Bowdoin vs Pomona?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Bowdoin College
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I’m struggling to decide between Bowdoin and Pomona for ED II. I’ve visited both schools and I like each one for different reasons. As a New Englander, I’m used to the weather and I like the seasonal change of an East Coast school, as well as the rural feel that Bowdoin has. I’m also interested in majoring in Poly Scy / Government, which I know is one of Bowdoin’s strengths. However, Pomona’s 5 college system seemed really interesting to me, and everyone I know who has gone to Pomona has absolutely loved it. I also have visited California a few times and really liked it. I can see myself living there when I’m older. I’m a little worried about the size of Bowdoin, as I feel like I could get pretty claustrophobic in a school of less than 2k. While Pomona itself is smaller, the 5 college system allows for a little more breathing room.

I also sail competitively, and Bowdoin has a varsity sport while Pomona does not. I’ve gone back and forth multiple times, and I decided to get a CC account to get some advice. Any thoughts?

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I’d suggest RD to both. ED 2 does not appear to provide a huge boost in admission chances. Unless you have a clear top choice, I don’t see how ED 2 makes sense. Both are great schools. I guess it also depends how much you want to sail in college and whether going to school that far away would be a pro or a con. Any reason you didn’t ED 1 to either one?

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As a Pomona grad and Bowdoin mom, I’ll tell you that both schools have excellent government and international relations depts. I was a gov major. Also in Pomona’s favor: CMC has a strong government and history dept too. I took “History of the 1960s” at CMC and a class on post-war Russia at Harvey Mudd (because I was determined to take a class at Mudd and knew I’d be eaten alive if I took computer science). With regard to Pomona’s size, the 5Cs are what save Pomona from feeling too small. In addition to your social life and academic options being broader, you also have your pick of cafeterias. Scripps splurges on shrimp on Sundays; Pitzer has a taco night, etc. With regard to Bowdoin feeling small, my daughter just said these words yesterday: “Bowdoin is so small,” and she’s only a sophomore. She actually loves Bowdoin, including its size, and she loves the change in seasons, but the smallness is such a dominant theme that she’s already talking about wanting to live off-campus. In terms of academic rigor and quality of instruction, they are equivalent.

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Hi! I was in the same dilemma a while back and actually decided to ED II to Pomona (but ultimately withdrew my app because I felt too connected to Bowdoin). I’m not from anywhere near either of these schools and love both. I think, personally, the two schools are more similar than not (except the terrible cold Maine). I agree with prev posts that you should go for RD and the answer will be clear in time.

I am a Bowdoin student now so let me know if you have questions.

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Son’s at Bowdoin (and happy), daughter wants to go to Pomona. So I’ll bookmark this topic and see where it goes. Having toured a ton of top LAC’s when my son was looking, honestly they have way more in common than the things that separate them, other than location. Both are amazing schools (as are their peer schools) so you can’t really go wrong.

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Presented without comment, but these numbers/classifications may help elucidate some of the differences between the two schools. Given the diversity of students that attend either, it is very possible that one may be a better fit for one type of student compared to the other for another type.

Bowdoin’s Setting: 207 acres in an idyllic suburban college town (pop. 15000) 25 miles away from Portland (pop. 65000), home to an active arts and music culture. Nearest “big” city of Boston 130 miles away. Natural life includes a rich coastline and the Maine Mountains. Experiences four seasons. Jan temps 31 F high/13 F low. Aug temps 77 F high/58 F low

Pomona’s Setting: 140 acres in a quaint village/college town (pop. 30000) in the heart of two metropolitan areas: LA County (downtown LA 35 miles away) and the Inland Empire, home to over 10 million people (Maine’s population is 1.3 million). Part of the five contiguous Claremont Colleges, which give students access to 2200 courses and 7 dining halls. Natural life includes the San Gabriel Mountains, national parks, and beaches an hour drive. Jan temps 68 F high/39 F low. Aug temps 92 F high/62 F low

Bowdoin Geographic Background- New England, 37.0 percent; Middle Atlantic states, 23.1 percent; Midwest, 8.2 percent; West, 13.6 percent; Southwest, 3.6 percent; South, 7.5 percent; international, 6.7 percent.

