<p>We live in SoCal and my son's been accepted to all three, Cal as Regents. He is rather undecided in his major, leaning Econ but may want to switch to Math later. He visited Cal, liked some things there, but not others including campus crime and the local area. He's been offered UCLA (with no Regents) and CMC, and would appreciate opinions on these. Socially, he'd fit in better with UCLA, CMC is a bit small. But he likes the idea of profs being highly accessible to students. What he wants coming out of college is a good job and opportunities for grad school. (Don't we all? LOL.) Anyone have experiences or observations they'd like to share? </p>
<p>Cal + Regents for econ & maths trumps both schools. </p>
<p>I live close to Cal and tons of friends and relatives went through Cal for the last 30 years. I know the town of Berkeley very well. </p>
<p>Berkeley is basically urban and it has its share of crime. But its no different from any urban schools. I have not heard a lot of crime against the students I know of. That includes my DD who was in Berkeley all the time when she was in HS and attending their programs every summer.</p>
<p>All three are superb - all have excellent job placement records. You’re more likely to work with top scholars in your own research at CMC, and you will live among a highly varied student body, on campus, with an active social life, all four years. I’m biased - used to work there - but I think any Claremont college provides a richer, more interesting experience.</p>
<p>UCLA and Cal are massive, so unless he’s aggressive or an “obvious” star, he won’t get the attention there due to pure #'s, if nothing else. Remember, they are still public schools, even though they have huge name recognition. If you can afford CMC with its now 10% acceptance rate, go there. My S did not get in this year, his #1 choice, so we visited 3 times, other things, and while it’s small (so you don’t miss class much as you’ll be noticed), it is known for attention, research, and specialized focuses. Berkeley is also not a town for everybody, despite that it’s well known. I don’t know where you are coming from, so that plays into what he likes/is used to/future locations.</p>
<p>And when I speak of Berkeley, I don’t mean the crime,but it’s the atmosphere (which maybe he would love), but lots of homeless people in the city, lots of hippies still hanging around (both old and young ones), more of a “tough” place (especially since it’s a smaller city, which sometimes is “ideal”).</p>
<p>If it matters to him, the Berkeley economics department offers more mathematically-intensive intermediate economics courses. If he is concerned about class size, the more mathematically-intensive versions are only about 1/3 to 1/4 as large as the less mathematically-intensive versions, but they are not small (i.e. the class size difference is between large and huge).</p>
<p>CMC. No question. If it’s affordable, run for Claremont and never look back.</p>
<p><a href=“Claremont McKenna College vs. UCLA vs. UC Berkeley - Claremont McKenna College - College Confidential Forums”>Claremont McKenna College vs. UCLA vs. UC Berkeley - Claremont McKenna College - College Confidential Forums;
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<p>If you took Harvard’s students and somehow were able to get them to transfer to Podunk U, would they end up not being as successful because of Harvard’s name vis-a-vis Podunk’s?</p>
<p>Of course not, they would be prodigiously successful as if they had stayed. </p>
<p>Smart people – they themselves – beget an enormously wide array of excellent career choices, and four years of undergrad study will not change that possibility for your son’s future. It’s almost as if the way some people believe, that your son will contract some severe learning disability if he chose UCLA or Cal or not gain his full potential as if it were permanently latent. </p>
<p>Your son would be safe at any of the environments if he doesn’t do anything unsafe like wandering around southwest of Cal’s campus alone late at night. He should always at least have company. There are unsafe things any student can do at any campus, which they should always be mindful of not doing. </p>
<p>And with this said, if your son feels he wants most to be at CMC, no problem; it’s just so tiresome to hear others denigrate other schools to prop their own. </p>
<p>There are no bad choices with the three, and his future should be pretty well set for success. </p>
<p>@drax12,</p>
<p>I’d have to disagree. If you took Harvard students and transferred them to “Podunk U”, they would not be as successful. If this were not true, then please explain why families pay top dollar for their children to attend highly-selective colleges over their respective state schools.</p>
<p>What makes these “smart people” successful are the resources that their institutions will offer. Harvard would allow for access to extremely successful alumni and recruiting from elite employers. It is IMMENSELY harder (and impossible in many cases) to work for a company that only limits recruiting to a handful of Ivy Leagues if you are outside of that network.</p>
<p>I’m not denigrating UCLA or Berk. If you cared to click on the link I’ve left, I provide a generous explanation as to why CMC clearly outmatches the other two institutions.</p>
