Hey y’all! So when I went to visit Pomona, for some reason, I didn’t hear about CMC and didn’t visit the campus. How is the vibe at CMC and how is it similar/different to Pomona? I’m mostly looking for schools that have a strong academic background but still chill, non-competitive, and friendly. Thanks!
It’s quite different I believe - I graduated from CMC and took a lot of dance classes at Pomona. I think the major difference would be the social atmosphere, while at least when I started school at CMC, going to parties, social events and drinking was seen almost as second nature, and it was pretty much expected that freshman attend in order to make friends and meet upper classmen. It was almost a rite of passage to go to your first TNC; I’m not sure if this is the case at Pomona. However, there are a lot of similarities between the schools as well, the biggest one I noticed was the amount of very bright, happy students that almost had a cultish devotion to their respective institutions.
CMC and Pomona are quite different. In addition to what rearview1 said, Pomona also has much more of a learning-for-the-sake-of-learning attitude about education, whereas CMC is more pre-professional (the cynical way to put it would be to say that, at CMC, it’s all about getting a high-paying/high-status job). CMC also has more of an athletic culture, a smaller student body, and is more politically wrong (Oops, did I say that? I meant to say conservative…).
There are also lots of less significant differences, such as the fact that CMC has a more modern/less historic campus, slightly better dining, worse dorms (they’re jokingly referred to as the CMC motels), the Athenaeum (which is awesome, although also available to an extent to the other 5C’s), and a smaller endowment.
Regarding academic background, Pomona scores slightly better in the rankings, but if you’re going into the social sciences, there won’t be much of a difference (if you’re not going into the social sciences, Pomona is better). CMC professors can also sometimes be conservative, whereas Pomona professors almost uniformly won’t be. It’s extremely easy to take classes at the other school, so there’s even less of a difference because of that.
Regarding “non-competitive,” I think Pomona might be better on that metric. CMC has many very competitive positions, such as Rose fellows, Ath fellows, and PPE majors, whereas Pomona tries more to put everyone on a pretty level field once they get in rather than setting up new hurdles for additional status.
If by “chill” you mean party-going, then CMC certainly wins. Beyond that, though, it’s hard to say about that or “friendly” without drawing upon extremely subjective experiences. CMCers (especially guys) often get scorn from the other 5C’s for being too jockish, but others might say that that’s not an accurate stereotype. Pomona, on the other hand, often gets accused of elitism, but others might say that that’s an inaccurate stereotype and an inevitable result of the fact that Pomona does so well in the rankings. Personally, I’d say the stereotype about CMC has a much larger grain of truth, but I go to Pomona, so take that as you will. At the end of the day, it’s a pretty friendly rivalry between the two schools.
Is the PPE major exceptionally difficult to get into?
No.
- A PPE major
I liked CMC. Felt like it would be a great place to go. Don’t worry about the “rankings”. There are so many different rankings and they don’t matter that much. I think they were created to drive HS seniors (and their parents) crazy.
CMC is more “racist” and Pomona offers more resources and support to their minorities. CMC is more of a party school and their guys are more fratty (even though there are no actual frats at CMC) and Pomona students are more into studying. Also, if you care about the name of the school and how well known it is, if you ask a random person, chances are that they’ve heard of Pomona but have no idea what or where Claremont McKenna is.
If you ask a random person, they won’t have heard of either one. If they’re from CA and have heard of Pomona, they are probably just confusing it with Cal Poly Pomona. Neither school is one that should be picked if your goal is popular name recognition.
@Corinthian Agree 100%. Name recognition is a bad means for deciding where to go. If that is your concern, go to Stanford or Harvard. Frankly, I wish people would focus on the college they like rather than what other people say or what the rankings say.
I agree with @Corinthian and @klingon97 and would add that it really does not matter if a “random person” has heard of CMC. Influential people, such as grad school admissions personnel and hiring managers at top companies, are well aware of the excellence of this college.
Lol @nineteeth123 clearly goes to Pomona