<p>maybe Whittier?</p>
<p>I'm a freshman at CMC and will now provide answers to various questions in no particular order:</p>
<p>Q: Will a 1240 get me in to CMC?
A: Probably not, but don't count yourself out. If, for example, English is not your first languange, they may forgive a low verbal score. A 1240 is significantly below normal at CMC but I don't think it's unheard of for admitted students to score in that range. An excerpt from a student page that hasn't been updated in years has both good and bad news for you: </p>
<p>*The admissions office generally accepts students as if they were hiring them. They want a return on their investment. They look at student's potential to make a difference both at CMC and in the world after graduation. The students they bring in ultimately determine the future success of the school, particularly when it comes for fundraising. They will look at you and ask, does this person have the stuff to be a leader? Can this guy/girl make it in the real world of business, government, and the professionals? Will this person fit in at CMC?</p>
<p>The Admission Office looks for talent more than anything. That means that SATs and extra-curricular activities carry more weight than grades. But if you don't have the grades, everything else better be stellar, or forget it. The most direct way to showcase your talent is in your essay. Many students have written their way into this school. *</p>
<p>I think this is certainly true in my case. I had excellent SAT's and EC's and a merely "good" GPA (I forget what it was, but I think it was still a little over 4.00 weighted). I hope that helps.</p>
<p>Q: Rank 5C campuses (and dorms) in order of beauty.
A: 1. Scripps. Scripps takes the cake. Flowers and trees are everywhere. The buildings and architechture are amazing, and the dorms look more like gorgeous homes than dormitories. The lawns and gardens are immaculately maintained.
2. (TIE) Pomona and CMC. Pomona has a very classic asthetic. CMC has a wonderful masculine asthetic that appeals strongly to me.
3. Harvey Mudd. Many would disagree with me, but I find its utilitarianism has a beauty of its own.
4. Pitzer. There's nothing special about it and it's plagued with (in my opinion) ugly murals. </p>
<p>Know that I have strange tastes, and all my rankings (with the exception of Scripps getting #1) are likely to be disputed by most of my friends.</p>
<p>The dorms (interiors) themselves are a different matter. </p>
<p>I can say that all of the CMC dorms are great, some of the best I've ever seen. Scripps dorms are at least as nice and have a domestic feel to them--there's even a grand piano in every room. Pomona's dorms are hit and miss. Some of them are nice, but others are in desperate need of remodeling. I've never been in a Mudd dorm while completely sober, but, from what I recall, they seemed nice. I've never been inside a Pitzer dorm. </p>
<p>Q: "Could you comment more about Scripps? My daughter is very interested in the college and thought it was supposed to have better/smaller classes than CMC as well as a bit harder than CMC. Thanks!"</p>
<p>A: I don't have a single class with more than 20 people in it, which is pretty impressive considering they're General Education (GE) classes, some variation of which everyone has to take. The upper-division courses have even smaller classes. I've heard good things about Scripps classes, but they're almost certainly not better than a CMC class (unless maybe it's in women's/gender studies or something similiar), and they're absolutely not harder than a CMC class. In fact, foriegn language classes at Scripps are very popular with CMC males, both because of their favorable male:female ratio and because they have a reputation for having a very low workload. I'm finding all the classes I'm taking at CMC to be very rigorous and challenging.</p>
<p>Doesn't Scripps buy east coast matriculants a round-trip ticket to visit home every year?</p>
<p>i applied EA to pitzer from NJ and your post was a little discouraging. Can you tell me anything else about Pitzer that is positive? So the campus is that ugly? its hard to find a lot of pictures of Pitzers campus so I guess its better for you to be honest about what youve seen first hand. Do you know anyone from Pitzer, what kind of intellectual level does the school hold, what else do you know about Pitzer?</p>
<p>"can anyone who has visited the 5 Claremonts list them in order with the most beautiful campus/dorms 1st and the least appealing campus/dorm last? Its hard to find good campus photos, and a 1st hand trip is always better anyway. If anyone has pics of the campuses (esp. Pitzer) posted on a website or something, can you also post a link>? Thanks"</p>
