Claremont colleges: "underrated"?

Parents Forum
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<p>Of course, similar names like UChicago versus UIChicago may make confusion more likely. UCSD and USD in San Diego probably get confused some of the time, as do the two Cal Polys.</p>

<p>There are also two large universities that “USC” could refer to, though they are on opposite coasts (note that both have Division I FBS football programs, so they are both regionally or nationally prominent in that area). A smaller university with those initials renamed itself so that its initials are now “SCU” to avoid confusion (Santa Clara University).</p>

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<p>Son loves Pitzer, in large part because it is a very small college home with the additional numbers of the students in the other consortium colleges. As a science major, many of his classes are shared with Scripps and maybe CMC, who run their science courses together in a very modern joint facility. He has taken math classes at Pitz and at Pomona depending on timing and the offerings in a particular semester. Through his own ECs and those of his girlfriend, he has friends at all of the consortium colleges. There are also students from his high school (New Jersey independent HS) at all the schools but Mudd.</p>

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<p>My son was accepted at Mudd. We thought the Claremont Consortium was a great thing. Beautiful campuses! </p>

<p>But yea, there may be less recognition for a west coast school with east coast employers.</p>

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<p>Scripps is absolutely beautiful. I know more about Pomona because that’s the school my son is at. Pomona is fantastic with an amazing admit rate to medical school and other programs. My experience, and I think it’s what Fiske is referring to, is that we often get a blank stare when we mention Claremont – and we are in SoCal. But when I mention it to people in the know – professors at other schools, those who know higher education, etc. I invariably hear what a great school it is, how wonderful the Claremont schools are, etc. I really think that Fiske is talking about the general public perception. But grad schools, etc. know.</p>

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<p>With all due respect, I find both statements short on facts and long on opinion. Not that it matters, as everyone is entitled to his opinion, but not his own set of facts. </p>

<p>Would you mind sharing what “deeper curricula offerings” classes your daughter took in at Smith in her junior and senior years? Any abroad program?</p>

<p>Would you mind refreshing the collective memory of this forum about how uncommon (or common) your daughter’s choices had to be? Didn’t Smith have to create a specific curriculum for your daughter that extended beyond the walls of Smith through her STRIDE award? What was it again? Musicology or ethnology? Or something equally arcane? Did you not state before that none of the Ivies could offer a fitting program? Perhaps, with the notable exclusion of Princeton … of course! </p>

<p>Would you mind comparing the “deeper curricula offerings” of Smith and the Claremont Consortium in more “common classes” such as Economics, Political Sciences, International Relations on the one hand, and hard sciences classes in Mathematics or Physics on the other hand? </p>

<p>Oh, let’s keep it even simpler … care to compare the curriculum in Economics or Government at Smith with only one school, namely Claremont McKenna. If that is too hard, let’s just measure the size of the faculty at Smith. </p>

<p>I fully realize the depth of the unfairness of picking a specialty program such as Economics or Governmemt to compare among schools. By nature, LACs cannot offer ultra-competitive programs across the board. And that is why it makes seeking that elusive best fit so important. </p>

<p>I do not doubt that your daughter found a better niche at Smith, but you should also provide a more complete picture of the specificity of her choices.</p>

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<p>I graduated from CMC in the mid-90s and my husband graduated from HMC (and ultimately got a PhD from Caltech) a few years ahead of me. I think the Claremont colleges have a great reputation in circles where it matters. From a purely personal growth point of view, the experience was incredible. I played three NCAA sports, traveled extensively, spent a summer doing youth development/community service entirely paid by a college grant and spent two summers doing research at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory on the Human Genome project at the height of the project. I took classes at 4 of the 5 colleges (actually only one I didn’t take classes at was Scripps) and graduated with a double major in Math & Biology with high department and college honors. When I came back to school senior year, I had decided I didn’t want to go to Med School or pursue a career in research. If that had happened somewhere else, I think my life path would have been very different. As it was, the career offices at the Claremont Colleges tend to attract a ton of big name consulting and I-banking employers among others. I ended up pursuing an entry level consulting position and had multiple offers by Feb of senior year. I went to work for a prestigious firm and three years later was accepted by Stanford, Kellogg and UCLA (full-ride) for business school (ended up attending Kellogg). In my experience in business and in my experience in applying to business schools, the reputation of the Claremont colleges was very strong. In fact, in my class at Kellogg, there were 9 CMC grads (pretty good for a school that at the time was graduating 200-220 a year). When recruiting at my consulting firm, I always thought it was interesting that the only places our firm (and a number of others I was familiar with) recruited on campus in California were the Claremont Colleges, UCLA and Stanford. At the time, they didn’t even recruit at Cal.</p>