<p>I cannot believe that people on this thread seriously suggested that OP’s son should attend CMC simply because the acceptance rate is 10%. What???</p>
<p>It’s important to note that while posters on CC promote CMC as the best school ever, it has a very specific type of campus culture. That culture is really not for everyone because the school is small and students aren’t nearly as focused in academics as kids at Pomona or say, Swarthmore. You cannot deny this. The academics are top-notch, but the campus culture is very much NOT focused on the “life of the mind”. It really surprises me when people apply to both UChicago and CMC, for instance. I mean seriously? (And if you really have to go to Pomona to talk about school and classes, why are you going to CMC anyway?? Just go to Pomona.)</p>
<p>People on this thread are indeed denigrating UCLA/Cal. “No question” Sounds like you dismissed OP’s other options quite quickly. Whether or not a tiny school is right for one person is an important question, and although CMC has its strengths, Cal is one of the world’s top universities and its name can open many, many doors. You may live in your little Claremont Village bubble as long as you want where CMC is the best school in the world but if you go outside of it, you would find that the rest of the world does not share your point of view. CMC is a small liberal arts college, just like many others and its distinct culture dictates that the decision to attend should be based on fit, not on some hopelessly naive perception of how its low acceptance rate = high prestige. </p>
<p>That said, there is no wrong choice between these schools. CMC is a wonderful choice for those who feel it’s a good fit for them, but pushing someone to pick one school over the other by bashing the ‘other’ school is extremely egocentric and repulsive. </p>
<p>@International95 is right, in that CMC has a particular feel. @RML is a little off.</p>
<p>CMC is a wonderful school for economics. IMO better than Berkeley. However, common opinion says it does have a particular feeling to it, so you really should visit. </p>
<p>Don’t let the small size turn you away. The students are able to socialize with students from Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, and Scripps. </p>
<p>You have gotten into three wonderful schools. I don’t think you would feel bad going to any one of them, but IMHO CMC would be the best at economics. If you really think you might change to math, Berkeley would be the best. I’ve never heard of CMC having a great math department. Good luck choosing.</p>
<p>It all depends upon your long term career goals. Will he be going to grad school. What would be his targeted grad schools and major? Therefore, which of the 3 puts him in a better position for grad school.
The next consideration is cost. All 3 are good choices.</p>
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<p>It depends on the goals. Berkeley’s more math-intensive economics courses are likely a better fit for a pre-PhD economics major. For preparing for a career in finance, CMC does have a large set of finance courses offered in its economics department.</p>
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<p>The majority of highly selective colleges are on the eastcoast. There are many Californians and generally those in the west who don’t have the same valuation within college tiers as they do back there, even with Stanford, CIT and the rest of the elites here on the westcoast/west. </p>
<p>Wrt your second paragraph, a namebrand-U (ie, one of the highly selective colleges) has obtained its status as a consequence of all the really smart people who’ve attended it over all of its years. Namebrand later propagates/perpetuates a lasting product (with a big market share of really smart people). So the order would be thus: smart people in association begets namebrand; namebrand begets a long-lasting high-quality product. Part of this is undoubtedly a brand’s existence for centuries (those on the eastcoast) that can be traced to the founding of the nation as Harvard. </p>
<p>Wrt the smart-kids market pool, if Podunk were to admit students with the natural intelligence of Harvard – I didn’t say Podunk enrolling one or two with quals that would be Harvard admissible but an entire cohort – it would become a latter-day Harvard, with an ever-improving brand. No matter how smart Harvard students were, if it started admitting students on the order of the Podunk, Harvard would become the erstwhile Podunk, and its product would decline.</p>
<p>The main employment inroads that the tippy top Ivies have that others don’t have would probably be working their shear nos. of working on Wall Street. But that’s partly a geographical eastcoast thing. But generally, employers flock to Harvard because they can do essentially a one-stop shopping for employees, because of the Harvard namebrand of years of churning out intelligent people over centuries. </p>