<p>Scripps is drop-dead gorgeous, inside and out. California Mediterranean. Courtyards with sculptures and fountains and pools. The dorms resemble some of the best 1920s hotels I've ever seen, with balconies from which you can pick oranges and kumquats off trees. The performing arts center is magnificent! The food - all you can eat sushi every Friday night, and the rest of the food is sensational as well. (One problem they have is that folks from other campuses can eat there, and as the food at Pomona in particular is mediocre, the place is always packed.) Outdoor swimming pool, in use all year round. And it seems like there are more studio arts and music spaces than classrooms.</p>
<p>CMC looks mostly like a high-class California high school. Since it is all new since the 1960s-1970s, that isn't particularly surprising. Pitzer has a lot of cinderblock. Pomona (the largest) is much more varied, with some very nice dorms - with second floor outdoor balconies (some are quite run-down as well), and a bunch of new state-of-art science buildings (the Scripps-CMC-Pitzer consortium also has some equally good, and I think Pomona was building in order to catch up.) The dining hall, in false Tudor, is cavernous and echoey, much more inviting in pictures than in person. Great student union, though.</p>
<p>Mini:</p>
<p>I don't want to hijack this thread, so I'll try to be brief. You've been helpful on a couple of my threads and you seem to have both knowledge and perspective about LAC's. Briefly, my D (she's a junior) wants to consider Pomona (her Grandmother lives in Orange County) as her one West Coast school. She's applying to schools like Princeton, Brown, Tufts, WashU, and Michigan, but is likely also applying to a select group of her favorite LAC's, including (likely): Amherst, Wesleyan, and Vassar. Her class rank is somewhere around 5 out of 500 and her ACT is 34. She wants to major in English (biology, psychology, and theater are possibile co-majors or minors) with hs level teaching or possibly college teaching as a possible career. Her EC's are heavily slanted towards theater and chorus, so theater and voice are in her college future (more likely as EC's than as academic pursuits).</p>
<p>The Q: How does Pomona -- academics, atmosphere, intellectual nature of the student body -- compare to Amherst, Wesleyan, and Vassar? Of course, I know there is a lot of difference between Amherst versus Wesleyan and Vassar. Also, am I correct in assuming (as my investigation has told me) that Pomona is very well respected by graduate schools?</p>
<p>Thanks Mini.</p>
<p>In the larger scheme of things, there is really very, VERY little difference between Amherst and Pomona (from what we found). The academics are similar, the programs are similar, the student bodies are similar. They are both equally respected. Both programs are magnified by the presence of 5-college systems. There are theatre and voice programs at both (my off-the-cuff impression is that Pomona is a bit stronger there, but Amherst's 5-college offerings, primarily through Smith, are stronger, as 5-colleges at Pomona add very little to Pomona itself -- except for music, where Scripps is very deep.) Both student bodies are middle of the road liberal. There is significant alcohol at both, and both administrations are somewhat concerned about it. Both are Division III sports (maybe a little more emphasis at Amherst.) Amherst is more diverse than Pomona, with almost double the number of Pell Grant recipients (but also more "preppies", which can be good or bad, depending on how you view it.) Our experience (which is limited) was that of all the colleges we looked at (Ivies and top LACs), none was more "anal" about test scores and the like than Pomona - but that is no reflection on the students once they get there. You'd get a great education at either - the biggest difference by far is that one is warm weather and one is cold. (For the record, my d. found the students at Scripps more interesting than those at Pomona, having visited both on the same trip.)</p>
<p>The English department at Amherst is justly famous. The one at Pomona is not chopped liver! If I were choosing for me, it would be Pomona, on account of the weather (I hate cold). But if I were choosing overall, I'd choose Amherst - my d. has found, even in her first term, that the 5-college system really adds an awful lot, and will add more as time goes on. I think I already told you that she is the research assistant tied to the new 5-College Opera Consortium - speaking of theater and voice! There will be academic offerings at all 5 colleges to support it, and participation throughout the system. Our limited perception was that Pomona looked down on the other members of the Consortium, was spending energy trying to separate themselves from them, and that this was a less healthy approach than embracing them. (At the east coast 5-college system, there are even "Five College Professors", jointly appointed, who work at all of them.) Don't overplay these differences, though - the similarities are much, much greater than the differences.</p>
