What schools are the incoming students turning down to attend Pomona?

Colleges & Universities A-Z Pomona College
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<p>A survey was asked among incoming freshmen on May 1st to see the type of peer institutions commonly considered by Pomona, and the types of decisions students made given their choices. 164 responses were submitted, of which 115 were non-ED and committed to Pomona, 27 were ED students, and 22 were students who chose another school. </p>

<p>These were the results.</p>

<p>In total, 149 different institutions were turned down for Pomona among the 115 non-ED students. These include:</p>

<p>Liberal art colleges- Amherst (18- yes, this means more than 10% of the sample size turned down Amherst), Williams (15), Bowdoin (14), Wesleyan (14), Swarthmore (12), Vassar (11), Middlebury (9), Macalester (9), Carleton (8), Oberlin (6), Haverford (5), Reed (5), Colorado (4), Occidental (4)</p>

<p>Ivies and comparable institutions- Cornell (17), Brown (9), U'Penn (6), Dartmouth (5), Yale (4), Duke (4), Stanford (3), Columbia (2), Harvard (2), MIT (2), Princeton (2)</p>

<p>Private research universities- USC (15), Tufts (12), Northwestern (11), WashU (11), Vanderbilt (8), Emory (7), Rice (5), University of Chicago (5), Carnegie Mellon (5), NYU (4), Brandeis (3)</p>

<p>Public universities- UCLA (20), Berkeley (19), UCSD (14), UCD (10), UVA (7), UW (5), UT Austin (4), UCSB (4), UCI (4), UIC (4), Cal Poly SLO (3), William and Mary (3)</p>

<p>International schools- McGill (7), Tokyo University, University of Oxford, University College of London, Yale-NUS College, NYU-Abu Dhabi, Stirling, St. Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee</p>

<p>Other Claremont Colleges: Harvey Mudd (1), CMC (3), Scripps (5), Pitzer (4)</p>

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<p>I don’t really know how this is very relevant. Every school gets students who turn down a lot of other schools. It isn’t that uncommon for some of them to be higher ranked – students who value fit will do that fairly often. </p>

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<p>Among the 23 students who said chose another institution in favor of Pomona, the schools they will attend are:</p>

<p>Swarthmore (4), Stanford (3), Princeton (2), Columbia (2), UC Berkeley (2), USC, MIT, Harvard, Northwestern, Caltech, Williams, Grinnell, CMC, University of Michigan</p>

<p>Students were also asked to list why they choose the schools they did from a checklist of options:</p>

<p>140 (85.3%) chose the school because the student body and residential life fit them better.
126 (76.8%) chose the school with better academics for their individual needs.
114 (69.5%) chose the school with the better location.
69 (42.0%) chose the school with the better financial aid.
63 (38.4%) chose the school which they thought was more prestigious in elite circles.
40 (24.3%) had reasons to chose the school beyond the categories listed.
21 (12.8%) chose the school that they thought was more well known among the general public.
8 (4.8%) said that their parents played a heavy role in the school they ended up at.</p>

<p>So it seems that most enrolling students do not think Pomona has much of a reputation among the general public, but they still turned down other more well known options primarily because of fit and academics.</p>

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<p>It’s also important to note that the sample size is obviously skewed, as most students who had turned down Pomona left the group prior to May 1st (or didn’t follow it). The yield this year is 49%, so 51% of the admitted students chose to go to other places.</p>

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<p>As have students at many other schools… again, I don’t see why this is relevant. Plus, it clearly is not a complete sample. More than 23 students turned down Pomona, and you have no idea what those stats look like (if they mattered). </p>

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<p>INTP Parent, it’s interesting. Simple as that. You may not think much of it, but it caused a big interest on the Facebook Group and even admissions wanted to get a sense of the results. </p>

<p>Peer institutions are a big source of interest in considering schools. One of Pomona’s most viewed topics on CC is “What did you turn down for Pomona”? This is perhaps the most thorough survey done on peer comparisons among incoming students. It gives admitted students an idea of the type of decisions that other admitted students do. </p>

<p>The data isn’t all statistical. It reveals some trends too- for the first time, highly prestigious international schools are being turned down, representing that Pomona is becoming a more well known school. It reveals that students who go to Pomona come from all sorts of geographic backgrounds, and are equal in their consideration of universities and liberal art colleges in applying to Pomona. It reveals the common reasons why people end up attending Pomona. It shows that students who apply to Pomona don’t really apply to the other Claremont Colleges. You may look at it and think that it is all obvious, but beyond the few threads here and there nothing this extensive has been done to categorize the decision making process of admitted students at Pomona. Don’t make a point about relevancy and universalize it for the entire community. </p>

