I know Pomona is a private college so it shouldn’t favor in-state applicants, but when I was visiting, over half of the students I talked to said they were from California. Is this just because there are many more applicants from California than the other states? I wouldn’t think it’s favoritism because of the fact that it is a private institute. Thoughts?
When my daughter visited last year, most of the kids visiting were from Florida. Many of them accepted the offer of admission.
As I know, Pomona has its own directive to accept enough kids from other places such that enrollment of California kids is not in the majority. Whether it is in the plurality I do not know.
https://www.pomona.edu/sites/default/files/pomona-college-admissions-2015-16-profile.pdf
here’s the link for the class profile for class of 2019 above
for the class of 2016, (this year’s graduating class, I read that the class was made up of 34% Californians.
I suspect that Pomona gets many more applicants from California. Some great students who want the LAC experience do not want to leave California.
The ones who want to leave to come East can divide themselves among many excellent schools. Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Middlebury, Wellesley, Bowdoin, Carleton, Haverford, Wesleyan, Tufts, Vassar - there are so many.
The ones that stay in California tend to cluster at the Claremont Colleges because there are so few small colleges of that type out west.
Many students outside of Calif have never heard of Pomona…or they get it confused with CPP.
Frankly I think that being from outside California can’t hurt and might actually help, because they strive to get a geographically diverse class. Also, Stanford’s class of 2019 was 33% from California. http://facts.stanford.edu/academics/class-of-2019-profile. By comparison, Pomona’s most recent profile shows the overall student body as 27% from California. https://www.pomona.edu/sites/default/files/pomona-college-admissions-2015-16-profile.pdf.
It’s actually quite a bit harder to get into if you’re from California. Pomona has the lowest % of in-state students of any California institution.
Pomona is better known on the west coast and gets a lot of CA applicants.
@Corinthian and @nostalgicwisdom combining what you two say means that both Stanford and CalTech have more than 27% Californians. That seems high.
East Coast schools get a lot of Californian applicants. In last year’s Freshman class at Middlebury, California was the most-highly represented state.
@urbanslaughter This says Stanford undergraduate student body is 36% from California. http://facts.stanford.edu/academics/undergraduate-profile. Compared to Pomona which is 27% from California.
I’m sure it’s because there are more apps from CA. There aren’t THAT many super prestigious LACs in CA, compared to the east coast, as has been pointed out.
Well the answer to the OP’s question is: no, Pomona does not favor in-state applicants and it’s probably slightly harder to get in from CA than from another state. Even though the OP said that “half” the students he/she met were from CA, the profile on the Pomona website says it’s just 27%.
“Many students outside of Calif have never heard of Pomona…or they get it confused with CPP.”
In my experience, many students inside of California also confuse CPP and Pomona College.
More than a quarter of the class made up of Californians sounds like a real advantage for CA applicants. Do we know what percent of applicants are Californians?
@prepparent we don’t have the data about the percent of applicants that are Californians, but I agree with others on this thread that Pomona is much better known in CA and on the West Coast than across the rest of the country, and I think it is reasonable to assume that the applicant pool reflects that. @nostalgicwisdom pointed out on another thread that the Pomona admissions reps are each assigned (1) a region outside of CA (in the US or international) and (2) a region inside CA. https://www.pomona.edu/admissions/visit/admissions-staff In other words, there are so many CA applicants that they are spread out among the entire admissions staff. But Pomona, like other highly selective LAC’s, strives for geographic diversity. Therefore I think it is fair to assume that, statistically, being from CA is more of a disadvantage than an advantage.
Still not convinced it’s a disadvantage. For instance, if the yield is higher for California applicants, Admissions may be more likely to take a California student over a NE student for instance all things being equal. Therefore, it could be a signficiant advantage being from CA.
From what I can tell, anecdotally (so I can’t prove anything), it’s much harder from CA. I know at least 8 students who started at Pomona over the last two years (all from CA) and not one of them was an unhooked applicant. I know plenty of great kids (from CA) who were turned down by Pomona and had no issue getting into similar schools on the East Coast. There are many, many applicants from CA to all of the Claremont Colleges; we just do not have the number and depth of LACs out here that exist on the East Coast. Also, on a Pomona tour, they stressed how much they want geographic diversity and how that does factor into admissions. Correlation isn’t causation – I believe that all of the CA schools have more CA students enrolled.
Well the UC schools and Cal State schools def. give preference to in state residents vrs out of state. In fact, its much harder to be an out of state student in the admissions process to UC top schools like berkeley( need higher SAT,ACT).
This is clearly documented on the schools websites.
But for private California colleges like Pomona , I dont see any evidence that it is harder to get in being in state vrs out of state.
@momof2eagles it’s true that we don’t have the sort of information about the applicant pool to tell for sure. But I give a lot of deference to @nostalgicwisdom (a Pomona student who I believe just graduated in the Class of 2016) because his information has always been reliable in the past, especially about the timing of admissions decisions. So I assume he has/had good information sources in the admissions office.
Also, it’s just a logical assumption that the applicant pool will have a disproportionately large percentage of Californians. In fact, on the main CC boards, the fact that Pomona’s 9% acceptance rate is significantly lower than its peers Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore is typically explained away by skeptics as being the result of Pomona being the only elite West coast LAC. The reasoning is that Pomona is presumably swamped with CA applications, whereas WAS have a lot more LAC competition in the NE area. Again, we don’t have the data to say one way or another but that’s the reasoning and it has some force.
@preppedparent made the point that a CA applicant might get the tip over a non CA applicant, all other things being equal, on the basis of yield. But yield has to be balanced with what is clearly a strong preference for a geographically diverse class. So I’m guessing that, all other things being equal, a Wyoming applicant wins over a CA applicant.
@Corinthian thx for your wise input. Not sure if it is a good use of OP time to debate about whether its harder in state or out of state to get into Pomona or any top private school.
I think the WISE applicant who is interested in a top LAC or any selective private school, should “cast a wide net” and not put eggs just in one basket, as all these schools are so difficult to get in with admit rates like Pomona of less than 10 percent or admit rates like WAS(of about 12-15 percent).
Doesn’t matter if applicants are applying in state or out of state to selective schools. If you are applying to highly selective schools, the take home message is apply to many schools and not count on one school.
Yes California residents who want a top LAC will probably all apply to Pomona making the application number high for Cal. residents applying to Pomona, but really no difference on the east coast as kids who want a top LAC will all apply to the same top schools.(WAS) and others making competition difficult at all these schools.
My advice to my S who wanted to go to a top LAC was to apply to many(he applied to 12) and not count on anything but not waste time debating about advantages or disadvantages of things beyond his control like hooks, in state out of state, etc. since he had no control over those factors. I told him to spend time on things in his control including standardized testing, essays, recommendations,