<p>My d. likely had different needs than yours. She needed a music composition program, strong foreign languages, and very strong commitment to JYA (with a special interest in Italy.) There was no Italian at Amherst, and at Pomona, they send students over to Scripps. And for music composition, adding the east coast 5-colleges together, there really was no comparison.</p>
<p>No comments on Wesleyan (the music department, while terrific for jazz and world famous for ethnomusicology, was not what she needed.) She visited Vassar (which I thought might be a good choice), but didn't hit it off with the head of the composition faculty, and just didn't feel at home. (Where she is now was an instant connect - nice when that happens.)</p>
<p>thanks for the informative post. any other views on scripps and pitzer specifically?</p>
<p>Thanks Mini. My questions are, of course, pre-visit. I'm sure our visits during Spring 2005 and later will help to establish my D's pecking order. And obviously, any pecking order is subject to the harsh reality of who offers admission and who doesn't. All things being equal, she's an East Coast kind of girl, but Pomona has struck her (anecdotally, not first-hand) as an East Coast flavored school with California sunshine. As such, I have a good feeling about her including Pomona as a school to "check-out," in an overall LAC pool with two "reaches" LAC's (Amherst and Pomona) and two that are something less, perhaps "match/reaches" (Wesleyan and Vassar). Thanks again.</p>
<p>Valuable:
I'm so reluctant to in any way "hijack" a thread. My apologies if I did. It seemed to me that a related question comparing Pomona to East Coast LAC's like Amherst, Wesleyan, and Vassar would bring out information that was very relevant to your own decisions. Best of luck.</p>
<p>DudeDiligence-</p>
<p>Any information I can get on the LACs out there in Cali is appreciated. I actually encourage comparisons with schools like Vassar, Amherst, etc. because I am in NJ and those schools are obviously closer to home and looked at by me and my family. I would love to go out to Cali and experience it but with a ED application to Wellesley, I might not even have to worry about looking. Then again, college admissions is a crap shoot and anything is possible so its good to have schools for ED II or RD. You, in no way, hijacked the thread :). THe thread was named Cali LACs vs East LACs so anything is welcome. Best of luck to your D's college search!</p>
<p>Now having written all of that, I want to say something in defense of Vassar and Wesleyan, over and above A & P, even though I know much less about them. The issue is size. In the big departments, like English, it won't really matter much. But Vassar and Wesleyan (and Williams and Smith) are up to 60% larger than A & P, and it will be noticeable in smaller departments, language offerings (especially in depth), and, substantially in things like theatre, dance, and voice. Just comparing Smith and Amherst (the two I know best), there is just no comparison - Smith has so much more. It is not simply a function of commitment (though that obviously helps), but you can do so much more in theatre, dance, and music when you have a larger student base. (You could compare Williams and Amherst, and quickly find that Williams has so much more as well, and I expect you'd find the same at Vassar and Wesleyan.) This is substantially offset at Amherst by the 5-college thing (provided you are willing to get on a free bus - not a big thing there), and (though less so) at Pomona. (Pomona's theatre/music thing seems more in competition with Scripps (and CMC) than cooperative, which surprised us, and, we thought, made each less than they could have been.)</p>
<p>I was just talking about this with my wife, and I used this example. The Claremont consortium colleges are all within 5 minutes walk of each other (and share a wonderful large library, which in some ways is a model for what I will now write.) Scripps (with CMC and Harvard Mudd and Pitzer) has a wonderful student orchestra and performing arts center. So does Pomona. They play similar music. But neither has a chamber orchestra, an early music program, a baroque ensemble, or an opera orchestra and company, nor a substantial ballet company. Both have little theatre departments. Put the two together and organize it, and they'd be bigger and better than Yale (perhaps). They have enough students, enough faculty, and enough money for all of these, but because of the way they have organized themselves, they don't. And because they don't, they are severely limited by their respective sizes. Now compare what they've done with their library, which has 2 million books. They could have five college libraries, each of varying sizes, but averaging 400,000 (less than a third that of Smith). And they'd end up with huge duplication. Or they could do what they did, and end up with something bigger than the sum of the parts.</p>
<p>Well, just some thoughts.</p>