<p>As far as non-business pursuits. In the sciences (Scripps shares science facilities/faculty with Pitzer and CMC), opportunities for research are significant and class quality is high. When I graduated, CMC had a 100% medical acceptance rate most years (and I think Scripps was similar). In the humanities, the PPE program at CMC (and at Pomona) is amazing. The government and economics programs at CMC are first rate. As far as languages, literature, etc. between CMCs offerings and what was offered at the other schools, my friends in these majors felt well prepared for grad school and other pursuits.</p>

<p>When I graduated, CMC didn’t have the no-loan policy it has now, but they did do something for me just before graduation that will forever show how amazing a place it is. At my financial aid exit interview (I was on significant financial aid and had a number of merit scholarships as well), they called me in and told me that they had paid off all of my stafford and institutional loans and converted the total (about $12K) to an interest fee loan payable over 10 years. Pretty incredible :slight_smile: The loyalty that one act engendered in me was huge. I ended up paying the loan off 6-8 months later hoping the money would be used for someone else who needed it more.</p>

<p>Finally, one other measure of the reputation could be looking at prestige-type fellowships awarded. I know in my graduating class at CMC (of 200 students), we had 1 Rhodes, 2 Marshalls, 2 Watsons, and 2 NSFs. I also knew at least one Watson and one NSF from Scripps that year. </p>

<p>I know most of this (long) saga relates to CMC, not Scripps, but I think it gives you some idea of the fact that the reputation of the Claremont Colleges is strong in circles where it matters.</p>

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<p>Wow, oldcmcalum, I want to start all over again and go to one of the Claremont Colleges. What an amazing experience!</p>

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<p>I agree. None of the Claremont colleges are well known to the “man on the street” here in California. Not even Pomona College. Among college-minded people the Claremonts are VERY well regarded, but in more than one conversation with fellow Californians, when mentioning Pomona College, I’ve had people assume I was talking about Cal Poly Pomona. They were unaware of the existence of a separate and very different school called Pomona College.</p>

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<p>OP said: Underrated by whom? Grad school admissions offices? Employers? Do you agree with this statement? Is this something D should be concerned about? </p>

<p>Grad school admissions officers: No, they are familar with excellent schools in every region, evern the far away west coast. A data check on that would be the percentage of students that attend grad school, althought that number is influenced by the type of careers that graduates select.</p>

<p>Employers - depends on the career; I do know that Harvey Mudd has a very high reputation in the engineering world, but not sure about, say, Sociology hirings from Scripps</p>

<p>One big advantage of Scripps is that students can take classes in the other Claremont colleges, so one gets an LAC feel and education but with much wider class offerings than a school on its own would have</p>

<p>I think what Fiske meant by underrated is that the college expereince there is much better than most know it to be </p>

<p>The Claremont colleges are the LAC jewels of California, and I have to say I’m a bit wistful now that the rest of the country is discovering how good they are; they were our secret</p>

<p>P.S. Who cares whether the “man on the street” knows about the school . . . that audience does not matter :-)</p>

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<p>Academically, in the California, when you think of the better private colleges, you think Stanford, Caltech and then the Claremont Colleges…</p>

<p>USC, Pepperdine and Occidental come a little later in the “thinking”</p>

<p>Williams was mentioned earlier - on a side note, I was truly amazed a couple of years ago when a California high school English teacher had never heard of Williams College. Her education was from the Cal State system.</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t be surprised at all that a high school English teacher had never heard of Williams College. I doubt most people in the country have heard of it. Which is, of course, irrelevant to whether it’s high quality. It’s really important to some people, however, that everyone acknowledges / recognizes their college. Whatever.</p>

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<p>In the 30 odd years since I graduated from Pomona College, the name recognition among the general population has never improved. Most people think it’s the same as Cal Poly Pomona.</p>

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<p>I think this lack of local recognition is true of LACs everywhere. When I came from out of state to Grinnell in the late 70s, my Iowa relatives knew next to nothing about the school (other than that it was a radical hotbed full of hippies ;)). I live in Ohio now and the “man on the street” is way more familiar with and impressed by Miami of OH, Ohio Wesleyan, Ohio Univ, etc. than Oberlin or Kenyon.</p>

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<p>OP here – I posted my question to the editors at the Fiske Guide, and they responded yesterday:</p>

