Pomona just posted a video on their youtube channel featuring President Gabi Starr. At the end, she cited that the college received over 10,000 applications. Not sure if that number includes transfer applicants, but I’d think not since their deadline is Feb 15th. For reference, last year’s class had a record with 9,045.
Assuming the number of admits remains consistent, Pomona’s acceptance rate will go down to around 7.4% this year.
wow! And that’s the average acceptance rate. For women, the admission rate will be much lower because there are more female applicants than male! Harvard & Stanford, move over. Single digit acceptance rates.
That’s very discouraging.
This is a common theme among highly competitive colleges, especially those with good financial aid programs. People are applying to vastly more universities than in the past.
@preppedparent Pomona is a great college. I just wish we didn’t feel that we always have to make the Ivy League/Stanford comparison. The Ivies are vastly differently.
@exlibris97 Why are you blanket generalizing the Ivies as one broad classification? Brown is very different from Cornell which is very different from Dartmouth. As someone who has been to many of the top universities and top LACs, my experience is that Brown and Rice (a university) feel more similar to Pomona than do Amherst or Middlebury.
Furthermore, Pomona does traditionally compete against the Ivies and other universities more than it does the LACs for cross-admits. You referenced CMC in another thread- same deal. Only 8.6% of Pomona admits went to another LAC, while only 11% of CMC students went to a school under 2000 student (5% of whom went to Pomona alone). If you want to see this data, feel free to PM me. Because the student body is one who does apply to universities to a considerable extent, and because the admissions office knows internally that the greatest admissions overlap is with those universities, comparisons can’t be avoided. This is not some “insecurity” as you posited previously; it is the reality that many students interested in Pomona want to see how it compares to a university, thus drawing contrasts and comparisons.
Pomona is spiritually very similar to the Northeast schools- it was founded by alumni from those schools (including two Ivies- Yale and Dartmouth). But anyone who lives a week at Pomona vs. a standalone LAC (or one where the consortium dynamic is limited) will see how different the experience is. Pomona and the other Claremont Colleges collectively feel like a mid-sized university, not a small LAC under 1500 students, and there’s no way to avoid the dynamic given that they’re stacked one next to the other. You are the parent of a Barnard student- you yourself know how Columbia influences the experience that other standalone LACs do not see. The difference is not academics, it’s the social dynamic and breadth of opportunities within convenient reach.
Even the academics aren’t that distinct. Many of the Ivies have purposefully looked to small LACs to adapt their undergraduate curriculum. The academic culture at Williams vs. Princeton is more in common than UC Berkeley vs. Princeton. Of course, there are subtle differences, but they emerge more from subjectivity than hard presentation of facts and expectations.
@nostalgicwisdom You make my point for me: this fixation with the Ivies. It certainly isn’t shared in reverse.
It also seems to me that students interested in comparing Pomona and the Ivies should focus on something other than whether it is “as good as” an Ivy, whatever that means. The simple fact is that Pomona isn’t an Ivy so that’s a moot point. It is a LAC which none of the Ivies claim to be. Even Barnard makes a big deal of not being a ‘standalone’ LAC but rather part of Columbia University, a point the new President emphasized in her inaugural address. Pomona is great for what it offers and how it is different. Is it as hard to get into Pomona as Harvard or Columbia? That depends. Some say it is harder, others say it is easier. That’s the problem with holistic admissions.
Finally, I don’t know what it means by Pomona being “spiritually” like the Ivies (and I went to one). Moreover, ask an Ivy admissions officer if they are similar to the 5C’s or Amherst or Swarthmore and they will say, “there is no similarity” in the experiences they provide. And there shouldn’t be as the Ivies are predominantly major research universities (with the possible exception of Dartmouth) and Pomona sells itself as being different. That’s what makes it great.
@exlibris97 I was making no attempt to compare Pomona to the ivies. If you read my post again, you’ll see, I was commenting on its low, low acceptance rate as similar to Harvard and Stanford. The acceptance rate to Dartmouth and Cornell and other ivies is much higher.
