<p>Bennington, hands down.</p>
<p>I disagree. Independence is important because it helps to maintain diversity of choices. Pomona, CMC, HMC, Pitzer and Scripps are all unique schools and we should not merge and see these differences subsumed. One thing that makes the Claremont consortium so unique is that there are 5 different schools with flexible cross enrollment - so you get a wider range of choices and interact with different people while still having the choice to choose a place where you fit the best at. Besides, there's the Claremont Graduate university which is one of the nation's few universities devoted entirely to graduates. Pomona, CMC and Harvey Mudd have considerably good reputations. So does Pitzer and Scripps. Merging into one Claremont university will remove these traditions and reputations built over the years into one confused and hollow mishmash.</p>
<p>Harvard is a different animal altogether. Their different "schools" like law and medicine are graduate schools. Harvard College - the undergraduate school, is part of this university as a more or less distinct entity. Besides, the brand of Harvard was built from a single entity which then diverged into many different schools - the Claremont consortium on the other hand was designed as a collection of independent entities which would nonetheless be more closely linked than the normal school. Kinda different.</p>
<p>Hampden-Sydney College
Christendom College
University of Dallas</p>