<p>That's total crap.</p>
<p>COlsen, since you admitted on another CC board you were suspended for "doing the nasty" on school campus, I wouldn't be throwing stones at Pomona and Brown. You'd better hope Dartmouth adcoms don't peruse these posts ;-)</p>
<p>What a mature and thought provoking comment COlsen</p>
<p>
[quote]
Pomona: Best education of the three IMHO.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>SarahsDad: Strong statement. Why?</p>
<p>Blue Bayou - Check my other posts - I'm certainly biased given that my D will be attending Pomona this fall. But she did visit Brown and Dartmouth and didn't like the "feel" at either school and didn't apply. Having gone to an Ivy myself, I can say if I could do it over again I'd have picked a top LAC instead. It was too easy for me to "fall through the cracks" with big class sizes and professors more interested in grad students and publishing research than in actually teaching undergrads. At Pomona (or Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, etc), you're less likely to fall through the cracks - since you're more likely to participate in class discussion when there's only 12 in the room instead of 200. Plus Pomona has a top notch career development office that gets students involved early who still aren't sure what they want to do when they grow up. Their endowment is huge - $ per student ranks right behind HYP and Grinnell, so faculty salaries are high and facilities are top-notch.</p>
<p>From a WSJ article that ranked Pomona #13 in sending students to top Grad Schools (Dartmouth was #7, Brown #12):</p>
<p>"Then there's tiny Pomona College in California, which sent a higher proportion of its kids to Harvard Law this fall than Columbia or Duke. No. 13 on our list, it's created a separate office to handle grad-school admissions and fellowships, including its own full-time director. They do everything from grilling students in mock interviews ("How do you deal with stress?") to hounding professors who've fallen behind on their recommendation letters. Dean of Students Ann Quinley pens about 100 testimonials a year herself. "It's a huge job," she says. Grad schools told us these small liberal-arts colleges tend to do a better job of advising their students, in areas like picking courses that look good on an application. And when students work directly with professors in small classes, they tend to get better recommendation letters."</p>
<p>Having said that, Dartmouth and Brown are both great schools and are small enough to give you a bit of the LAC feel.</p>
<p>Sarah's Dad,</p>
<p>Dartmouth IS the LAC of the Ivies. All of the benefits you apply to Pomona are applicable to Dartmouth as well. Dartmouth spends MUCH more than any other Ivy on things like advising and undergrad grants (COHE report) for example. Dartmouth is much better than most of the other Ivies in many of these undergrad related areas. </p>
<p>Comparing a place like Penn to Pomona, I'll give you the comparative benefits of Pomona. But Dartmouth offers the same advantages of a LAC.</p>
<p>Can't beat the SoCal weather, and Pomona's help with post-graduation sounds impressive. But, not sure small classes are all meaningful.</p>
<p>From USNews online:</p>
<p>Class Sizes: Fewer than 20, 20-49, 50+</p>
<p>Pomona: 67%, 32%, 1%</p>
<p>Dartmouth: 64%, 27%, 10%</p>
<p>Brown: 67%, 23%, 10%</p>
<p>Interestingly, some other Ivies have (more) smaller classes than Pomona- </p>
<p>Princeton: 74%, 16%, 10%
Yale: 76%, 16%, 8%
Penn: 73%, 20%, 8%</p>
<p>However, most "large" classes at these schools are in a few Frosh intro classes, such as Chem, econ and the like, where a larger lecture is not all that relevant, since the Profs can and do teach the small discussion sections, (at least at Dartmouth since it has few grad programs, and thus, few grad students in the liberal arts).</p>
<p>This may be too late to help you, but as a student at nearby Scripps I can tell you that there is a lot of interaction among students at the 5Cs. One of the best things about attending these colleges is that if you get tired of your school, you can escape to the other campuses. Also, I was of the impression that you can be a major at any of the other colleges if your campus does not offer the major. Engineering may be the exception? If you haven't specifically asked the registrar at Pomona about it, I'd be sure to do so. Finally, in my opinion, a smaller alumni network is in some ways a good thing, since you are bound to know just about <em>everyone</em> in your graduating class. I believe that this creates extremely strong ties among alumni even at all of the 5Cs. And yes, the dorms at Pomona are almost better than Scripps even! =) And the food is awesome at all of the colleges.</p>