Hello my son is considering Pomona and Claremont McKenna for a business education. Pomona is higher ranked but we are concerned that an Econ degree from Pomona is not as highly valued in the business world. I don’t see any current discussion regarding the differences between these two colleges. Appreciate the feedback. My son could play football. Do students attend the games at either school?
Hello
Likely the same. We were just reading and it seemed Pomona was more theoretical/ for those who want to teach vs those who want to go into investment banking for example. Welcome any views. Our son playing football may have to decide early decision. He is well positioned with a 34 ACT and 4.2 GPA. Really hard to understand the differences between the two schools however coming from out of state.
I don’t think that Claremont or Pomona have business schools. They both have economics majors available but that is different that a traditional business education one would get at an undergraduate b-school. Economics is a liberal arts course of study and gets very theoretical at the upper levels. In contrast if your son goes to an undergraduate business school he would take a business core curriculum with introductory classes in subjects such as accounting, finance, IT, marketing etc. and then major in one of those disciplines. I’m not saying that one path is better than the other, but they are different. Your son can look at the coursework (can be found online) for both an undergraduate b-school student and an economics major.
Has your son looked at the econ class offerings at each school? What type of research backgrounds the profs have? As part of the consortium he can also take classes at the other schools.
The feedback about econ getting very theoretical at the higher levels is right on. Does your S know he likes econ? Will he be taking AP Econ senior year? If he doesn’t end up liking econ, do these schools have other majors he would be interested in?
Both are very good schools, but I don’t think either are target IB schools. Has your S spoken with the career centers at each school to see what companies recruit there, how many students go into IB or other Wall Street type jobs? If not, that would be a good resource as well.
Both are extremely well regarded everywhere, since both top notch liberal arts colleges. CMC has more of an economics focus than Pomona, which is more of a “classical” liberal arts college.
Merit money for any college with an acceptance rate of under 20% is rare.
Key distinctions are that these are of the two best liberal arts colleges in the USA. They are part of a 5 college consortium - the Claremont Colleges.
If your kid is interested in economics - CMC. If they want to go to a business school, they should apply to a university which has a business school.
Acceptance rates at these colleges are extremely low - CMC is around 10%, while Pomona has a 7% acceptance rate. So they are reaches/high reaches for anybody.
This analysis will allow you to compare these schools’ economics departments by faculty publishing: https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.uslacecon.html. At this stage I’d be more inclined to recommend CMC for your son’s interests based on its relative preprofessional orientation.