Pomona Geographic Background- New England, 4.7 percent; Middle Atlantic states, 11.5 percent; Midwest, 13 percent; West, 37.1 percent; Southwest, 8.1 percent; South, 8.1 percent; international, 17 percent.

Bowdoin Racial and Financial Background- Non-resident alien, 4.7%; Hispanic, 10.7%; Black, 6.1%; White, 64.4%; Native American, .3%; Asian, 6.1%; Multiracial, 6.5%; Ethnicity Unknown, 1.1%; 44% on financial aid

Pomona Racial Background- Non-resident alien, 11%; Hispanic, 15.2%; Black, 8.3%; White, 38%; Native American, .5%; Asian, 14.2%; Multiracial, 7.4%; Ethnicity Unknown, 5.4%; 56% on financial aid

Class of 2020 Enrolled Test Scores and Rank: 1940-2270; 30-34 Bowdoin, 2010-2310; 30-34. 80% of Bowdoin students with ranking ranked in the top 10%, compared to 92% of Pomona students.

Endowment per student: $1,289,239 at Pomona vs. $680,106 at Bowdoin

% STEM at Bowdoin of recent grads and Top 3 Popular Majors; 32%, Government&LegalStudies, Economics, Math
% STEM at Pomona of recent grads and Top 3 Popular Majors; 44% , Economics, Computer Science, Math
32.2% of Bowdoin students declared a double major, compared to 9% of Pomona students
27% of classes under 10 students, 67.5% under 20, 83% under 30 at Bowdoin. 2.4% more than 50 students
22% under 10 students, 70% under 20, 93.6% under 30 at Pomona. .2% more than 50 students

43.2% of Bowdoin students are varsity athletes compared to 30.4% of Pomona students. 31 varsity teams at Bowdoin compared to 21 at Pomona-Pitzer

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My son had the same dilemma in the RD round with bowdoin and pomona (in addition to other top LAC -middlebury, swarthmore). In the end they are all great schools academically and i don’t think you could go wrong either way academically. He ultimately made his decision to go to Pomona based on “social factors” as he felt all schools were pretty equal academically. With other top LAC like Middlebury ,Bowdoin and Williams he felt that the percentage of students playing a division 3 sport was as high as 50 percent, and since he wasn’t going to play a div 3 sport he would feel like an outsider. With Pomona, because they share teams with Pitzer , the percentage of div 3 athletes is much lower (around 25 percent). You also can’t beat the 5-C consortium. so you can have all the advantages of a small LAC(around 1600) but if you want to , you can add social and academic experiences by getting involved with other 5-C schools making the school more a medium size school around 6k. Also something about the California sunshine in the middle of jan. just makes you happy. Pomona is also not as isolated as some of the other top LAC being accessible to LA. In addition he liked the greater diversity that he felt Pomona would have.

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My student was trying to decide between MIddlebury and Pomona. The day we drove up to Middlebury, there was an ice storm on 84. We were stalled because of a roll over, and missed half the info session. The campus tour was brutally cold and drizzly. She decided right then and there if she was accepted by Pomona she was going there. small and big school, beautiful climate and community, great academics and diversity. Couldn’t ask for more. The Orientation adventures offer so many choices: surfing, camping, beach, woods, and urban volunteering in LA. One parent at the revisit day said it best, “It’s the Disneyland of LACS.”

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'One parent at the revisit day said it best, “It’s the Disneyland of LACS.” '….Well, there’s a statement for you! So I’m thinking maybe that’s one reason my kid thought Pomona was not for him and Bowdoin offered a different take on living and learning. Between these two rigorous and excellent schools it’s a personal choice. That said, I don’t think Pomona is remotely close to Disneyland, or I hope it isn’t.

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@nostalgicwisdom Agree with most of what you write about Pomona but it isn’t in the “heart” of LA. Perhaps the larger “LA area”. Public transformation in SoCal is also very poor, especially in areas like Claremont. 5C students I knew and who we met on visiting said that access to a car makes all the difference. I just think people should be aware of that. Claremont isn’t UCLA, which IS in the heart of LA.

That said, Claremont does not feel nearly as small or isolated as Bowdoin. And its rather sprawling layout makes it feel even bigger. But size is very much a matter of personal preference.

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@exlibris97 Claremont is right in the center of the boundary between LA County and the Inland Empire. That’s what I meant by the comment.

