Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. To me, Pomona has nothing on gorgeous LAC campuses like Wellesley, Swarthmore, Kenyon, etc. Fairly generic-looking (although academically top notch) California school with no college town to speak of.
au contraire. It has a great little college town and a train that runs through campus right to LA. I live next to Wellesley, and it’s okay, but Pomona has 5C’s providing a more expansive campus and just as if not a more beautiful student center and Spanish tiled roofed buildings. The streets all named after top notch colleges, give it a quintessential collegy feel. The crossroads boast rivals such as Berkeley vs. Stanford revealing its subtle humor. Great college town, great weather, nearby proximity, great architecture and great food among all 5 Cs, like I said the Disney of LACS.
Davidson moved up to be right on par with my then dream school. I really liked the campus as well as the way they had the program set up. Got to speak with many different students/ student organization and in general got a really good vibe of the place.
I basically had Emory crossed off my list after my first visit. The tour was great, but the financial aid panel left a sour taste in my mouth because it felt like if you weren’t on scholarship financial aid wouldn’t be that great. Plus I didn’t get to enjoy it because I knew I had to rush home to catch a concert and write a paper on it (completely my fault for procrastinating). My second visit was for an overnight admitted minority students event and it was the complete opposite of the first visit. Basically fell in love with the school and made the decision to enroll.
Yeah, I’ve been to a lot of different LACs and Claremont was my favorite surrounding town among them (compared to Amherst, Wellesley, Swarthmore, Williamstown, and Haverford). Most LAC college towns aren’t that great for college students, but Claremont IS known for being one of the nicest parts of LA county, such that people from the city will go out of their way to visit it (which isn’t really the case with a lot of the others). Lots of publicity in recent years and rankings among the best college towns/best suburb on the West. Calling it no college town to speak of is just plainly inaccurate.
Opinions on architecture will vary. I agree that Pomona’s campus is fairly generic Mediterranean style architecture, but I also love that style in general, so Pomona is beautiful to me. I think it’s a cozy campus that doesn’t try to be ostentatious. If there was one truth to the Disneyland analogy, it would be how well the campus is maintained. Pretty much every building is immaculate, a result of the huge endowment they have. Contrast to other LACs, which may be aesthetically captivating on the outside but have many lackluster facilities in need of renovation.
Up the list after visiting: Elon, Emory and Tulane. Side note about Tulane, I did not want to like it because I’m leery about my D living in NOLA. But the tour was so good that I want to go there now!
Off the list after a visit: Duke, with a resounding thud. So arrogant. I wanted to like this school but what a disappointment.
@Momma2018, I visited Ithaca College with my son back in 2013. Not long afterwards I saw someone in my grocery store wearing a Cornell sweatshirt and I struck up a conversation about the college scene in Ithaca. He strongly emphasized how very cold it gets in the winter so beware!
Upstate New York, who would have thought!
I’ll see your ‘cold in NY’ and raise you ‘frigid in Wyoming.’
No college town was an overstatement. There is one, but it seemed pretty lame to us when we walked around it. (And students we talked to confirmed. Most of the action is on one of the 5Cs.) Nothing as nice as, say, Northampton or even as funky run-down as Middleton. Claremont and the surrounding areas are mostly suburbs. Nice suburbs, sure, but suburbs.
Your mileage may vary.
Struck right off - Carnegie Mellon. Given its reputation, we were disappointed on many levels. I’ll give the various experiences that just added up. We came in out of state, and since we were all flying out after the visit, we had out luggage. Now granted it wasn’t much, but they were rolling bags, because we had done a 3 day circuit in the region with CM last. Upon arrival, no one on campus, student nor others would help point us to the building we were to meet. Hardly any way finding signage. Fine, we managed. Note that we had scheduled to be on the specific engineering and info tour. When we arrive, we are told they do not store any belongings, so we had to truck all of the stuff with us. Several parts were difficult to take the luggage along, so they told us the alternate route and we could meet up with the group. Lovely. The guide was knowledgeable, but seemed as if it was her work study job and had little passion. Once the info tour was done, we headed to go to the specific engineering tour. We arrived at what felt like was a penn station bathroom facility, and looked for the engineering dept receptionist. We now understood why it was so tough to reach anyone by phone there - the receptionist/info desk was covered with books, reams of paper, and other office stock. After 1/2 hour, noone showed, and random professors and students said they don’t know how they could help us, We ended up leaving. We were definitely at the right place and time. Also, everyone on campus seemed to smoke, and it was littered all over with butts. What we could see in the engineering buildings seemed outdated and a throwback to the 50’s.
