<p>I am trying to decide between these two schools and I would love some outside opinions.</p>
<p>Son is in a SAME situation. He loves both and they are very different schools…</p>
<p>I would think the big differences (location, LAC vs. uni) pretty much swamp anything else as a factor for decisionmaking. The Claremont Colleges consortium negates some of the minus-factors for LACs – as a group, I think they are a little larger at the undergraduate level than Chicago, they have a lot of depth and breadth in terms of course offerings, and a real library. Pomona, in case you hadn’t noticed, is in Southern California, which is different in many respects from the Upper Midwest. It’s also in a suburb of a city with no really workable public transportation. At Chicago, notwithstanding Hyde Park’s sleepy hamlet feel, you really can spend a lot of time in the exciting parts of the city.</p>
<p>I was accepted to and visited both colleges before deciding on Chicago. I really enjoyed my stay at Pomona; it is situated in a beautiful neighborhood beneath the shadow of a mountain. I’ll briefly list the reasons why I chose Chicago:</p>
<p>a) The student at Pomona weren’t as intensely interested in academics as I was. There were far more conversations about dating and video games than about anything intellectual.</p>
<p>b) Pomona is very far from home for me (WI) and Chicago is the closest of any top-Ten college.</p>
<p>c) Although Pomona’s financial aid package was better than Chicago’s, it was not good enought to justify the money I needed to spend on transportation.</p>
<p>d) I was unable to visit a class during my stay at Pomona, which likely added to my sense that it was less academic than Chicago.</p>
<p>I’m not ready to assert that these are legitimate criteria for rejecting Pomona; I would have been happy to attend. Just the same, I had come to a fork in the road, and only one choice was possible. Chicago was my choice.</p>
<p>Wow brabble, these are two pretty disparate (but of course great) schools. Before providing a response, what are some factors that are important for you in looking at a college? People can provide better feedback if they know more about your thought process on this.</p>
<p>Cue7</p>
<p>Well, I feel that these two schools are at similar levels academically, and I am aware of the difference in prestige between them. The difference in weather is obvious, and so is the size of the schools. So I guess my real question then would be, what are the differences between these schools in terms of the culture? Besides the points I just mentioned, what would I experience at these schools, considering student body, work load, and just the school’s identity?</p>
<p>I don’t think of them as THAT different. I don’t know all that much about Pomona; two cousins went there, but they are both older than I am. My kids’ friends who have gone there are pretty much indistinguishable from the types of students you would find at Chicago – maybe a little less intense, but no less smart. It has a reputation as the Left Coast Swarthmore, and there is a large common applicant pool and a large cross-accepted pool between Swarthmore and Chicago. So I assume the same could/should be true with Pomona. I think that by and large it’s very similar students making different choices (or having different choices made for them) about the setting and structure for their college education.</p>
<p>Size is actually not an important difference at all, since if you mush the Claremont Colleges together they are almost exactly the same size as the college of the University of Chicago – about 5,300 undergraduates. That includes a wider range of types than Chicago has, perhaps, although Pomona, CMC, and Harvey Mudd together match up very well with Chicago. And the presence of shared departments and facilities, with contiguous campuses, means that Pomona plays much bigger than other similar-sized LACs. What is different, of course, is a lack of myriad graduate students, professional schools, and a major hospital on campus.</p>
<p>JHS - the type of students may probably be similar, but I do think the significant difference in location makes for a substantial difference in feel between the two schools. I think we’ve talked about this before, but the punishing midwestern winters give Chicago a very distinct feel, and it’s known as “the gray university” for a reason. I think going to a school with a much more pleasant climate could change the feel of the school.</p>
<p>I’m just speculating here - I have no idea, and don’t really know many people associated with Pomona. Both are great schools, the locations, at least, could make for different vibes to these two institutions.</p>
<p>Heck, I wasn’t arguing that the difference between suburban LA and southside Chicago wasn’t important! What I was trying to say was that you don’t need a lot of fine analysis to compare Pomona and Chicago. One is in a far suburb of LA, the other in a Chicago neighborhood. One is a liberal arts college (though part of the original consortium that adds a lot of value), the other a full-blown research university. Once you know where you stand on those two differences, everything else is pretty inconsequential (including the prestige thing – everyone who knows about the University of Chicago probably knows that Pomona is hot stuff, too).</p>
<p>Ah, sorry JHS - when you said “they’re not THAT different” in your post above mine, perhaps I misinterpreted what you meant by that. I think of the two schools as very, very different, primarily just because of the location factor. For most of the U of C’s history, the winters were a defining part of the institutional character of the school. I know this has changed recently, but for most of its history, it was known as an intense and somewhat cold, impersonal place. Pomona probably has a very different culture and character and history, perhaps primarily because of its location.</p>
