<p>Very good analysis of Claremont. I will add a few comments. By no means go to Mudd if you struggled for your grades. If that is the case, the work load will be unmanagable. They stick it to you, but it's very intimate so help is just down the hall. As stated before there is little grade inflation, but hmc has garnered enough respect to place people in the best grad schools even with less than perfect gpa's.</p>
<p>Dont let anyone lie to you, the school is really nerdy. There were times when I had to distance myself from non stop nerdiness. The students are extremely focused both on school and on fun, they throw the best parties, huge, and seriously cuts loose. The course load is heavy, specifically early when classes are dense, fast, and dabble in graduate level complexity. There is much support from everyone if help is needed, students, proffs, whatnot. As I said, if you reached to get your grades, dont put yourself through it.</p>
<p>To balance all this stuff out is all the other colleges. They are completely different, basically completely accessible, and offer everything that is missing from Harvey Mudd, Caltech or even MIT. It really makes the experience wonderful. Each campus is completely insular and intimate, with a well defined indentity, but you are able to explore and learn from the other personalities. Not to many students take classes at Mudd because they are tough, but I took most of my humanities as Pomona and Scripps, as well as theater, sports, blah blah blah. It was cool, and made the sometimes clumbsy social skills and single minded techno focus of Mudd students balance out. </p>
<p>If you want to go to Pomona or cmc, I think they have 3/2 programs with Mudd so you could get the best of both. I personally dont recommend it, I had 2 cmc 3/2s on my clinic team and they did not have background to contribute. But it is a really good program.</p>