I am so conflicted and lost right now about where I want to go. I really love Brown, but I just feel that it is too far. I live in California. I love their open curriculum. I really want to get accepted to Pomona, but my chances are so small. I love that they have an organic farm on campus. I love the small college feel and small classrooms and MOST OF ALL the close relationships with passionate professors. The location is great, about an hour and a half away from home. Can anyone suggest similar colleges that are easier to get into? I have a 4.6 weighted GPA and am rank 5 out of 465. I got my first B last semester of junior year in APUSH. I did JV cross country sophomore and freshman year and JV swim freshman year and JV track sophomore and junior year. I may do cross country again this year. Junior year I got a job second semester and I have been working this summer. Nothing makes me stand out. I got about 1230 on my PSAT and waiting for my SAT. I come from a low-income household with a single mother. I am also 1st gen. PLEASE HELP
I forgot to mention I love the fact that it is diverse. I am Hispanic and come from a predominantly Hispanic school.
@student1211 , what gender are you? The reason I ask is because if you are female, you might also consider Scripps. You could visit the farm everyday and attend classes at Pomona.
You definitely have a “hook” being first gen. and being a Latina/Latino from a predominately Hispanic school. Those should help. And if you are low income, are you eligible for Questbridge? Questbridge partners closely with Pomona. That could help, too! But, if you are female, you need to know it is substantially harder to get admitted into Pomona as a female from California :-(. Your grades sound very strong, as does your class rank. But, but, but… you have not taken the SAT yet?
I would recommend three things for the summer:
- I would be devoting as much time as you can to be studying for your SATs. Having a score that is within the average mean (or preferably higher) would be a big boon to your admission at Pomona or any/other tippy top school.
- Read some really interesting books and articles this summer. Foster a deeper knowledge of something you care passionately about. This will help you to feel more confident about who you are as a human being and your value and worth and passions–even if your high school resume is not chock full of extra curricular activities. Pomona loves substantive human beings. If you stand in line in the cafeteria and strike up a conversation, you will find (sounds like you may already have witnessed this) the students are very interesting (not to mention diverse and kind). Have something that you have read and/or researched that you can refer to on interviews. This may also help with the soul searching you may need to do later when you go to college and have to declare a major. It is time well spent.
- Start thinking about essay topics. Pomona (and similar schools) will require essays. If you can begin to mull over deeply ideas or thoughts or topics-- that extra time over the Summer when you are not totally oriented to towards the daily routine of school/study (…rinse and repeat) may allow something very interesting and unusual to bubble up to your consciousness–something beyond the normal chatter or conventions. For instance, my daughter went to school with a person who was on Financial Aid at her private school. The person wrote an amazing essay about the Haves" and “Have Nots” in regards to their laptops in high school. She had a clunky old(er) laptop not the Apple the “Haves” sported in enmass. Her essay was so powerful, it was later published in the New York Times. I am not suggesting you feel the pressure to write something worthy of the NYT and thereby putting a huge amount of stress on yourself, but rather, more like be open to listening to your inner self and honor that interesting thought that pops up. If you are able to write and convey an essay about your authentic self, it may help to set you apart from other applicants who are not doing the soul searching and inner work. Worst case, even if your essay does not move the reader, you will have spent the time to be clearer about who you are and what motivates and moves and fuels you. That inner knowledge should serve you well.
That’s my two cents. You seem like an awesome young person and I applaud your willingness to travel on this tough journey to find a great college match.
PS Of all the dozens of colleges we visited, Brown was the closest in terms of energy, values, and diversity to Pomona, from my experience. Your sense of schools is spot on.
Look into Wesleyan, Scripps, Lewis& Clark…
You have an excellent shot at all UCs.
Start working in your essays (check out the website Essay hell).
Scripps is an excellent suggestion. Do you want to stay in California? I would look at Occidental College, St Mary’s in Moraga and Westmont college which are small LAC’s.
If your SAT score comes out high, you will have a good chance at Pomona or the other claremont colleges. I would suggest applying to Pitzer too. What are you passionate about? You definitely have the right hook for Pomona and writing an essay that draws on that will be important. Focus on studying for the SAT and thinking of essay ideas. I would suggest applying to UC schools as well, especially top ones like Berkeley or UCLA if you want a prestigious school. However if you want a small school vibe, the Claremont Colleges might be the best California option. If your SAT is high enough, apply to Stanford. It’s smaller than UCs and arguably the best college in America. There are more prestigious liberal arts colleges on the east coast, the ones of the west coast are not as hard to get into like Lewis and Clark.
@student1211 You might consider Whitman college in Washington State as a high quality LAC with more generous admission selectivity than Pomona and Brown. By the way, I attended Brown and my child now attends Pomona College. The Open Curriculum is not as beneficial as it might sound. Many fellow Brown students ended too narrow in their selection of courses, because of the freedom they had, and thus missed out on gaining a broad liberal arts experience. I favor the Claremont College Consortium over Brown for many reasons. PM me if you want to discuss.
@CallieMom Thank you so much! I greatly appreciate the time and effort you put into providing such a great response. I feel much better. I actually just got my scores back and I received 1360 on the SAT. This was without any preparation, due to my very busy schedule. I will definitely study these few weeks I have left of summer. Do you have any advice for studying for the SAT?
@student1211 , you can train for free on Khan Academy. Fingers crossed for you on your second try!
I got a 1290 my first try and used Khan academy all summer and went up to a 1430. (:
It sounds like you will need full-need-met financial aid. Pomona has no-loan aid for low-income students, which Scripps and Pitzer do not, so it would be ideal in that way, but as you know Pomona is devilishly difficult to get into, especially for female students from SoCal. I agree that Scripps and Pitzer would both be worth a try, as well as Occidental. I also second Whitman as a western-states college that might be a great fit. See what you think of Reed in Portland too, as well as Lewis and Clark (which doesn’t meet full need for all students on financial aid, but does for more than half of them).
In the midwest, look at Grinnell, St. Olaf, Carleton, Macalester, and Colorado College. All are within a 3 hour flight-radius, as opposed to double that for the east coast. If you’re willing to go as far as Ohio and Pennsylvania then there are a bunch more options, but at that point you’re most of the way across the country anyway.
Each school will have a Net Price Calculator on their financial aid website; you can put in your family’s financial info and get an estimate of what their financial aid formula would calculate as your ability to pay and what you could expect from their financial aid package. Run this for the schools you’re interested and see how they differ.
Also, you might want to look at the College for Creative Studies, which is a small honors college within UC Santa Barbara. It has a limited range of majors, but if it has what you want to study, it’s an amazing program that would give you a LAC-like experience within a large UC.