes a blank stare. Hoping that will change.

3

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

4

Are there really 3,000 LACs in the US? Wow. @monydad I realized the same things you posted. You really don’t realize the dearth of LACs on the west coast until you or your child is in the midst of the application process, because why would you know this? My D was overwhelmed with her initial college search until she narrowed it down to LACs, then she decided she wanted to be on the west coast, and boy did that reduce her choices. I searched too because there were such few choices; I thought she had missed an important search criterion or something (maybe she accidentally put the campus needed to be close to a farm). But nope, the options were few. I know in her mind she envisioned going to school in the Pacific Northwest, but as I told her, I couldn’t help it the best west coast LACs were so close to home. And if you have the opportunity to go, take it. I did tell her she could choose any school that was able to give her some money, either merit or need based aid, but once she got into Pomona, I didn’t really mean it. But Pomona was her first choice anyway.

5

Monydad makes a valid point, but still the acceptance rate for Pomona dropped from 12.1% in 2014 to 9.76% in 2015 and the geographical issue is a constant. The other 5C’s are experiencing similar drops in acceptance rate, so it seems reasonable to conclude that they are all becoming more selective.