I think the reason you see such varied experiences is because of Pomona’s location and resources relative to the other colleges. Pomona is right next to the train station that takes you to LA and the bus stop that goes to 2 local malls (West Covina Mall, Montclair Plaza), as well as the Claremont Village. Pitzer students, on the other hand, would have to walk 20-25 minutes to get to these stops, which is cumbersome for repeat trips; they’re also on a part of Claremont where no public transport runs. Pomona is the home base of the outdoors club of the 5C’s (http://otl.pomona.edu/main.php?p=trips); I can just tell by the names of leaders that most of the people signed up are Pomona students. Pomona is the only one of the 5 colleges with an internship funding program during the school year to the greater LA area; it also sponsors a number of trips to the area through its 47 Trips programs (which come with free round trip transportation since Pomona owns a large shuttle bus). While the other colleges also subsidize trips, they don’t do them to the extent Pomona does.

On the specifics of the train- it goes right to Union Station in DTLA (LA County’s transport hub), 7 days a week, early morning to night; if you miss the train at night, you can take the Silver Streak Bus, which runs 24/7. The train pass gives you free transportation (http://www.metrolinktrains.com/howtoride/page/title/transitconnections) to most of LA’s own public transport system for the day of purchase, most noticeably the Metro and its many subways. There’s an extensive bus and rail network which makes it possible to get to virtually any populated area in the county. Famous sites that are only one stop away include USC/Exposition Park (take Expo Line from Union Station’s Red Line), Hollywood (take the Red Line), Venice and Santa Monica Beach (take bus 33 or 733 from Union Station), and Pasadena (take the Gold Line). I know these places and how to get to them via public transport because I went all the time. I’m not a LA native, nor did I have a car. I would not characterize LA’s public transportation system as “very poor”.

My experience, as a recent graduate, was that I was able to access just about every “touristy” place and many hidden gems in LA throughout my four years, and I visited LA around once a week. I don’t feel like this is an uncommon phenomenon among my friends at Pomona.

I would also not call Claremont itself sprawling. The actual town and the Village are quiet, serene, and peaceful, one that belies its proximity to some of the largest metropolitan areas in the country.

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Let me add some words in favor of Bowdoin since the schools are academic peers and there are a lot of Pomona fans here. Bowdoin is in a beautiful location on the Southern Coast of Maine. Many think the campus is one of the most picturesque and historoically significant in the country. The surrounding small city is not large, but it is charming and has just about anything a student would want, including restaurants, movie theaters etc. If that’s not enough, the school is next to a train station that has service three times a day directly to Boston. Socal is not for everyone. A lot of people would prefer New England for a variety of reasons, notwithstanding the weather. It’s a personal choice. Bowdoin is also part of the NESCAC conference, which is often viewed as the Ivy league of LACs. Pomona competes against schools like Whittier and Redlands.

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I’m a big fan of both schools. And taste is subjective. But to me there is no contest that Bowdoin is the prettier campus and surrounding area. Night and day. Bowdoin is in one of the most interesting, attractive parts of the Northeast coast while Pomona is in a developed desert. Bowdoin has architecture dating back hundreds of years. Pomona’s campus is less than 100 years old total. Bowdoin has trees older than Pomona. I’m not dissing Pomona which has many great things listed above, just added to the post above about the campus.

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I agree with the above two posters regarding the beauty of the Bowdoin campus and location and the perks of New England, but it feels simplistic to relegate Pomona and its immediate surroundings to just “Socal” or “developed desert”. Claremont is hardly like the rest of LA; that’s the whole appeal of it. It’s called the city of trees and PhDs, verdant and beautiful, with views of the nearby mountains and deciduous trees that too change color (though obviously not to the same extent as the east coast). It was called one of California’s best 5 suburbs by Sunset Magazine and highly reviewed by the Sacremento Bee: http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/living/travel/article4033433.html

Claremont is one of the highlights of the SoCal area, just as Bowdoin/New Brunswick is of New England.

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We saw both on our college visits, and my son favored Pomona. It’s gorgeous, and the five-college consortium is a remarkable draw. He ended up elsewhere – mainly because of the distance from our East Coast home – but he left a bit of his heart behind at Pomona. Bowdoin, despite it’s rich history and lovely setting, did not much appeal to my DS. Dad liked it plenty.

