Top 10 Liberal Arts Colleges (ties indicated by “=”):
- Williams
- Amherst
=3. Bowdoin
=3. Swarthmore
=3. Wellesley
=6. Middlebury
=6. Pomona
=8. Carleton
=8. Claremont McKenna
=10. Davidson
=10. Washington & Lee
Interesting observations on other US news rankings threads from @nostalgicwisdom about peer assessments keeping us out of the top 3 and other observations that schools that are test optional like Bowdoin and Colby could be increasing their rankings with elevated SAT scores.
I’ve also been under the impression that Pomona lags in alumni giving compared to many of the other top LAC’s.
Pomona’s endowment is the largest per student of any LAC. I’m sure alumni giving is adequate.
@akiddoc I went to Harvard. It has a massive endowment but that didn’t always matter. Staff pay lagged some other much poorer colleges. And graduate fellowships were notoriously stingy. I’ve always given about 8% of my income to the Campaign for Harvard but increasingly feel I should donate to less well off colleges.
The public has spoken. Pomona is by far the most desired LAC in the country. 6.9% admission rate.
^^^and less than that for women applicants. You are quoting the average for both men and women (and all genders).
…or its in a high population area without a ton of competition.
Anyway you slice it, it’s selectivity is on par with Harvard, Yale, Columbia and approaching Stanford.
- Stanford 4.3%
- Harvard 4.6%
- Princeton 5.48%
- Columbia 5.50%
- Yale 6.3%
- MIT 6.7%
- POMONA COLLEGE! 6.9%
- Chicago 7.1%
- Brown 7.2%
“…or its in a high population area without a ton of competition.” Pomona’s applicant pool is worldwide.
“and less than that for women applicants. You are quoting the average for both men and women (and all genders).” Good thing my daughter isn’t applying now!
For the last 4 years I’ve read comments here on CC suggesting that Pomona’s low acceptance rate is is just because as @CU123 says it’s “in a high population area without a ton of competition.” This might be meaningful if there was reason to believe that the applicant pool was mostly unqualified applicants from the western US. But just read the results threads here on CC and see all the high stats applicants being shut out. Also that statement suggests that Pomona’s competition is limited to other LAC’s. But I believe that students who apply to Pomona tend to also be applying to Stanford and other top 20 universities and not limiting their search to LAC’s.
It doesn’t matter what the reason, just like the other selective colleges, you can’t get in. Do you think everyone at Harvard got in because of their scholarship?