@SwimDad98 - Pomona has been in the Forbes top 20 since 2008, in the top 10 since 2012 and number 1 in 2014. I I doubt another #1 in 2015 will can add much to it’s already superb national reputation.
Pomona was # 8 in 2014.
Have you noticed that parents seem to be posting more often than students? Weird trend. Is this an American thing? I went to the Fulbright university fair in London and it was full of parents, some distributing CVs. The lady at Harvard just chuckled. She called them “helicopter” parents, whatever that is!
It might have something to do with college costing $65k a year … the lady at Harvard isn’t trying to put 3 kids through school.
Hmm That would seem to be her decision. Not certain what it has to do with all the parental posts.
onlyonequestion, where did you end up going and what was your experience like?
@peninsulagal I ended up picking Pomona! I went to both admitted students weekends, so I got to experience both places. So my reasons for picking Pomona:
- Stanford was too large, and Pomona offered better personalized attention. From admitted students weekend alone, I could tell that I was just another one of thousands of students at Stanford. I didn’t believe that with such a large population I would ever receive the same attention from professors and administration as I would at Pomona. And while I can’t speak for what it would have actually been like at Stanford, I can tell you that 'my expectation were exceeded at Pomona. Especially as a result of recent events/encounters with professors, I have become only more confident in the relationships I form and education I receive in my classrooms. One of my professors a few days ago checked up on me in the beginning of class to make sure that I had something to participate in this summer because she knew that I wanted to conduct some research. At the time I didn’t have anything planned as a result of series of unfortunate events, and she promised me that she would work as hard as possible to find something for me and/or get me funding for research at Pomona this summer (there is research at Pomona, through HHMI or SURP, which you can search up, but I simply hadn’t applied to it early enough).
- Pomona had more diversity in terms of majors/disciplines, while an overwhelming majority of people I met at Stanford were CS/Engineering. Although I am highly interested in CS, I wasn’t too sure about it and wasn’t looking for all my friends to be from one discipline. At Stanford, almost everyone I met wanted to be an engineer, CS, or at least some sort of STEM major. Additionally, Stanford had a small and cute little program in which they tried to simulate LAC-like conditions in one of their residence halls. Although this may have seemed like a good option, I wasn’t necessarily into the program and all it showed me was that it would be really difficult to recreate the LAC experience at Stanford. I have met people at Pomona from a plethora of majors and not that many of my close friends share the same educational interests I do. And I appreciate that a lot. It contributes to the day-to-day experience here, especially to the conversations I have, and overall I develop a wider and interdisciplinary perspective on various subject matter.
- Lastly, I also picked Pomona because I thought that it would be best for my personal growth. As someone who wasn’t the most confident kid in high school, I felt like a smaller school would allow me to keep myself and my development as a person in check. People know you here, people watch you. I may have made that sounds creepy, but all I am trying to say is that people notice and care for you. You will not be forgotten. And in order to work on my confidence skills (and you may be facing other pero snap issues which could be better tackled with a smaller community), I felt like a place where I would have to speak in classes and be conscious of myself in my environment/surroundings would be best for me.
Some of the Pros to Stanford for me were that it seemed like a school with a batter social scene (partying and whatnot) simply because of the size (so it seems like it’s a trade-off). And I also thought that their support for the black community specifically had a lot of people behind it. Pomona has a strong community for low-income and POCs, but we are still working on providing better support and services to people from more specific backgrounds. I would also like to add here, though, that as a LAC, the undergrads get a lot more power (probably) then they would at a research university when it comes to having access to influencing the administration and demanding changes they would like to see.
Let me know if you have anymore questions. I’d be glad to answer them for you.
Apologies for the grammatical and spelling mistakes above. I typed that response on my phone late at night. Let me know if you need anything clarified.
Thanks for the update, onlyonequestion, and best of luck to you. You’ll LOVE Pomona, and it will love you back.