Cornell vs. Pomona vs. Berkeley

coin-operated_boy · April 1, 2006, 2:56pm

Gosh, I'm having a hard time choosing...
what do y'all think?

system · April 1, 2006, 3:12pm

didn't apply to cornell but in at both berkeley and pomona...

pomona> berkeley>> cornell. all are very good, and if it depends on financial aid (as it does for me) i'd follow the money or your heart. if you plan on staying on the west coast, i think pomona and berkeley have better reputations if that is a consideration for you. :) great choices, anyhow...

A.S.A.P · April 1, 2006, 3:22pm

Pomona! You will stand out there, get to know everyone, and have access to everything and anything they, and the other four colleges, have to offer. Great weather, relaxed atmosphere with mid-sized university feel because of consortium, diverse student body (only 38% from california), great academic reputation (equal to or better than other 2 choices, imo), close enough to home to make it a no-hassel trip when needed( although you probably rarely will come home because your life will be at school), and great grad school options, as you will absolutely get to know your professors- since there are no TAs.

Pongo · April 1, 2006, 4:04pm

I think you'd end up detting a more personalized education at Pomona.

Collegebound36 · April 1, 2006, 4:06pm

If you like small class size and knowing your professors, Pomona is the way to go. Cornell is cold and extremely isolated, and Berkeley is difficult to get to know the professors and hard to obtain the classes you need to graduate in 4 years. For undergraduate education, Pomona would be outstanding.

xorwat · April 1, 2006, 4:37pm

cornell has the highest suicide rate and people are very fond of jumping off hte bridges for that express purpose

Tough Choice

arizonamom · April 1, 2006, 6:27pm

At Pomona even sophomores get to do research, potentially co-author a paper and present at conferences. That is a huge advantage not to mention the mentoring students get from professors. This weekend students are on a kayak trip for $20 all inclusive. There are lots of opportunities for students to de-stress and not become pressure-cookers even though they study as hard or harder as any student at any other school.

roadvirusss · April 2, 2006, 12:31am

This place is pretty anti-Cornell... try posting this in the Cornell forum maybe haha. Well I'm in at pomona, cornell, and northwestern, and definitely am going to have trouble deciding. I visited Pomona this fall and loved it, and will do the same for Cornell and maybe northwestern over spring break. The edges as i have it listed out:

Pomona:
Better weather
Closer to home (I live in WA)
Personal education (smaller classes, No TAs, etc)
Better area (Claremont seems like the perfect pseudo-college town, peaceful but not isolated like Ithaca. However, don't write off Ithaca: from what I've heard, its definitely not like a New Haven, and there are plenty of things to do in the great outdoors)
Better housing
Better financing (when took my campus tour they mentioned how successful and loyal alumni have given them tons of money... one guide mentioned how she petitioned and was successful in getting the college to pay for "refreshments" for a party)

Cornell:
Better food
More prestige (Can't beat an Ivy)
More reputable professors (Walter LaFeber, who wrote one of our main history textbooks at my hs, teaches US foreign policy)
Greater magnitude of opportunities (although claremont college range helps, cornell has way more classes and 600 ec clubs)
Better sports (Ivy league > DIII)
Better library/research (although Pomona contends because of its financial resources)

Ties:
Social life - Pomona is friendly, and Cornell is best of the Ivies (plus it has 13x as many greek houses)
Level of education - both are among the most competitive in the nation to get into, and have similar caliber students I would assume.
Cost - Cornell is a tiny bit more expensive, and Pomona seems to be a bit better with financial aid, but its not significant.

Things to consider:
Population - This could definitely be an issue. Before being accepted to these, I was planning on attending the U of WA which is twice as large as Cornell, so I was ok with either.
Major Program - What are you going to study? Did you get into a particular college at Cornell, or CAS? I would compare the departments of what you plan to major in.
Political climate - Pomona was definitely liberal when I visited, while I have heard Cornell is something of a mix.
Classes - Flip through the course book at each place, see if anything interests you or if a class you were expecting to take isn't offered.

Ok, that pretty much sums up the research I've done today on the subject... I'm not sure about Berkely but I don't agree that Berkely is > Cornell in general, though in-state tuition might do it.

system · April 2, 2006, 12:53am

don't get me wrong, cornell is a great and prestigious institution with a lot of smart kids but, in comparison to pomona and berkeley, in terms of ACADEMIC prestige and reputation, doesn't do as well. basically, while cornell is ivy, it's the least of the ivies, while pomona is one of the best of the liberal arts colleges and berkeley is the best of the public universities. if you want to find a non-academic and non-professional job in iowa or kansas after you graduate and if you want to impress the locals who wouldn't know where mexico is if given a map and think that canada is a european country, then yes, cornell will have better name recognition... but in academia, professional schools adcoms, and in elite circles... it's a different story. as you can tell, i'm biased for the LACs...