My comment reflects that both Harvard and Stanford’s acceptance rats are THE lowest in the nation, hovering around 5%, and I am saying that a LAC is among the top schools with the lowest. I don’t care how it compares to the other ivies as an ivy grad myself.
My daughter turned down a spot on the Harvard WL which she possibly could have turned into an acceptance, because she had no interest in Harvard.
I’m a Stanford grad whose D15 made Pomona her first choice (ED1). She had no interest in any of the Ivies but did have several research universities on her list. The admit rate for unhooked females at Pomona is super low. The last Pomona CDS had the female admit rate at 7% overall, which includes the female recruited athletes, and the female Questbridge and Posse admits. Sounds like it will go even lower this year. Harvard’s admit rate is about 5.2%. I think this was the point @preppedparent was making.
^^^ Yes @Corinthian Thanks.
While it’s true that Pomona won’t be the top overlap among the Ivies, that’s just an inherent consequence of drawing less than half of the applicants. That doesn’t change the fact that among the admitted students from Pomona’s side, many of them are deciding between an Ivy or university and Pomona. Comparisons between the two on an admissions forum such as this one are inevitable. Furthermore, a fixation would imply an obsession of interest, which isn’t the case. I searched this forum for “Ivy” and since December 2016 there have only been 10 topics with the word Ivy referenced, most directed by a question from a prospective student or parent.
Who stops at “Pomona is as good as an Ivy”? I can’t recall a time I’ve ever seen this statement, as it stands, let alone unsubstantiated without context, but please let me know with evidence to the contrary. I do know you have taken repeated issue with any mention of Pomona’s statistics (outcomes, rankings, acceptance rates, endowment, etc) while ignoring the substantive posts regarding the experience numerous posters here, myself included, have written out. Why? This seems to be a personal problem with the way you filter conversations about Pomona instead of anything grounded in reality.
Pomona was founded to be a “college of the New England” type, with alumni of Bates, Colby, Dartmouth, Williams, and Yale helping to establish and guide it. That is what I meant by the spiritual connection. Pomona is probably the West Coast school most similar to the Northeast liberal art emphasizing schools in educational model and emphasis. But in 1920s, Pomona diverged from the small standalone LAC model to develop a system of collaborating schools modeled after the Oxford and Cambridge type (the actual inspiration, not my interpretation). The pioneers were purposeful in developing the resources and facilities of a university while retaining the character of a small college dynamic, leading to what Pomona and the Claremont Colleges are. Not your usual LAC, not your usual research-oriented university, but a hybrid of both.
Back to the main topic, I think it’s rather a Camelot right now. With Oxtoby gone, and a breath of fresh air and new pair of eyes in, I think its a college where quest for truth, curiosity, scholarship and community have found a home at this very point and place in time. I don’t think anyone at the college aspires to be in the same category with the ivies. That would be doing a disservice to this gem of a school. It’s really it’s own unique face and voice among top notch colleges of today.
“Moreover, ask an Ivy admissions officer if they are similar to the 5C’s or Amherst or Swarthmore and they will say, “there is no similarity” in the experiences they provide.”
No, they wouldn’t. I drew these statements from actual statements mentioned in official admissions websites.
“Brown, whose history reaches back more than two centuries, maintains a university-college of liberal arts, offering many of the advantages of both the small college and the large university.”
“One of the world’s premier liberal arts colleges and distinguished by a singular, intensive Core Curriculum, Columbia College provides all the benefits of a small college and all the reach of a great research university.”
“Liberal Arts College and Research University: Embrace “And”. Yale is best defined by the word and. Yale is both a research university and a liberal arts college. All Yale undergraduates enroll in a single liberal arts college with nearly 2,000 undergraduate courses and 75 majors available.”
“Princeton is a major research institution with the heart and soul of a liberal arts college.”