<p>“The point we were making about the Claremont Colleges being “underrated” is simply that they are less well-known among prospective college students than they deserve to be – at least outside California. I’m sure employers and grad school admissions people know about them, so the “underrated” issue should not really be a factor in your daughter’s decision.” </p>

<p>So the folks replying understood what Fiske meant better than I did. Thanks for everybody’s thoughts on the matter.</p>

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<p>I would say that the Claremont Colleges are well known by employers and grad schools. Consider the HM clinics - great employers beg to get Mudders to do projects for them. And at the recent accepted students weekend, we heard many tales of Mudd grads finding that they were highly sought after at places like NASA. And Bill Gates thinks well enough of Mudd to drop in for a visit. Well informed college counselors know about the CC as well, of course.
The average man on the street - probably not. The folks glued to various ratings systems may not figure it out either. Remember that these schools are small and there aren’t huge numbers of grads. CC is scarely a sports powerhouse, so their names are not out there on ESPN either.
But don’t sweat it. They are great schools!</p>

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<p>As for the offerings across the colleges…
My child will be at Mudd - a science/tech school - yet he will be able to do a classical Greek ‘concentration’ - something simply not available at most engineering schools (or even a goodly number of schools). (A close look suggests that Smith and Pomona are roughly equal in classical Greek.)
And, certainly Mudd’s array of CS courses would beat Smith’s.
Several of the CC schools may offer ‘economics 101’, but each will have a decidedly different take on it.</p>

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<p>As a fairly long-time Californian, I can state that the Claremont Colleges are not very much in the news here. This may be why they are not as well known as they should be. I would advise them to ramp up their publicity, since it IS evident they are high quality schools, have good rankings, etc.
California is so big that there is a difference between N California and SoCal. Up here we are barraged with news about Cal Berkeley, Stanford…occasionally UCLA and USC and minimally about UCSD (should be a lot more in the news)
When I go back east, nobody expresses the slightest interest in Stanford, though Cal gets some response. This seems counterintuitive to all the apps to Stanford, but there it is. Yes, I am talking about highly educated people.
There are some small schools that are plenty known here (a highly educated city in CA): Oberlin, Middlebury for example.
I do think one should think carefully about attending a smaller institution (or consortium) because with a big school there is always more to discover.</p>

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<p>I have a sophomore D at Scripps. She attended a small, midwestern public school where most of the students move on to the local junior college. As you can imagine, no one at her school had ever heard of Scripps. When she was applying ED we copied the Scripps’ pages from the Fiske Guide and Princeton Review for the teachers and counselor writing her recommendations. For her high school graduation party we flew green balloons (Scripps colors) and made a poster with pictures of the college. Just trying to spread the word in our little corner of the world!</p>

<p>With that said, I am sometimes surprised to run across people in our region who do know the Claremonts. Most of them are CC type parents from larger school districts or people who have lived in California.</p>

<p>D couldn’t be happier at Scripps (and the Claremonts in general) and is really proud to be part of such a special place.</p>

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<p>This thread is quite timely for me. D and I go to Pomona for accepted students days this weekend. It looks like a great place for her, but absolutely noone here (except one or two peers looking at LACs) has heard of it. I agree that it should not matter and that those in the know do know (grad schools and at least many west coast employers). D wants to end up in the northeast eventually, so I do wonder if the Pomona name will open fewer doors than, for example, Amherst or Harvard would. If you check out the accepted students stats on the consortium schools, it is incredibly impressive. It would be nice if the students got some more recognition. Any northeast Pomona alums or parents out there who can comment on job searches on the “other” coast? Thanks.</p>

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<p>Well, it is a well-known fact that LACs are not … well-known by the public in general, especially outside their geographical area of influrnce. We all have heard the stories about Whitman being confused with Williams, Pomona with Cal Poly, etc. Despite Julia Roberts’ and the creators of the Simpsons’ best efforts or the references made to public figures such as Hillary and Madeleine, most people could not separate Wellesley from Wesleyan. </p>

<p>As far as Oberlin or Middlebury being more recognized in California, I like to play this little game. Ask people (including educated people) if they heard of 10-20 LAC around the country. Give them 1 point for a yes. Then ask then for 5 points to name the state in which they are located, and for 10 to point it to a map. You’d be lucky to have anyone in double digits! </p>

<p>Fwiw, I never heard about those “LACs” before getting an invitation to apply and reading about them on College Confidential. Interestingly enough my first mailer was from … Scripps. Flattering as it might have been, I could not respond positively for obvious reasons. Further, I was surprised to find out where the school was. I always thought Scripps was next to or a part of UCSD in La Jolla. </p>

<p>In the end, none of this matters!</p>