For graduate school/ PhDs, heres another ranking I got from searching CC.

Academic field: ALL

PhDs and Doctoral Degrees: ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database
Number of Undergraduates: ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database
Percentage of graduates receiving a doctorate degree.

Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period
Note: Includes all NSF doctoral degrees inc. PhD, Divinity, etc., but not M.D. or Law.

1 California Institute of Technology 35.8%
2 Harvey Mudd College 24.7%
3 Swarthmore College 21.1%
4 Reed College 19.9%
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 18.3%
6 Carleton College 16.8%
7 Bryn Mawr College 15.8%
8 Oberlin College 15.7%
9 University of Chicago 15.3%
10 Yale University 14.5%
11 Princeton University 14.3%
12 Harvard University 14.3%
13 Grinnell College 14.1%
14 Haverford College 13.8%
15 Pomona College 13.8%
16 Rice University 13.1%
17 Williams College 12.7%
18 Amherst College 12.4%
19 Stanford University 11.4%
20 Kalamazoo College 11.3%

JER · April 2, 2006, 3:17am

Definitely Pomona. Others have spoken to the Cornell issue, but Berkeley's undergraduate program is not nearly as good as the school's reputation would suggest. Even large private universities like the Ivies don't feature the sorts of enormous lecture classes and number of classes taught by TA's that you find at a state school, including and especially Berkeley. Berkeley has one of the top 3 graduate programs in most disciplines and is in the top 10 in the rest, so these are the best TA's in the world - better than Harvard's, on average - but they're still TA's.

And when I say "enormous lecture class" like the ones you find at Berkeley I mean hundreds of students. A "large lecture" at Pomona probably has about 60 or so, and there aren't even many classes like that.

alscharr · April 2, 2006, 9:47am

if you like a small college feel and all the great things about small colleges (small classes, professors that care etc) then DON'T go to Berkeley. Both my parents went there and they strongly discouraged me from applying because after clawing my way through one public school to get a good education they don't want me to have to do that again. They both say that Berkeley is top notch and you can get a great education there, but you really really really have to work hard to get it. Not that you don't have to work hard at a small college, but at a small college I get the feeling that there's more people who care about you. At a big, public university, you're mostly on your own.

Cornell... Um, I know a few people who LOVE it, but other than that I don't know much about it.

Father_of_the_Boarder · April 3, 2006, 9:36am

Cornell -- assuming Ithaca's and not Iowa's -- is BIG -- REally BIG.

Berkeley -- is BIG, really BIG.

And Pomina is tiny, really tiny..

If you cannot see the tremendous difference in campus environment between Pomona and those schools, you are really not being told the full truth.

Examples of differences are: small classes versus lectures, participation vs. no participation, univeristy grants directed to the grad students vs. no grad students, TA's (and many with foreign accents that can be difficult to understand) vs. no TA's, experienced teachers who are good at what they do vs. novice TA's who may be great or may bomb.

I am an LAC grad, attended universit postgraduate. Putting the educational system of large and small in the same sentence just is not fair to either.

The usual reason not to attend a Pomona -- Money. If that is not the issue, and you can withstand a smaller campus environment, then go ahead. If you need the big school, then determine if you want liberal vs. middle of the road in political thinking. And, never forget the harsh reality of Ithaca's winters.

Little_Mother · April 3, 2006, 10:54am

You are comparing apples and oranges. Pomona does have one advantage that many LACs don't have--the Claremont Colleges that, combined, provide the feel of a small (5,000+/-) university. Unless your major department is really small, you'll be hard pressed to get a similar feel at either Cornell or Berkeley.

Good luck with your decision!

arizonamom · April 3, 2006, 12:00pm

Spend a night on campus, My S went through similar type decisions and actually liked almost every school he visited. Once he spent an evening at Pomona though his decision became very clear, no more confusion.

DRab · April 13, 2006, 3:29am

"Berkeley is difficult to get to know the professors and hard to obtain the classes you need to graduate in 4 years."

One can get to know ones professors, but it is harder, in general, to do that in classes at Berkeley than say Pomona. Office hours are great, and before/after class, but many students don't take advantage of them. As far as professorial interaction is concerned at Berkeley, many times it's on the student, and often times the student decides to not put in much effort.

Classes are not that hard to get, and many people graduate in 3-4 years. I've heard far more complaints about getting classes from my friends at tiny Northeastern LACs than I've made, but I haven't gotten into every class I've originally wanted to take- just all but two or three.

Coin-operated boy, what sorts of things do you plan on studying? Any idea? What sorts of things do you want in your school? Which factors matter most to you?

