Pomona Admissions Dean lambastes parent message boards

<p>Well I agree with the statement. I like the parents on this site and I think they're all on for good reasons, but there are others here, and millions elsewhere, who would be better suited giving their children the distance they need. I always find it disgusting to see parents overinvolved in the application process for their kids and just overinvolved in their lives in general. I know a lot here will diagree, but I think that this generation of American parents is unusually overbearing; not only do they want to be the parent, they want to be the cool parent, the friend parent, the blablabla. And a lot of the time that translates itself into parents who never teach their kids how to leave the nest, which explains why its taking longer and longer for teens and adults truly, to leave the house. Plus, these parents show their worst sides when the issue of college admissions is at hand. It's hardly surprising that an admissions dean would raise up his hand in protest. One can be a good person, a good parent, and still have the wrong approach in college application, and basically the whole 'management' of a child's education. Which I see as the case for many of these parents.</p>

<p>I want to make sure folks understand that I really LIKE Pomona - I was just made to feel slightly ill by their admissions office.</p>

<p>I think you folks need to lighten up a bit yourselves. You are only proving his point, you doth protest too much. Dumping on Pomona is childish...its about as selective as they come and is recognized as a great institution. Maybe Mr. Poch did not express himself as diplomatically as he could have but there is some validity in what he has to say. You are taking this too personally and too seriously.</p>

<p>Pomona's administration ought not to be so "holier than thou." Their endowment is so crappy that I was told by an admissions officer that they cannot afford to accept many international applicants because international students have very high financial aid needs.</p>

<p>My son was very interested in Pomona....but never ended up applying. There was a weird feeling about the city... lots of living complexes and all seemed to have gated entrances... the session was good but very, very impersonal.....no real interest in the kids in the small/medium sized conf room.....maybe 12 chairs around the table.....I was surprised by the lack of interest in the kids......</p>

<p>nice campus....bit stepfordish in feel over the summer....tooo manicured and beautiful, maybe? </p>

<p>I think the thing that made me say no thanks were all the fires in the area....granted most of them are summer fires...but, the smell of smoke was a real drag whenever we were around it....and there were too many comparable schools in New England in the final analysis... </p>

<p>I suspect that the Dean never visited these boards with any regularity to get to know the names....and the posts/posters that merit reading.... along with his own starting point.....that of a dean who has insider knowledge lamenting about all of us who are often doing this for the first time.... trying to decipher it all out.... </p>

<p>These message boards are like panning for gold..... you have to pan a lot to find the nuggets, but they are there if you are patient enough... for instance, I know that a strong student, without financial concerns can dramatically increase their odds by applying early to Swarthmore... I have often learned that some threads can sour quickly...but again, I don't think I have seen any really bad advice from parents, maybe a tad over supportive, but hey, we are parents!!</p>

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Their endowment is so crappy that I was told by an admissions officer that they cannot afford to accept many international applicants because international students have very high financial aid needs.

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<p>Huh? Pomona is in the top ten colleges and universities in the country in terms of per student endowment -- about three quarters of a million bucks per student. There are literally thousands of schools that would kill for a "crappy" endowment like Pomona's! Pomona does have very few international students (only 2%). I don't know why that is, but it's not due to a lack of endowment funds.</p>

<p>I do agree with Mini that Pomona's diversity is not as strong as it could be given the demographics of its surrounding region. This really stands out in comparison to Stanford, which is far more diverse than any elite East Coast school. In fairness to Pomona, they may face unusual competition for high-stat minority students with both Stanford and the UC system.</p>

<p>They face virtually no competition for the thousands and thousands of high-stat low-income students flocking to UCLA and Berkeley. They pretty much get the class they want. </p>

<p>As for the endowment, Berea (with a smaller endowment) is able to provide full tuition scholarships to every student who attends. If they don't have many "high-need" students, it is simply because they don't want 'em. (But the same is true for dozens of others.) Hey, it's their money, and they can choose to spend it how they please. But lectures from Bruce are a little over the top.</p>

<p>Yes, but what's odd is that Pomona's percentage of financial-aid students and Pell Grant students are reasonably high (for school's of that SAT range). Their percentage of financial aid students is much higher than Stanford's. Pell Grant percentage is slightly lower, but not by much. So I don't think that lack of financial aid entirely explains their relative lack of diversity. </p>

<p>Scripps and Harvey Mudd are both less diverse than Pomona, Scripps significantly less diverse, which is somewhat surprising given its lower median SATs. Claremont-McKenna and Pitzer are slightly more diverse.</p>

<p>I don't have an explanation. There are market dynamics related to the strength of the UC public system in California that I don't understand, so I am hesitant to rule that out as a potential contributing factor.</p>

<p>The best comparison is Occidental. Of course, Occidental "suffers" from low-income disease when it comes to SAT scores. Great school, though, and in some areas, superior to P.</p>

<p>Occidental is a lousy comparison to Pomona. About the only similarity is that they are both in Southern California.</p>

<p>Occidental's median SATs are nearly 200 points lower than Pomona's. Only 55% of the Occidental's freshmen graduated in the top 10% of their high school classes.</p>

<p>Occidental is certainly a fine school. But, you better than most know that SATs and socio-economic indicators are inextricably linked.</p>

