<p>One last point - there are the occasional posters who like to characterize the CMC social milieu as some kind of “animal party” drunken frat scene. I do react fairly strongly whenever I see this because it is so wrong and unfair to the school and the students. It has been rebutted by a number of CMC students in the past, and maybe I should re-post their comments if that will do any good. It has been a long time since I have seen anyone make this charge, so I had hoped this canard was finally put to bed.</p>
<p>MercurialLad: It is great that you will have the opportunity to visit. I hope you are getting to do an overnight on campus. I think that your visit will answer your questions more completely. If you have not already you can check out the websites: [CMCNation:</a> Sensible Idealism](<a href=“http://www.cmcnation.com/main]CMCNation:”>http://www.cmcnation.com/main) and [Forum</a> | The Official Student Publication of Claremont McKenna College](<a href=“http://cmcforum.com%5DForum”>http://cmcforum.com)</p>
<p>p57, you obviously love this school and want to present it in the best possible light, but I have to tell you that your posts are a turnoff for a prospective family. I just started looking into CMC for ds2 and came across this thread and am surprised by how you are harrassing a student who wasn’t happy there. It’s just one person’s opinion. Not that big a deal. Multiple people have commented on your tone so no, it’s not just one person. You would do better by the school if you weren’t so quick to “defend” it.</p>
<p>Just my opinion as a prospie mom. I look forward to learning more about CMC.</p>
<p>That’s fine, Youdon’tsay, you are entitled to your opinion. I already explained myself (posts #19 & 22), so if you don’t agree, I can live with it. I don’t feel it was harassment, but I could see how others might feel differently. I think if you look at all my posts in this forum, you will see that I attempt to help the students with their questions and try to make them feel comfortable. Yes, I think it is a great school, but I also recognize it may not be for everyone.</p>
<p>Hello 181818, I am indeed going on the Nov 12 All day visit. I’m very excited!</p>
<p>I don’t know if you still want feedback about this issue, but as a current CMC freshman, I feel that there are plenty of opportunities to be social. Honestly, people stay on campus a lot because they like being on campus; there are just as many things for us to do on campus as there are for us to do off campus, if not more. </p>
<p>The school offers many things for us to do at CMC. I personally do not drink (I live in Stark, as do most of my friends), and am never without a thing to do socially. Every weekend, there are a lot of things for students to do that do not include alcohol; last week we had a giant inflatable party in the middle of Green Beach. Every Friday, the Dean of Students office hosts a movie that recently premiered in theaters and is not yet out on DVD. The Student Life Committee tries to host at least one dry event for every wet event there is.
And even if you don’t want to go to a completely dry event, there are generally plenty of things you can do at a party, like dance. If CMC isn’t hosting a dry event on any given weekend, there generally is at least one going on at another one of the 5C’s. You can also go to any of these parties as long as you show your college ID and prove that you are a student. </p>
<p>If you REALLY want to go off campus to Los Angeles, it really isn’t too hard either. I decided go to USC by myself over fall break this year and took the public transport for the first time ever… by myself. The train ride to Union Station took an hour (give or take 5 minutes) and the metro system and bus system were not too difficult to figure out. If inconvenience to the city is an issue for you, it really shouldn’t be! It’s also really easy to rent a zip car or have a friendly upperclassman either lend you their car or take you.</p>
<p>Good luck with your application process!</p>
<p>Hello CMC37918, I visited on the On Campus Tour Event thing on Nov 12. and I saw it for myself. I loved the academics on CMC but I worried about the “social” aspect while I was there. I noticed there was the Village area around Claremont, but that was it. So most of the social “fun” aspect comes from campus events… which happen every week? And is the other option taking the metro to LA?</p>
<p>I also imagined CMC to be a bit bigger but this won’t stop me. I still love CMC nevertheless. Now do you treat the other campuses like one big campus? Or do you see the other CC’s as merely separate schools which you are allowed in?</p>
<p>If you want to go out of Claremont, there are many options. You can sign up for Zip Car and leave campus that way. Unless you’re from locally, I personally would not want to drive around on the freeway. It’s a little crazy here. What happened to me, personally, is that I simply didn’t want to leave CMC once I got here. According to the party inform we receive weekly, there’s a party every day from Wednesday to Saturday. That said, there are also a lot of parties hosted by various clubs.<br>
I had the same problem with CMC being small; this was the only liberal arts school I applied to. As it turns out, we have a big college feel in that we are separated out into our interested major based on what our major is. At the same time, however, I get to see people from the other campuses while my education major friends never see their engineering friends (most of my friends go to a large state school). I am currently taking a class at Pitzer and one at Pomona, so there are definitely many chances for you to interact with the consortium.<br>
It seems that overall, you’re concerned with the size of CMC and the social aspect of the smallness it may have. CMC is only small if you choose to make it small. If you only want to be on CMC, which is a choice some students have made, it will seem small to you. There are plenty of options for you on the other campuses if you want to look for them. Hope this helps you :)</p>
<p>I can’t speak so much about the school or even the on-campus social life, but I can about Claremont, as my wife (a Pomona grad) and her mother has lived in Claremont for over 40 years, and we visit often. Claremont is largely a college town - like many, it’s got a well-educated populace somewhat more liberal than its neighbors. The village/downtown abuts the campuses, so it’s a matter of a few blocks for restaurants, small stores, movies, etc. It’s sort of like a more intimate Palo Alto or Cambridge… and they don’t tend to have rockin’ night clubs either. There’s a train station right next to the southern border of the campuses for trains that take you right into downtown LA, and from there you can get to the Staples Center, Music Center, Dodger Stadium, etc.</p>
<p>My view of the students comes from meeting them through my mother-in-law’s work organizing them (through the consortium’s chaplain’s office) to do community service volunteering. Maybe these kids party at night, but I can’t recall ever seeing a group of young people year in and year out more devoted to doing good works just ‘cuz they’re that sort of kids. (Of course, the self-centered alkies wouldn’t have gone through her door and thus wouldn’t have met me.) I think any of the schools’ (well, maybe the Harvey Mudd kids are a little different) vibes are a lot less “LA” than outsiders might expect - it’s still got the Southern California climate and sense of not being bound by the past, but with the broad social conscience and nerdier academic focus that you might expect in a “Little Ivy”. IOW, it ain’t, say, USC.</p>
<p>^^You and CMC37918 are the first posters to mention the Claremont train station in a very long time. The problem is that once you get to Union Station in Los Angeles, then what? It’s not like an eastern city where the train lets you off in the middle of a bustling downtown. It’s like riding to another suburb.</p>
<p>Once you get to Union Station, you can take a Metro (subway) to pretty much anywhere. If there is anywhere a metro doesn’t take you to, you can take a bus.</p>