DD got into Pomona, Rice and Babson - she’s so grateful. She wants to study business, specifically economics/finance with an eye for a career in banking, investment banking, venture capital. While Babson specializes in business, Rice and Pomona are well-rounded. Rice has nation-wide brand appeal for business consulting/banking employers who recruit on campus. Babson enjoys similar brand recognition, but more for East Coast employers. We don’t know how Pomona is regarded by employers from banking/investment banking industry and whether the Southern California area offers much banking/investment banking opportunities. Thank you in advance for your insights.
Congratulations. My daughter was also admitted to Pomona and will be enrolling over an elite from whom she has received an LL. A good friend’s son also graduated from Pomona and is now working at a private equity firm in SoCal. So the only recent graduate I know personally is actually employed in the field in SoCal. I am also a retired investment banker and I have recently observed that investment banking jobs are being lost in NYC while there is positive growth in such jobs in CA for now. This might not persist in the future if the tech/entertainment industry’s fortunes stumble but at this point I see CA being the epicenter of wealth creation thus creating more asset management, asset deployment, banking and investment banking jobs.
Most LACs tend to be quite regional in enrollment stats. Pomona, however, enrolls 73% of its student body from OOS/International regions. So it does have a brand name that goes well beyond CA. As far as overall prestige goes, Babson is a decent school and is completely business focused but is currently not comparable to a Pomona. It is ranked 29th in the country in Business and its Entrepreneurship curriculum is top notch probably top 5 in the country but is unranked overall. Rice (which has some brand awareness outside of Texas) is ranked 18th overall and is unranked in USNews’s undergraduate business programs. Neither of these 2 schools compare to Pomona on overall prestige (Pomona is ranked 1st in the country in a combined LAC/Big university list by Forbes and ranks 4th amongst LACs by USNews).
http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/#tab:rank
http://premium.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/business-overall/data
I understand that rankings are not everything but a wide discrepancy in rankings should be acknowledged.
While Pomona is structured to be a traditional LAC and does not offer Business as a major, access to the 5 college consortium specifically CMC, makes it is possible to structure a more Business focused curriculum. You should call Pomona admissions and ask them to connect you with someone in Economics to discuss this in greater detail. My daughter has a specific academic interest and managed to speak with a faculty member to confirm that her academic focus and research interests/internship plans can be easily accommodated.
Hope that helps
These schools couldn’t be further from each other- especially Babson vs. Pomona. Two very different emphases and locations. Rice feels like a middle ground, but it’s far closer to Pomona as an experience than Babson. We’ll all have different opinions about which institution is superior, but it’s really just important for your daughter to sit down and really think about what she wants out of her college experience.
Students who choose Pomona seldom choose it because of its incredible preprofessional endeavors (though there are a lot of opportunities available). They choose it because it provides one of the best academic and social experiences in the country, and they value what that four years of exploration and growth will do for them. The student body has been ranked in several metrics as the most diverse in the country; it’s also incredibly friendly and caring. There is no particular focus, and there is a lot of cross-pollination among interests and conversations that make the people here well-rounded.
A friend of mine is going to work at McKinsey and Company next year. She was hired through on-campus recruiting, and there’s a lot of it. I asked her if her experiences at Pomona were worth it. She said- absolutely so, wouldn’t trade it for anything- but that she recognized that she would have to keep her career goals in focus and work toward using every opportunity and network at the 5 colleges available to get to where she is. That’s important. At a place like Babson, your career will be in the forefront of every conversation and interaction in the classroom; at Pomona, if you’re not careful, you might experience several years of complacency and ignorance about the realities of the world given how much of a bubble this place is. Students here are extremely humble and quiet about their accomplishments, but in the back scene they’re working really hard to get opportunities and experiences that will pave a path for them after college. And they find them. But it really takes more initiative on your end.
Pomona folks are represented at the nation’s best business schools, investment banking, consulting, etc. just as graduates are from all the best liberal art colleges. The networking is fantastic and at Pomona especially it’s 5 college in nature, which adds more depth. You can have the LAC experience and still find yourself at those paths. But can you find the LAC experience after college? I’m not sure about that. That’d be my judgement call and why I’d choose either Pomona or Rice, but Babson does have some really appealing programs and is probably the most well-known among business endeavors of these colleges.
