Hey, I’m a high school senior who is deciding where to apply Early Decision this coming Fall.
I have legacy at UPenn and my stats are definitely in the running so some might say just go with UPenn because of the status/rank. My college counselor at school tells me he thinks I’d actually have a better chance of getting accepted to UPenn than CMC ED because of my legacy, but says I’m still definitely very competitive at both.
I visited UPenn twice and Claremont McKenna once. As a Northeasterner, I fell in love with Southern California and was amazed by the different opportunities CMC would offer me. My passion is for political science and economics and I hope to pursue a career in government. Claremont McKenna has a strong focus on these areas and with the Washington Program, along with their top-notch internship opportunities, I feel it might be perfect.
UPenn has the national status though that a small liberal arts school doesn’t. While the Forbes 2017 ranking places Claremont McKenna just under Penn and above other schools like Columbia, I am still hesitant at choosing a lesser known school.
Obviously Penn offers terrific opportunities that come with an Ivy degree, but could CMC actually offer better/more opportunities for political internships and matriculation into grad school? My main gripe with UPenn aside from this is the environment. UPenn is known in many circles to be a very stressful environment (I know there have been a number of suicides.) This, compared to Claremont McKenna which maintains a career focus while being ranked the #1 “These Students Love Their College” in Princeton Review makes me think CMC is the way to go.
Could anyone dispel with the notion that UPenn is a stressful, somewhat depressing place to be? And are CMC and Penn’s political opportunities roughly equal or does Claremont McKenna’s focus on government lead to more internships?
I am very familiar with both schools. Choose the one you feel fits you best. Penn is not especially stressful, and CMC has a great reputation among grad schools, employers, etc. CMC’s alumni are very successful, so it being less famous is not significant in much beyond casual conversations.
Ditto what @Pasadenadad said. Penn can be stressful if you let yourself get sucked into the pre-professional competitive scene, but it can also be navigated quite successfully with no more stress than any other competitive school (which CMC will also be.)
That said, the two schools and environments could not be more different so I would go by first of all what your family can afford (the two schools are likely to be similar in costs however) and where you feel like you fit in best. There will be very similar opportunities coming out of either school but your college “vibe” will be very different in Claremont or University City. You would have a hard time picking two more different schools in terms of location, feel, size, etc. so if one speaks to you more than the other, I’d pick that.
@calidad2020 do you think though that the wharton school at penn dominates the campus? I’ve heard that it does and people even from the poli-sci major or PPE (philosophy, politics, and economics) end up going into consulting or i-banking. I really want to work for a think tank, maybe go into law at some point, work for politicians, and eventually run for office myself.
Wharton is certainly a big presences at the school, but Penn is a huge community of 10k UG, another 10k + Grad stuents, as well as thousands of part-timers, students from the “consortium” (Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore) taking classes etc, as well as lots of cross-pollination with Philly at large (and numerous other Philly schools, like Drexel, which is right next door.) So, while you’re partly right that it is hard to avoid the “Wharton” factor (Huntsman has a very prominent bit of real estate on Locust Walk, for instance) it is not at all hard to find students, events, activities that are not only not “dominated” by Wharton, but some that are actively animated by an “anti-Wharton” (whatever that means) inclination/out-look.
Penn has 5k international students, it has 7500 UGs in CAS, only 1800 UGs in Wharton, it’s also has engineers and nearly as many nursing students (1200) as CMC has total UG enrollment. If you wanted to completely avoid even casual contact/interaction with business heads/students, that would be hard to do a Penn. If you want to have only minimal influence from them, that’s easy.
But really, the culture/vibe of the two schools/communities is so different I would think the decision would be pretty clear. I would not decide based on “reputation” - both are very well respected schools that pull, for the most part, from similar quality pools of professors and students - but I’d pick based on the kind of college experience you want: gritty, urban east coast research U or semi-rural “inland Empire” high-quality LAC-type vibe.
The internal prestige vs. fit decision is one that a lot of CMC students and applicants grapple with. I definitely did. Prestige not only offers practical benefits of being in the aristocratic club (especially with legacy), but it also feeds the ego. Which is, if not important, at the very least a real factor.
In the end, I chose to go to CMC because I knew deep down that is where I really wanted to go. I also realized that all of the other factors I threw in (oh CMC’s median SAT is 26.4 pts lower than Harvard’s… does that mean I shouldn’t go there???) were smokescreens that all came back to this one.
Actually, the prestige vs. fit decision never goes away.
The type of student you describe (loves politics, economics, fell in love w/ CMC at first visit, wants to go into government and do Washington program) is exactly what I am. Feel free to message me and we can talk more.