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<p>All I saw in your link were opinions, highly subjective, highly anecdotal, of some pro-CMC people, including xiggi. (Don’t worry, xiggi, many of us know how good CMC is.) However, there’s also a distinct pro-CMC public-realtions bent on this board for awhile, and I’m just wondering if the college itself is promoting this in its students as yourself. There always seems to be someone taking the lead to disseminate the word about CMC year by year, which is fine by me, but it just seems a bit contrived. I don’t care, promote the crap out of the school, just don’t paint a picture of a stark backdrop of the UC’s, which is a form of denigration. </p>
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Actually, there are studies that directly contradict @Carotid and support @drax12. For example:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2004/10/education-easterbrook”>http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2004/10/education-easterbrook</a></p>
<p>Getting right to their finding:
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<p>If you can turn up a contradicting study, that would be interesting, but this seems pretty conclusive, at least as far as earnings go. I have to assume that when the term “successful” was used in this context, it meant earnings, because everything else is pretty subjective.</p>
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<p>When I read comments like these, I can’t help but wonder if I was this naive as an undergraduate.</p>
<p>Uh, Harvard’s students and alumni include some of the most well connected people in the United States and the world. They include people who are powerful and well connected enough that they don’t need the Harvard name to become successful. H. alumni that fit this example include Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer. Current Harvard students include the daughter of the president of China, and other children of the Chinese Politiburo. Do you seriously think that these children can and will be successful simply due to the Harvard name? Granted, not all of Harvard’s alumni have these connections, but many do. It’s a very small amount of H’s population who can truly take advantage of those resources however.</p>
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<p>Or Harvard and similar schools could just cherry pick students who seem to have the drive to be successful so that they can add future successful students to their alumni. </p>
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<p>That may be true, but very few companies do this. They’re probably limited mostly to companies on the East coast. The reality is that many top companies are filled with people who went to a bunch of different schools. Tim Cook went to Auburn and Duke; Warren Buffett went Penn, Columbia, and the University of Nebraska; Satya Nadella went to Chicago and Wisconsin. Many great U.S. universities have prominent alumni in great positions.</p>
<p>CMC is a fine school. They do a really good job of getting their students good internships which will help them later in their career. But CMC is really a small, specialty school. It’s great for econ, but I would imagine it’s significantly weaker in mathematics than both Berkeley and UCLA. It also has a reputation that’s likely very poor outside of the West coast. I’m not sure how many alums CMC is able to get into Wall St. every year, but I’d imagine it isn’t many.</p>
<p>If your certain you want to do econ. I’d go to CMC. If not, I’d likely pick Berkeley regents as the programs in math and econ. would likely be significantly stronger than CMCs.</p>
<p>I directed my post towards the Harvard student who comes from an “average,” middle-class background.</p>
<p>Sure, it’s very likely that you could earn just as much as a Harvard student if you were to attend any other university (if that’s how we want to measure success). Many students at H aspire to become authors, attorneys, instructors – all things that outstanding students from any institution could become. However, when it comes to the professions where employers are going to take the name on your degree into account, it will be significantly harder to break into such industries. I think we’re using the term “smart people” to account for those individuals who will be able to cover all bases based on their pre-existing connections, wealth, etc. </p>
<p>When there’s the factor of “smart people”, there is no argument. We would have to look at the “average” individual who aspires to enter a selective industry (let’s say Wall Street IB) from Harvard and see how they compare to the “average” individual with similar interests who decided to attend Podunk-U instead.</p>
<p>You honestly believe that the student from Podunk isn’t going to have a significantly tougher time landing the Wall Street gig?</p>
<p>And if it matters, Zuckerberg gained inspiration from many of his fellow classmates. One could argue that Facebook would not exist today if he had not attended.</p>
<p>carotid,
it goes back to what I posted regarding the 3 choices. Depends upon long term goal, grad school, etc.
If his goal is wall street which means getting an mba from a prestigious school (ie. Harvard), then which of the 3 give him the best choice to getting into say harvard or even stanford. Frankly, I don’t know the answer and would require more research.</p>
<p>Some might call it something other than “inspiration”</p>