Claremont Colleges Visit

 

I was in Southern California and had the opportunity to visit the Claremont Colleges. There are seven Claremont Colleges, five undergraduate and two graduate schools, which gives students the opportunity to attend a small school but have the social and academic benefits of a bigger school. In addition, the combined schools have NCAA Division III men's and women's athletic teams. The five undergraduate colleges at Claremont are Claremont McKenna, Scripps (women's college), Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, and Pomona.

I spent most of my time on the Pomona and Claremont McKenna campuses, featured here. As always, I'd encourage you to check out the school's website, and their social media account. I've been enjoying the Pomona Insta take overs, and here's some advice to high school seniors from a current student, "Pomona really does value a "holistic" process, meaning they truly value your essays, recommendations, supplements, etc., not only test scores and GPA. So don't be afraid to show your quirks and the interesting wacky things about you! A friend of mine made a music video to ABBA's take a chance on me" to send to Pomona....and got in."

"The seven independent institutions offer rigorous curricula, small classes, distinguished professors, and personalized instruction in a vibrant residential college community that provides intensive interaction between students and faculty. "

The colleges are located in Claremont, a walkable college town with restaurants, shops and entertainment. Claremont is about 35 miles east of LA, making it very accessible to a big city and the campus is about 10 miles from the Ontario airport. I spoke to a few students who said taking the train into Los Angeles was very easy and accessible and one even had an internship last year in downtown LA a few days a week.

The consortium of colleges is on about 500 acres and it's easy to get around from one campus to the next. Each of the Claremont colleges has its own specialty and personality but what's unique to these colleges is students are able to choose from over 2,000 courses offered each year across the colleges. With 7,700 students and 3,600 faculty and staff, the vibe is one of cohesiveness, collaboration, academic curiosity, and rigor. There is A LOT of emphasis on how accessible professors are. More than 2/3 of students go on to graduate programs, but I was told several times that the focus during undergraduate studies didn't feel pre-professional, academic pursuits are the main goal and many students have multi-faceted interests.

At Jett Ed, visiting colleges, meeting with admissions officers, students and faculty are huge parts of our services. It allows us to give our students more visibility into schools before they go themselves.