S will be going to Pomona next year. What is the Jewish Life like at the Claremont Consortium schools? confused why they haven’t been running birthright trips. Would love to hear from Jewish students and parents at the Claremont schools.
@momof2eagles, there is a “Parents of Jewish B students” in the Parent Forum. They are usually a good source of information about Jewish student life at various universities and colleges.
You might also try contacting the Macalister Center.
http://www.cuc.claremont.edu/chaplains/
They could answer specific questions or get you connected with current Jewish students.
Better to contact Hillel and get in touch with current students, but it seems to have an active Jewish community. For example:
Look at the Hillel website (link to FAQs): http://www.cuc.claremont.edu/hillel/faqs.html
Pomona is also ranked highly on: http://www.bestcolleges.com/features/top-colleges-with-jewish-communities/
@ECmotherx2 @ClaremontMom and @quakerstake thanks for the input. @ClaremontMom is your child involved with the Hillel? I love the “parents of jewish B students” thread but haven’t seen Pomona mentioned in that thread.
There’s a FB page for Claremont Hillel that looks fairly active.
Pomona is not a school for B students, hence its lack of discussion.
@whenhen I agree because of Pomona’s selectivity it wouldn’t be mentioned in the Jewish B thread . I still love that thread and get a lot of information from reading the thread.
Hoping with a new hillel director next year that Birthright trips can run again. They haven’t had a birthright trip in years. Hoping to connect with parents/students at Claremont Hillel to encourage Birthright trips every year at Claremont Consortium Hillel. When I called the Hillel they told me they didn’t have enough interest in these trips and kids preferred to go on birthright without their college. Hard to believe with 5 schools they couldn’t get 40 kids every year interested in going on FREE trip to Israel. Although kids can go on birthright without connections to a college its fun to build connections with students from your home school on birthright.
If any Jewish student/parent is interested in trying to form a birthright Hillel trip at Claremont next yr you can post on this thread/and or message me and maybe we can encourage a trip.
Besides birthright the Claremont Hillel FB page /website looks great!
No, we are Catholic, but when my D was making her college decision she wanted to know about the Catholic community at Claremont. They were helpful in answering questions and connecting her to current Catholic student.
My D will be a freshman at Scripps and is interested in Hillel/birthright.
@Marcie123 they will have a new Hillel director beginning in Fall 2016. Hoping to make Birthright trips happen again Its been a couple yrs since they did a claremont birthright trip. students in the last several yrs were just given guidance on picking Niche trips. If we get good response on CC we can hopefully connect with the new Hillel director and ask for a birthright trip with the Claremont Hillel.
Good news. they are running a Claremont Hillel 5-C birthright trip this summer.
S got back from the birthright trip. 5 students from Claremont Consortium. 2 from Pomona(my son was 1) , 2 from pitzer and 1 from scripps. the other 35 kids came from other california schools to make up the “birthright bus”.
wishing all 40 kids were from Claremont consortium but I think having the trip in June and not right after finals probably affected kids being able to go.
I am so glad he went with some Claremont kids rather than a national trip. When he came home and told me he thought all kids he met from the consortium were so nice and he might go to hillel now that he knows some jewish kids, I thought totally worth the hassle of flying him back to LAX in June for the trip and making the internship search a little harder telling employers he was taking off for 10 days in summer.
I think it makes so much sense to go on a Hillel birthright trip with kids from your home school and bring relationships back to your home campus rather than a national trip of 40 kids you might never meet again.
crossing my fingers he will go to Hillel when he gets back to school in the Fall.
Good luck! My son is only 15, but I’m already hoping he’ll go on Birthright. I’ll keep in mind what you say about going with kids from his home school. It’s a great point. I definitely do not have a kid who’ll automatically head to Hillel.