<p>Does it have its flaws? Obviously. It is far more representative of enrolling students. But I don’t think that makes the data less viable.</p>

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<p>You are just looking for ways to toot the Pomona horn again… but I don’t see it as very relevant, again. If you can’t see the same stats for other competitor schools, then it doesn’t tell you much. And if it isn’t a complete sample, it also doesn’t show much (it is potentially cherry picked – the kids who turned down Swat for Pomona are more likely to tell you than the kid who turned down Montana State – people like to brag about where they got in). Also, you can’t see the geographic piece of it – were kids who turned down east coast schools from the west coast? So maybe part of their reason for picking was because it seemed too far away to attend some of the schools on your list. The data just doesn’t mean much, and my guess is it doesn’t look any better than that of a lot of other fairly highly ranked schools. </p>

<p>Here is another thing to think about – a small number of students may have made up a lot of the ‘top’ schools that were turned down for Pomona. One student might have turned down Yale, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and Princeton to attend Pomona. So what looks like an impressive list becomes less so when it is one student who made the choice. You might have had only half a dozen students who turned down higher ranked schools, and another 10 who were west coast students who never really meant to attend Amherst because of the distance. </p>

<p>Just saying there is nothing too dramatic about the data without further statistical info behind it. It is “interesting”, but not very telling.</p>

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<p>As the parent of a rising senior who wants to apply to Pomona, I found this interesting. Thanks for posting, @nostalgicwisdom. </p>

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<p>Of course I’d be posting about Pomona? This is the <em>Pomona</em> thread on college confidential. Why are you here if you’re expecting anything else?</p>

<p>Not once did I say anything about how this makes Pomona inherently better than another institution. I just listed the findings and mentioned some of their interesting outcomes. You’re presenting a straw man out of my points. </p>

<p>And actually, you’re wrong about the whole Montana State thing. The students were quite honest about all of the schools that accepted them. As I stated before, 149 different institutions were listed. I put down the most commonly named ones. If you want a complete listing of the 149 schools, I’d be more than happy to give it to you, but schools like RPI and Creighton were only turned down by 1 student. I separated international schools for a reason because they are perhaps the most interesting data point.</p>

<p>The focus of this data isn’t that the most prestigious schools are turned down for Pomona. That’s what you’re choosing to make it, and that represents your own vendetta, not mines. I personally find other parts of the data far more interesting. </p>

<p>I never suggested that the data was perfect or conclusive. And I personally disagree with you about the relevancy of the data, if simply for the fact that you won’t find a similar set of data elsewhere. 137 students represents nearly 30% of the incoming class. I think that is already quite representative. Please tell me where you will find a survey sample that has more respondents. </p>

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<p>Actually, it’s more representative than it appears. 210 students were accepted via ED this year, so they didn’t get to make a choice beyond Pomona. 210 + 115 means 70% of the incoming class. I think the statistics are quite telling for students who made enrollment deposits with Pomona.</p>

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<p>Thanks for posting, nostalgicwisdom. I find it interesting, as the parent of a rising Pomona sophomore who turned down many of those other schools for Pomona!</p>

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<p>Thank you for the information nostalgicwisdom; please post more info like this one.
Since Pomona does not “advertise” itself, and the number of its students is so small as compared to others universities, prospective applicants, parents, as well as people who are already in do need more information. For sure, numbers are never perfect, and the way one interprets these numbers can go in all directions, but it is more important to have them than speculating whether they might be misinterpreted.</p>

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<p>I will add another dimension. Not only does it have little relevance, it probably has little accuracy as students routinely misrepresent the schools they “turned down” in similar threads that are “What schools I turned down to attend Pomona” This is self-reported and most often non-verifiable. </p>

<p>For instance, students who came through Questbridge and were the beneficiary of the CollegeMatch should have a hard time claiming they turned down schools as the information related to the other acceptances is NOT shared with the “winning student.” </p>

<p>Yet, it happens! </p>

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<p>Not sure why you’d call it thorough! I think it is unreliable and probaly riddled by half-truths and lies. </p>

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<p>I can only comment on my situation. I turned down Stanford, USC, UCLA, Columbia and NYU to attend Pomona. As a graduate, I have no regrets for having done so.</p>