CalX · April 13, 2006, 7:18am

alscharr, keep in mind that when your parents went to Cal, it was a tougher school. The average campus GPA back in the 70s or 80s was around 2.7. Now it's 3.25.

With all due respect to Pomona, the caliber of their faculty is nowhere near as good as Cal's. Worst case scenario at Cal, your college career will go one or two extra semesters. In the end it will still be much cheaper and you will have 60 years to live after you graduate anyway!

I got to know most of the interesting profs at Cal in my student career. I had dinner with a Nobel Prize winner, coffee several times with another, I took a seminar with the Chair of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors and had dinner with her every week during that class. I had my macroeconomics class with the Chief Economist of the Bank of America, I worked at the Pacific Film Archive and got to meet many famous movie directors, I checked out many interesting books from one of the biggest libraries in the world, bought some great books from the best group of bookstores in the west coast, dated a Chanel model, a ballet dancer and a harpsicord virtuosa (all Cal students), volunteered at the food bank, the soup kitchen in SF, had a wonderful time in the city, dim sum in chinatown, best sushi in the west, great cheap dives, north beach cafes, beautiful victorian neighborhoods. I went to the best restaurants in North America, some of which are next to campus. I saw countless magnificent sunsets through the Golden Gate from my large dorm room window, learned to windsurf and became good enough to ride under the Golden Gate, sailed under it too, with my dorm friend who was on the sailing team, had some great trips to Tahoe for skiing, lost a front tooth crashing my mountain bike in one of the countless trails above campus (40 miles of regional parks adjacent to campus), played IM and pickup soccer year-round, studied 3 foreign languages, I had beers with Billy Dee from Green Day, I saw so many great concerts at the Greek Theater, I saw the Kirov Ballet several times, got a small role in a movie my Cal friend did that was screened in a local festival, did my reading in a redwood forest, visited 50 wineries in Napa, I met the future king of Norway (who lived in my dorm), made friends from students from every continent (even Antartica! one of the guys in my dorm did research there), many walks of life, kept in touch with my classmates, I've graduated with little debt and got good jobs, went on to a top grad school. I'm planning on retiring at age 50.

I've had the time of my life at Cal. I couldn't possibly conceive a better college experience.

About class size: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=165910&page=2&pp=15%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=165910&page=2&pp=15</a>

TropicalTriceps · April 13, 2006, 11:42am

CalX, you are making it very hard for us to decide, lol. I'm also split primarily between Cal and Pomona at the moment, anticipating a trip down to socal to check it out soon.

Can anyone else attest to the quality of faculty being superior at Cal?

A.S.A.P · April 13, 2006, 12:06pm

You probably won't find anyone on this board who has been an undergrad at both schools, triceps. You can bet that there are excellent faculty at both. Cal will have more Nobel's, but what does that mean for an undergrad? Often, nothing.

If your plan is to go to grad school, it's hard to beat a smaller undergrad where you will have close contact daily with your profs.
No TA's at all at Pomona, verses profs for lectures, and TAs for your sections at Cal. Your personal contact will be with the grad student in your section, not your professor, for the most part.
The sheer number of undergrads at Cal prohibits all but a few becoming well known enough to receive superb letters of recommendation when grad school apps roll around. If you're the best of the best and assertive enough besides, it probably won't matter - you'll probably be recognized at either place. I do believe that Pomona has more success getting their kids into grad school than Berkeley, on a percentage basis. I know they give students a lot of guidance during their final year, as they have an adminstrator whose job it is to help students with that process.

<pre><code> The qualitly of life issue is a matter of personality. Do you thrive in a large, bustling environment or a smaller, more personal one?
</code></pre>

The experiences are so different - it's hard to imagine that you don't have some feeling in your gut already as to where you would be the most comfortable and in the best frame of mind to learn.

xorwat · April 13, 2006, 10:28pm

perhaps you will find a superior faculty in terms of nobel prizes won and whatnot, but you'll also find that many of them have absolutely no desire to deal with undergrads ...

CalX · April 13, 2006, 11:11pm

Actually, from my experience, most of the better profs were also more welcoming and interested in their students' growth. You will get to know a few great profs in your career, unless you're totally disinterested or socially inept. That should cover your recommendations needs, and then some.

I don't think there is any possible debate about the quality and depth of the faculty between Cal and Pomona, or between Cal and almost any other university for that matter. The argument here is about teaching skills, not sheer strength of the faculty.

Only very few of my profs had Nobel Prizes, but most were leaders in their fields, often world-reknowned authorities. That made learning at Cal tremendously stimulating and set the bar higher.

If you don't need to be cuddled, but want to be challenged. If you're bright enough to take on the highest academic standards in the world. If you're broad enough of a person to want to thrive in an extremely diverse and stimulating environment where you will grow in many dimensions, IF YOU HAVE A PULSE, the answer is clear.

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