<p>My son has committed to Pomona but we visited both schools of the consortium. Given it is a consortium, there were a lot of commonalities between the 2 in terms of environment, feel etc. The key difference that was emphasized to us was that CMC really focused on the professional lives of students post college and was very much about preparing them for processional/business life. Pomona was presented as more academic focused, and the intellectualism/love of learning drove them. My son has an interest in an advanced degree (I see him likely getting a PhD with time) and so that steered him in the Pomona direction. Both great schools. I agree with the poster who commented that too many people have heard of schools only for their sports teams and have mentally confused academic reputation with sports reputation.</p>
<p>Re the “cleaning” issue, I’m guessing the reason the tour guides mention it is that not all the 5C schools have that – CMC may be the only one, Pomona doesn’t have that for dorm rooms. So it might be one of those, “This is what makes us special within the 5C” type things. I remember it being mentioned when we visited.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to a thread (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1122535-claremont-colleges-underrated.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1122535-claremont-colleges-underrated.html</a>) from a few weeks ago where I posted the following reply:</p>
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<p>I graduated from CMC in the mid-90s and my husband graduated from HMC (and ultimately got a PhD from Caltech) a few years ahead of me. I think the Claremont colleges have a great reputation in circles where it matters. From a purely personal growth point of view, the experience was incredible. I played three NCAA sports, traveled extensively, spent a summer doing youth development/community service entirely paid by a college grant and spent two summers doing research at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory on the Human Genome project at the height of the project. I took classes at 4 of the 5 colleges (actually only one I didn’t take classes at was Scripps) and graduated with a double major in Math & Biology with high department and college honors. When I came back to school senior year, I had decided I didn’t want to go to Med School or pursue a career in research. If that had happened somewhere else, I think my life path would have been very different. As it was, the career offices at the Claremont Colleges tend to attract a ton of big name consulting and I-banking employers among others. I ended up pursuing an entry level consulting position and had multiple offers by Feb of senior year. I went to work for a prestigious firm and three years later was accepted by Stanford, Kellogg and UCLA (full-ride) for business school (ended up attending Kellogg). In my experience in business and in my experience in applying to business schools, the reputation of the Claremont colleges was very strong. In fact, in my class at Kellogg, there were 9 CMC grads (pretty good for a school that at the time was graduating 200-220 a year). When recruiting at my consulting firm, I always thought it was interesting that the only places our firm (and a number of others I was familiar with) recruited on campus in California were the Claremont Colleges, UCLA and Stanford. At the time, they didn’t even recruit at Cal.</p>
<p>As far as non-business pursuits. In the sciences (Scripps shares science facilities/faculty with Pitzer and CMC), opportunities for research are significant and class quality is high. When I graduated, CMC had a 100% medical acceptance rate most years (and I think Scripps was similar). In the humanities, the PPE program at CMC (and at Pomona) is amazing. The government and economics programs at CMC are first rate. As far as languages, literature, etc. between CMCs offerings and what was offered at the other schools, my friends in these majors felt well prepared for grad school and other pursuits.</p>
<p>When I graduated, CMC didn’t have the no-loan policy it has now, but they did do something for me just before graduation that will forever show how amazing a place it is. At my financial aid exit interview (I was on significant financial aid and had a number of merit scholarships as well), they called me in and told me that they had paid off all of my stafford and institutional loans and converted the total (about $12K) to an interest fee loan payable over 10 years. Pretty incredible The loyalty that one act engendered in me was huge. I ended up paying the loan off 6-8 months later hoping the money would be used for someone else who needed it more.</p>
<p>Finally, one other measure of the reputation could be looking at prestige-type fellowships awarded. I know in my graduating class at CMC (of 200 students), we had 1 Rhodes, 2 Marshalls, 2 Watsons, and 2 NSFs. I also knew at least one Watson and one NSF from Scripps that year.</p>
<p>I know most of this (long) saga relates to CMC, not Scripps, but I think it gives you some idea of the fact that the reputation of the Claremont Colleges is strong in circles where it matters. </p>
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<p>I grew up in CA, but the Claremont Colleges weren’t well known to me either. I chose CMC over UCLA, Cal, and the combined BS/MD program at UCR/UCLA. It was far cheaper for me than any of those options (financial aid is amazing) and I liked the fact that I could play sports (I was recruited to run XC/Track and also played (sat the bench) two seasons of basketball.</p>