<p>I’d like to submit my opinion on the measure of difference between those two schools. </p>
<p>Despite the dratistic difference between the climate of Chicago and Claremont, I feel its important to recognize that the student body and faculty share backgrounds an interests. I visited Pomona, Reed, Wesleyan, Amherst and Chicago in a week-long trip, and when I was forced to make a decision, it came down to the little details, not the climate or the size of the campus.</p>
<p>I feel these top schools house several similar sets of students with small, but important, variations. Pomona was a little more cheery, Reed a little more mischevious, Amherst a little more formal, and so forth. The presence of snow or more students didn’t drastically differentiate any of these schools.</p>
<p>Now, that’s not to say there are ‘very great’ differences between, say, Wesleyan and NYU. All of my final choices were very similar because they represented what I wanted from a colleges. I think all of these schools are differentiable in detail, not in their totality. I think its safe to call Pomona a “Californian U of C” or Wesleyan an “East Cost Reed.”</p>
<p>I don’t know anyone who knows both schools who would call Pomona a “Californian U of C.” </p>
<p>It’s not about the quality of teaching, students or overall opportunities - all will be stellar at both.</p>
<p>Beyond the obvious glaring differences in location, weather, setting, and LAC/university issues, there remains a pretty significant, and possibly most important, difference in the tone of the entire college experience. Chicago students proudly wear “where fun goes to die” t-shirts with tongue in cheek pride. Pomona students proudly wear little as they quad sun bathe through most of the school year. The grey/sun divide that permeates the atmosphere so often literally does so as well often figuratively. Just have trouble picturing a “Ski-Beach Day” based in Hyde Park.</p>
<p>I’d think hard about where you felt most comfortable visiting and would feel most comfortable spending the next four years. Given the overall excellence pretty much across the board at both, I’d do a very un-Chicago thing and let those feelings, not intellect, decide this.</p>
<p>“The grey/sun divide that permeates the atmosphere so often literally does so as well often figuratively. Just have trouble picturing a “Ski-Beach Day” based in Hyde Park”</p>
<p>This is a great quote that may summarize the divide between Pomona and Chicago. At Chicago, we never had anything close to a ski-beach day, but students did camp out overnight in the cold to get the classes they wanted for the next trimester. Chicago also has a tradition in the winter where, if you get up at 5am and jump into the ice-cold, freezing waters of Lake Michigan, you get a t-shirt. Somehow I see this as a different world than whatever takes place at Pomona.</p>
<p>It is about the quality of teaching, students and overall opportunities. That’s the essence of a college, and that’s what Pomona and Chicago have in common.</p>
<p>As WBMA rightly noted, the school’s differ in overall tone. If I could extend that metaphor, I would say that tone is color, and that Chicago is a blue book, and Pomona a yellow book. As WBMA says, the difference in color is striking, but I would add that the difference in color should not factor into the decision about which book to buy. The tones of Pomona and Chciago may make them appear drastically different, but they remain the same book. </p>
<p>The difference between these schools and ASU, perhaps, is much greater. Breaking the spine on ASU reveals a different book.</p>
<p>^ You mean a children’s book? LOL. But agreed, the FEEL of the two schools would be very different from ASU. </p>
<p>The way I see it is that Pomona is sort of (emphasis on sort of) like a west coast Swarthmore, and Swarthmore STUDENTS (and in some respects their professors, etc) have a lot in common with Chicago ones. If it means anything, I’m applying to all three.</p>
<p>All three of these colleges really value a rigorous, broad, liberal arts education, and have students and teachers who are drawn by this philosophy.</p>
<p>The OP asks about culture, and it is hard to argue that these schools have very similar cultures. The biggest difference I see cited is the impact of the weather. Maybe I’m just a naive California native, but does it really make that much of a difference?</p>
<p>When talking of undergrad programs, I’d agree that “rigorous” intellectual/academic challenge is a key (the key?) philosophical underpinning at both Chicago and Swarthmore.</p>
<p>But Pomona is different. While the school, like any top academic institution, certainly values academics highly, the college promotes, first and foremost, the best possible global experience for undergrads. This is a place where the “Life of the Mind” does not dominate the “Life of the Body” or the “Life of the Soul.” For a more pure intellectual experience - Chicago/Swarthmore.</p>
<p>One will not find the same research opportunities at Pomona. Chicago is a major research university with a medical school and medical center a part of the division of biological sciences of the University (quite rare). Often overlooked, is the very distinguished humanities faculty at Chicago. However, one can take courses at all the other Claremont colleges, so, for example, Harvey Mudd faculty are available if the mathematics or engineering strikes one’s fancy. (S2 prefers Claremont McKenna College to Pomona, but that’s a subject more appropriate for a different forum.)</p>