Wesleyan vs. Pomona, Again

Colleges and Universities A-Z Wesleyan University
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<p>I know that this thread has happened before, but I'd be curious to hear any new perspectives on the matter.</p>

<p>Any students who have visited both or familiar with both (especially if they're attending one or the other) want to speak to the differences they perceived? Any students know people at both schools and think they can compare and contrast their experiences? Obviously this is a very flawed method of comparing the two schools, but I don't know when I can visit Pomona, and as stated in my last thread, I'm all of the sudden having a bit of the indecisive bug about staying on EDII with Wes.</p>

<p>Obvious differences I can think of: weather, endowment figures (and thus quality of housing/internship funding opps./student life in general?, suburban LA area vs. rural CT, larger Environmental Science--a potential major interest on my part--at Pomona, better film at Wes, more of an "East Coast" vibe at Wes and more of laid-back, "West Coast" vibe at Pomona)</p>

<p>I'm from CA (and love CA and want to live here after graduating), interested in Pre-Med, Science Tech and Society (Pomona) or Science in Society (Wes), Psych, Environmental Studies/Analysis, Religion (sp. Buddhism), Psycholgoy</p>

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<p>staranise - I know it’s really the fashion these days to compare endowment sizes and come to all sorts of conclusions based on them, but, it’s also easy to come to some wrong conclusions. For example, in comparing Wesleyan’s endowment which is about half the size of Pomona’s (and smaller if measured on a per capita basis) it would be easy to assume that Wesleyan’s spending on research, instruction and other academic spending would be less. However, the opposite is true. Pomona’s budget for those items, roughly the academic portion of its year-to-year expenditures totalled $66,510,000 according to the last report on its website: <a href=“http://www.pomona.edu/about/publications/college-financial-statements.pdf[/url]”>http://www.pomona.edu/about/publications/college-financial-statements.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Wesleyan spent about $103,121,000 in fiscal year 2010 on the same stuff, or about what you would expect for a university roughly twice Pomona’s size: <a href=“http://www.wesleyan.edu/finance/financeDept/reporting/Annual%20Financial%20Reports/2009-2010.pdf[/url]”>http://www.wesleyan.edu/finance/financeDept/reporting/Annual%20Financial%20Reports/2009-2010.pdf&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Specifically, in terms of research, the sort of thing that fuels internships, there’s almost no comparison:</p>

<p>Pomona Research Expenditures f/y 2010 - $2,408, 000</p>

<p>Wesleyan Research Expenditures f/y 2010 - $12,050,000</p>

<p>Now, no one expects every prospective student to crawl around the financial statements of every college they apply to. But, that’s almost what you have to do in light of some of the more contentious assertions that are made on behalf of certain colleges, particularly the ones with billion dollar endowment funds. </p>

<p>They don’t tell you that upwards of half their total budgets are supported by endowments which leaves them especailly vulnerable when those funds nosedive – which they inevitably do (Amherst had to take out a $100,000,000 loan the first year of the Great Recession in order to avoid cashing in the proceeds of their endowment that year, at a loss). Nor do they tell you that a lot of their spending is windowdressing that has nothing to do with academics, but are just doled out in order to keep Congressional watchdogs off their backs.</p>

<p>In the end, while I’m all in favor of “kicking the tires” before making a major purchase, I think judging a liberal arts college on the basis of their endowment size is a little like trying to judge fuel economy by the size of a car’s gas tank. Bigger isn’t necessarily better.</p>