<p>Thanks Mini. This "size" issue will be a central issue in my D's decision. We're midwesterners and the "default" has always been towards big universities -- big universities, big opportunities. Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois -- simply giant universities, all of the majors, programs, and activities that anyone could ever want, albeit with the possibility of getting lost in the shuffle of just so many students. Given her personality and interests, my D has always felt that she would prefer slightly smaller -- e.g., WashU, Northwestern, Tufts, Emory, and (big reaches) Brown and Princeton. It's only recently where she's entertained the possibility of the completely geared towards undergraduates opportunities of the LAC. As she continues to investigate, she's getting more and more enthused and is eagerly looking forward to visits so she can really get a better sense. The big "however" is just how small is too small? At least for her. She's concerned that schools like Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin, etc. -- all smaller than her high school -- might simply FEEL too small for her, both as a school and as a community. She definitely has some concern of a kind of claustrophobia and I can sense a preference -- at least now -- for a LAC the size of say Wesleyan or Vassar. Anyway, until she has further info, this is all stream-of-consciousness ramblings. Like so much in the world, you go through the process, you do the due diligence, and whatever decision you wind up making will invariably be at least an enlightened decision.</p>
<p>Oh ... in case I wasn't clear ... Amherst and Pomona are particularly attractive as schools to investigate because (a) their overall strength and reputation, and (b) the affiliations that these very small schools (albeit different kinds of affiliations) have with their respective "consortium," thereby giving a very small school the feeling and resources of something more.</p>
<p>That's the theory anyhow.</p>
<p>Good theory, too (or at least the same one we operated with, or at least discovered in the process - LOL!)</p>
<p>All the Claremonts are great schools and all campuses are nice but we found Pitzer to be more run down. My D was not impressed with the dorms there. Scripps is beautiful great academics as all of them have but it is an all girl's school still, guys need to be escorted even dads to go into dorms. It is a lot quieter there , peaceful but I would recommend a visit- it is still an all girl's school. Each school has a lot of school spirit especially Pomona, all there love it, seems the same for CMC. Scripps seems more mixed, a lot of people had it as a second choice although a lot love it as well. People seem to love Pitzer as well, we may have had a bad tour. Personally I don't think you can go wrong at any of the Claremonts but I would not pay that much money anywhere without visiting and only you know whaich school seems best. You can always visit after accepted. Redlands is also a good school with great merit and aid.</p>
<p>i appreciate the informative post :)</p>
<p>Pomona is not really anal about scores- they are anal about strength of curriculum. If you do not challenge yourself senior year you have little chance, but if you have an interesting resume and are a good writer then numbers are not as important. That was our experience and what we heard from the rep this year as well. It is a school where students seem genuinely happy with their classes, professors and fellow classmates.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
i applied EA to pitzer from NJ and your post was a little discouraging. Can you tell me anything else about Pitzer that is positive? So the campus is that ugly? its hard to find a lot of pictures of Pitzers campus so I guess its better for you to be honest about what youve seen first hand. Do you know anyone from Pitzer, what kind of intellectual level does the school hold, what else do you know about Pitzer?
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>Of all the 5 Claremont Colleges, I know the least about Pitzer. So I'm sorry to say that I won't be able to answer your questions very well.</p>
<p>I've only been on Pitzer's campus twice for very brief visits and I've never been inside a Pitzer dorm, so I've seen very little of it. </p>
<p>I can't say I have any friends from Pitzer, so I can't really comment on Pitzer's social life except to say that Pitzer has probably never had a good party in the college's history. </p>
<p>The intellectual culture at Pitzer is unconventional and liberal. I've heard a lot of stories about Pitzer courses like "Cars and Culture" and other such "imaginative" course offerings. Most anti-Kerry voices at Pitzer this election cycle came from socialists and Greens.</p>
<p>how well known do you think a scripps/pitzer degree is known to other companies/graduate schools? Is it just more known in the West? Since nobody I know over here on the East Coast knows about Scripps, etc. I cant really say if its unknown just because of the area I am in, or its a good school, but still up and coming.</p>