<p>Now, it is certainly reasonable to suggest that maybe Pomona should become Occidental (or vice versa), but until either of those happens, the data from the two schools is not directly comparable. You can't just ignore the median SATs (whether you think they measure anything useful beyond family income or not.)</p>

<p>Sure you can. They draw from the same major talent pool. Only thing is, Occidental admits the lower-income ones. Pomona chooses not to. The bottom 50% of Pomona's class is well within the range of the top 50% of Occidental students. (same would likely be true for Swarthmore, for that matter, but that IS a different market.) Hey, it's their money, and they can do with it what they please.</p>

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<p>They face this stiff competition from Stanford and the top UCs for ALL their students, not just minorities. This has given Pomona a touch of Tufts Disease. They are so sick of being Stanford's back-up that they have been known to reject very high-end kids if on the app or in the interview they catch even the faintest whiff that the kid doesn't love them best. Better to reject the kid before the kid can reject you.</p>

<p>Let's not paint Occidental as a saint in on a white stallion. Yes, a large percentage of their student body qualifies for need-based aid, but they also offer huge merit discounts averaging $17,000 per year to a whopping 24% of the student body as an enrollment incentive.</p>

<p>Presumably the merit aid is not going to their low-income low-SAT applicants. In fact, the 200 point SAT differential compared to Pomona would probably widen considerably without nearly a quarter of the student body receiving merit-aid discounts. Based on the size of the merit discounting to attract higher SAT students, one could almost conclude that Occidental has decided it would like to become Pomona.</p>

<p>I haven't found Pomona's financial reports, but assuming that Pomona's is similar to Williams, Occidental charges about $5,000 less net tution, room, and board (after discounts) and spends about $30,000 less per student. </p>

<p>There is really no basis for comparison from a financial model standpoint (of which tuition discounting is a key component). They compete in two completely different market segments. I go back to the competition with the UC system. Occidental's tuition discounting suggests to me that they have to be price competitive with the UCs. Pomona does not.</p>

<p>Don't get me wrong. I am very impressed with Occidental. They consistently show up on the PhD production lists far above where they would be expected to fall based on median SATs. I am impressed by schools that accomplish that because it indicates real value-added academics.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.tsl.pomona.edu/index.php?article=994%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.tsl.pomona.edu/index.php?article=994&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>What the Pomona paper has to say about it.</p>

<p>coureur:</p>

<p>Yes. The competition with the UCs is the dynamic that is foreign to us east coasters. Here on the East Coast, only residents of NC and VA are really faced with comparing privates to low-cost prestigious universities at in-state prices. In particular, high-end publics simply don't exist in the northeast because that market has been served for centuries by private schools.</p>

<p>California is just the opposite. The UCs dominate the landscape. Historically, there have only been two privates serving the high-end academic prestige market: Stanford and the Claremont Colleges. The market does seem to be changing as places like USC and Occidental appear to be going decidedly up-market -- probably in part because the California legislature has finally decided to choke off enrollment growth at the UCs and force better utilization of the massive investment in the CS and community college systems.</p>

<p>oh dear, another sleepless night worrying about college admissions. If Harvard admits only 9% of applications i guess we will have to submit more than 11 apps to get him in (.09 X 11 = 99%.... isn't that how it works?). That would be in addition to applying to each of the top 25 universities as listed in the latest USNWR survey. Better go EA with any that offer it. Still can't decide on his ED school. He may have to enroll at 2 or 3 schools for the first semester before making a final decision. His mom and I could sit in on a few classes and help him pick the best school. Maybe send in housing deposits to any of the top 10 schools that accept him. Oh well, as long as I am up I better go work on that essay. Would anybody mind looking over my rough draft?</p>

<p>I think his essay (Mr Pooch) was a defensive mechanism from parents accusing him of making imperious random decisions regarding the future of their children's lives.</p>

<p>Two quick points:
1. Pomona's low end of the sat range is higher than most ivies.
They have a class that is overall, SAT-smarter than most schools.
They are as selective as any of the LACS per US News. Their students are known to be extremely bright. Given that they have small seminars-read 13 and under per class-they may feel and applicants may feel that they do not want to wide a range of academic aptitude.
The small seminar style tends to be self-selecting: why would a student who is way below the upper - mid range want to go and be exposed to
this sort of academic/social pressure? You would have to be mighty confident to do so, not typical for a HS student. You also have to stay well-prepared in your studies, no place to hide.
2. Likewise, foreign students might not feel confident in the english to want to attend this sort of place where they are always exposed.
Moreover, Claremont is a very quiet, not terribly fascinating place. If you were going to attend college from overseas why would you pick a small school in a Cal. suburb which has comparable requirements to an ivy? Why wouldnt you go to Columbia or Standford or Yale? Plus Pomona is hardly know outside of academia on the east coast, do you really think kids in Korea and France know of it?</p>

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A typically narrow American view. Did it occur to Poch that a few dozen CC posters live abroad? My timezone nearly a full day ahead of the east coast.

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<p>cheers,</p>

<p>I agree that Poch is a dunce, but please refrain from the ever-so-common anti-American vitriol. It's really old. And besides, you make up a fairly small minority, and as unfair as it is, I don't think it's unfair to generalize based on the fact that 90% of the parents on these forums are Americans.</p>

<p>That should have read low end of the mid (25-75% range).</p>

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<p>Just those two? Does the name CalTech ring a bell?</p>