4 of 5 most selective LACs in Claremont

Colleges and Universities A-Z Pitzer College
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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.

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

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I wouldn’t get too hung up on admissions rates as it is possible to have a huge pool of undistinguished applicants. However, I just wanted to say that my brother graduated from Pomona and loves it, but found that on the East Coast it remains incredibly unknown outside academic circles. Now in grad school at Harvard, he still gets asked why he didn’t go to Berkeley or Stanford.

I know people will dispute this but the reality is that on the East Coast people don’t think of the Claremont Colleges as Ivy League caliber.

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What is the average ACT/SAT for the applicant pools at those schools?

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I agree with much of what you said, but I would not dismiss Pitzer with “No Way.” Yes, it is the youngest 5C school and is the only Most Selective school (US News etal), with only 50 years of history; yet at the same time, Pitzer arguably has more shared core curriculum values with Williams College, such as “openness, creativity, flexibility…”

6

Well said!

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I’m an alumnus and lived in New York City for several years. I met many people who knew of the Claremont Colleges outside of academia. In fact, the New York Times has been quoting Claremont professors more than ever which helps spread the word about Claremont not only to New York, but to the entire nation as the New York Times is one of the few remaining “National” newspapers left.