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I think some of what appeals to someone depends on what they grew up with and whether that positively or negatively influences them. I grew up in California and spend many adult living and working years in So Cal. Yet I always loved vacationing in the woods of Lake Tahoe. So for me Maine feels like where I chose to vacation as opposed to what felt ordinary in my daily life. My son grew up in the Northeast for the most part (after we moved when he was in preschool) and likes it and wanted to stay in that geographic vibe. My daughter, who visits California annually when we return to see family, is super intrigued by So Cal as a place to go to school. That’s why there’s no one school for everyone – big or small, rural or urban, everyone has a unique POV.

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While I’m here, a few things I have come to appreciate and not appreciate about Bowdoin from my POV as a parent so far. Not specifically comparing to Pomona since I didn’t go there and don’t have any kids there (so far anyway)…

Some likes (besides the obvious ones – I’m focusing on less obvious stuff here))

Jobs: This may be the case of all well-endowed (wow, that sounds weird) LAC’s (I have no idea), but I have been super impressed by their ability to employ every single student who wants a job and their treating many activities as jobs. That wasn’t the case when I went to UCLA. Less than half of students at Bowdoin are in financial aid, yet they guarantee a job for every student who wants one. My son had at his peak so far three separate jobs. One was in dining which is the likely place you end up if you don’t seek out something else. But his favorite job is getting paid to participate in the kind of activities he used to do for free as an EC at high school. Seriously, when you ask him his favorite thing about college so far, getting paid to do something he likes tops the list. They also do a good job of providing them a lot of training as well, all on the clock.

Bike program: Bowdoin tried to create it’s own bike share program years ago and spent years tweaking it before realizing it was earlier to just rent everyone their own bike for the year. Super, ridiculously cheaply. Great program.

Professors: My son has really liked every professor so far. That definitely wasn’t the case at high school. And they are super accessible. Bowdoin even has a program where the profs get meals free if they are invited by students to eat with them so there’s a built-in incentive program for them to always encourage the students to invite them.

Dorms: Quite nice. Every single door has a separate “common room” (think living room) in addition to one or more bedrooms So even if you are only in a double, you get an extra room for your desks, couch, TV, whatever.

A disappointment:

Transportation: On paper Bowdoin is pretty accessible. There’s an Amtrak station right next to campus, it’s right off the major Northeast interstate, there is a regional bus service that stops next to campus and it’s less than half-an-hour from the airport at Portland, Maine. In practice, it has been less ideal, at least compared to our expectations. First, many of the LAC’s we visited spoke of the transportation options they provided to New York, Boston or the nearest major airports. Bowdoin does absolutely nothing, beyond local town shuttles, not even to the nearest airport. And while the student government used to at least organize shuttles during key dates like breaks, they haven’t so far this year so it seems like an abandoned program. So the kids are left to informally organize carpools from students with cars or sharing private options, which is hit-and-miss, especially when you factor in my next point about their airport. Also, while it’s easy to get an Uber from the Portland airport back to campus, it’s hard to get an Uber originating on campus because there’s no volume originating in the area. And cabs are expensive. There’s the bus or train, but there’s very few trains a day (maybe 2) and the bus and trains don’t go to the same place as the Portland airport and there is no public shuttle between them. So even if you take a bus you are still cabbing or Uber’ing over to the airport. Adding to all this complexity, the airport is incredibly unreliable. It’s quite a nice little airport, and not too crowded. But so far between 8 flights my son or we (parents) have done, only 1 had not been canceled or re-scheduled. This is apparently so common that some older students advised my son it’s easier to just always fly out of Boston which is a 2.5 hour bus trip away. It doesn’t always seem weather-dependent as he’s had cancellations or multi-hour delays on good days. And when they do cancel usually there’s no other flight that day so you are scrambling to get transportation to Boston to change flights or having to go back to campus and start over the next day. Really is unfortunate. We tried looking into the bus or train all the way home, but they are so inefficient. It’s 6 hours by car, but both the bus and train were more like 12-hours door-to-door because none where direct. So overall transportation has not been a plus. (We live in New Jersey, BTW.)

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Hey! If anyone wants to be in a Bowdoin GroupMe chat message me ur email or number!