I would agree with @nostalgicwisdom (usually do) and add that’s been the experience of DD’s friends as well. As @khanam alluded, students at the consortium are allowed and encouraged to attend recruiting events at all of the 5Cs. Also, think about what kind of college would be best should your D alter her career path a smidgen over the next 4 years. One of DDs friends (an econ/math major), thought he would follow his dad’s path into investment banking but ended up being hired (back in Sept, actually), to do some entrepreneurial numbers crunching for a major Silicon Valley firm.
@nostalgicwisdom and @khanam : Thank you so much for your insights and advice. Yes, the LAC experience is extremely valuable, especially given the uncertainty about student’s career preferences. Pomona’s 5C consortium seems to combine the small LAC experience with the diverse resources usually found in larger universities. Does anyone know if Pomona College students are eligible to attend speaker events and audit classes at the Claremont Graduate School of Management?
Attend speaker events- yes
Audit classes- not sure but it has been done before with their other courses. I’d recommend reaching out to them and asking
You can get the LAC experience at Babson since it’s a part of the Babson/Olin/Wellesley Three College Collaboration program. Babson students can cross-register for all Wellesley courses, as well as Olin classes for engineering.
@khanam wrote: Rice (which has some brand awareness outside of Texas) is ranked 18th overall and is unranked in USNews’s undergraduate business programs.
Rice does not have an undergrad business major. The closest undergrad major is economics.
@Redpandabear, what would your daughter’s major be at Rice?
I don’t know about auditing CGU management (Drucker) courses, but 5C students have been allowed to enroll in them if they receive written permission from the department (although they do make you jump through a few hoops).
DD would major in economics at Rice and Pomona, but in Business-Finance at Babson. I know they are not equivalent, but both support careers in finance, investment banking and venture capital. Thanks for your replies!
@NoVADad99 how far are the colleges from each other? Pomona’s consortium is easily accessible and makes up a large part of the experience, but Swarthmore’s isn’t as prominent.
Babson and Wellesley are about 5 miles apart and there is a regular shuttle between them throughout the day and until the evening classes end. Olin was carved out of Babson’s ground so they’re right next to each other. I have a student at Olin and they interact with students from each school regularly. Olin students can also take classes at Brandeis, which is further away.
On the swarthmore consortium - my daughter had explored the Swarthmore/BMC/Haverford and also the Smith college consortium cross registration possibilities and it was much more cumbersome for a Swat or Smith student with shuttle schedules and 1 way 10+ miles of driving/shuttle distances to consider than for a Claremont system student with access to 4 other colleges within 1 square mile - walking/biking in CA weather…
Also consider that cross-registration in colleges in colder climates with 10 miles of driving/shuttle involved will likely make some of the experience at least a bit unpleasant logistically and might discourage students from fully taking advantage of these opportunities.
Also, the Claremont College Consortium entails synchronized academic calendars amongst the participating colleges, which is not the case with Babson, Olin and Wellesley. Not sure about Haverford, Bryn Mawyr, Swarthmore.
@Redpandabear , I wouldn’t look at the speakers/classes at CGU (5C’ers hardly ever interact with the graduate schools) so much as the speakers/classes at CMC, which specializes in exactly the area your daughter is interested in.
Regarding classes, CMC classes can be a little hard to get into in the fall semester because CMC limits their class sizes to try to game the US News rankings, but overall, cross-registration is extremely easy—getting into a non-super-popular class at CMC is only a bit harder than getting into an equivalent class at Pomona, and your daughter will find tons of interesting classes there.
Regarding talks, CMC has most of their big speakers come to the Athenaeum, which is a super cool place (https://www.cmc.edu/athenaeum). Pomona students can register for many of the fancy meals and attend almost all of the talks there; the main obstacle is that, outside of CMC, not many students know about it.
@sdkb01 Thanks so much for the great advice. I looked at the offerings for the athenaeum and was impressed by the frequency, variety and substantiveness of the guest speakers/performers. In fact, I will try to attend one during the Admitted Students event later in April. Thanks again.
Others beat me to it about pointing out that Rice and Pomona do not have undergrad business schools.