Moved up. Way up - WashU. Aside from the beautiful campus, I’ll make it short. The tour was lead by the associate dean of engineering, and almost every question my son had wanted to ask was covered in the presentation. The tour felt very personal, and several lively and interesting discussions happened between the students that were touring and the Associate Dean. He came of as caring and passionate for the program and the students. Was quite exciting to see how they stressed a collaborative approach between the sub-disciplines within engineering.
@Philsgal Can you say what it was about Elon, Emory and Tulane that made you like them so much? Thanks.
I’m still going to taut Claremont for college towns among LACS. Amherst had a couple restaurants, nothing like Claremont’s the Village with many restaurants, shops and coffee shops and Bubble tea. Wellesley has a very dated main street that caters to the elderly in its taste. Williamstown is in the middle of the styx. To get off campus, Midd has very little within walking distance, you need a car, and even then where would you go? For most of these elite LACS in New England, you are committed to snow country.
Hamilton…moved up. Lovely campus and the students seemed very down to earth, warm and friendly. Great presentation by the assistant admissions director and an excellent student tour guide. The only downside was that it seems as though a good portion of freshman live in quads.
Colgate…moved down. The admissions facility was lovely but the staff seemed a bit disorganized and the presentation was poor. I’m always listening for the factors that make the college different or unique but all i heard were the usual statistics of X% get jobs, Y% study abroad, Z% join greek life, etc.
Cornell…moved down. Felt almost like a large state school (which I understand it is in part). I didn’t love that the tour guide mentioned a couple of classes had over 1,000 students in them. The campus seemed very spread out with lots of hilly walking commutes. Also didn’t love the Greek life emphasis.
My D attended a summer language-immersion program on the Pomona campus four years ago, and I came away from the drop-off and pick-up feeling pretty “meh” about Claremont - it felt like a boutique-y little enclave with not much for “regular people” and students. The kids, being too young to range very far on their own, didn’t get into town all that much for my D to form her own impression. But this year, when my D got into Scripps and we went down to check things out, my feelings about Claremont improved a lot. I’m not sure how much actually changed and how much was my just looking at the wrong block or two on the first pass. When we explored more, there was actually a lot of fun and not-prohibitively-upscale stuff. Still not someplace I’d treat as a Destination, per se, but at least someplace with fun and variety and all the necessary resources for a student to have at hand. There’s so much on offer on the Consortium campuses that the town doesn’t have to meet a lot of everyday needs; it seems to be just fine for the needs the campuses don’t meet. In some ways it would be nicer to be closer to all the big-city stuff in LA, but in other ways it’s nice to have that distance, while still being close enough to get to attractions and events when it’s a priority. Every locale has its tradeoffs, and Claremont isn’t everybody’s idea of the perfect college town, but it really seems pretty good as these things go.
FYI Amherst has a bubble tea place (Limered tea house) and several coffee shops (indy and chain) right by campus, in town with all the restaurants (40+ on google just in the half-mile downtown area) and shops.
Bubble tea? Please don’t base your college decision on bubble tea. :))
Disclaimer: May contain Cream, bad fat, refined sugar, bad carbs with potentially harmful chemicals, sweeteners, syrup, etc. ^#(^
I think it’s just more about the idea that a community can support multiple coffee shops, bubble tea, lots of different ethnic restaurants etc. I’ve never had bubble tea, actually 
There’s a lot worse things that students can ingest or consume than bubble tea! When I worry about my young adult children, it certainly isn’t about bubble tea - or even sugar. Ah! If problems were that simple.
Perhaps proximity to bubble tea should be added to hills yes or no as factors in college choice 
@preppedparent @odannyboySF @aquapt Another Pomona parent here sticking up for the town of Claremont. Claremont is definitely in the suburbs but still the “Village” is quite nice. http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/living/travel/article4033433.html.
Map of the village here: http://www.thevillageclaremont.com/map.html.