UChicago: “Drawing on the powerful combination of a traditional liberal arts college at the heart of a premier research university, students have almost unlimited options”
The mere fact that these schools refer to the small, traditional liberal arts college means that they acknowledge some depth of similarity, not none whatsoever.
You are entitled to your view that the LACs and LA-emphasizing universities are mutually incompatible with one another, and that it’s absurd for someone considering Amherst or Pomona to be looking at Columbia or Harvard (as you stated in another thread). But I disagree with this premise. I think on the whole they have a lot in common with each other. I can’t speak for everyone, but I felt perfectly comfortable at Yale, Princeton, and Brown, where I stayed for 2-3 days for conferences over my time at Pomona and was hosted by a current student. Brown especially- their students were so similar to people I knew at Pomona that it was a bit startling. But at the end of the day, I left with a greater appreciation for having gone to Pomona. I didn’t feel any envy, just a realization that there were many different sort of experiences that could have been which might have influenced me a little bit differently than Pomona did. And also fundamental experiences and similarities that would have resonated with me across these institutions. But that goes without saying.
@nostalgicwisdom said:
Totally agree with this. As NW knows, my Pomona D spent Fall semester at Swarthmore as part of a domestic exchange program. She came back saying (1) in most ways Pomona and Swat are “the same school” (her words) in terms of faculty, student body, rigor, and focus on undergraduate life, but also (2) the Claremont consortium has a huge positive impact in making Pomona simultaneously feel like a small school and not a small school. It’s truly unique.
@nostalgicwisdom Columbia has a liberal arts college within a major research university. Ditto Penn, Cornell, Yale and Harvard. All are dramatically different from LACs, which was my point. If you go to Columbia or Harvard or Yale seeking a LAC experience, you will be disappointed. Many students sadly make the mistake of thinking that the Ivies are liberal arts colleges in the traditional sense. They aren’t. Which was my point. And no Ivy admissions counsellor would pretend otherwise.
Finally, I did not mean to suggest that students considering Pomona wouldn’t or shouldn’t consider any Ivy. Many do. But they are very different institutions. Outstanding but different. My point was simply that you don’t find the LAC experience at any Ivy. And that includes Barnard which does call itself the “Women’s Liberal Arts College in New York City”. It’s more the liberal arts division of Columbia.
Okay. Well, I have nothing more to say at this point than to say I disagree. I think enough has been said on the matter. Thanks for sharing your perspective.
re #14:
They offer similar majors/program of studies.
But generally the “liberal arts” colleges of universities are a lot bigger than stand-alone LACs, have bigger classes, utilize graduate students as TAs for review/ problem sessions and grading for said bigger classes, offer more courses and more sections of courses. And in some cases they serve students from other of the university’s colleges. And those other colleges may serve students of the university’s liberal arts college as well, further expanding the catalog of available courses for its students.
The respective sizes of the communities affects many other aspects of the experience/life as a student.
Eg number of extracurriculars available, number of outside lecturers, etc, coming to campus, intimacy or lack thereof of the community,…
So they are similar in majors/ subjects yet different in many other respects. This is not exactly news.
Claremont consortium is uniquely different from typical stand-alone LACs though.
@nostalgicwisdom You are very welcome!
Both my spouse and I attended Ivy Institutions and our child attends Pomona College. The Ivy schools, by virtue of their research focus and resources, often offer superior research opportunities in STEM for students. However, their focus on research drives them to select those students who are most capable and useful to them, which usually are grad students and those committed to a particular STEM major. In contrast, at SLACs the professors make it a priority to give undergraduates, even freshman, the opportunity to explore research opportunities. While the research at SLACs may not rival the cutting edge research STEM research at Ivy and other research universities, the quality of the research experience that undergrads can enjoy at SLACs may exceed those at the Ivies. See article on this subject by Nobel Laureate Thomas Cech: www.thecollegesolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/cech_article2.pdf
I have met several of my child’s professors at Pomona College and found them far more accessible and engaging than the professors I and my spouse had at our respective Ivies. Of course this is just anecdotal.