Pomona College

Summary

Pomona College is a private institution that was founded in 1887. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 1,650, its setting is suburban, and the campus size is 140 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Pomona College's ranking in the 2016 edition of Best Colleges is National Liberal Arts Colleges, 4. Its tuition and fees are $47,620 (2015-16).

Pomona College is located in Claremont, California, 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles near the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Pomona’s founders envisioned "a college of the New England type" when they created this school with small classes and strong student-faculty relationships. Pomona is a member of the NCAA Division III Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. On-campus housing is guaranteed if requested, and more than 97 percent of students live in the 14 residence halls, two-thirds of which contain single rooms. Pomona offers more than 200 student organizations. A well-known secret club called "Mulfi" has left cryptic notes with social commentary around campus since the 1940s. Students can also get involved with the three campus fraternities.

Pomona College has around 45 majors and offers a 8:1 student-faculty ratio. Pomona students can also take classes at the other six colleges in the Claremont Colleges consortium: Scripps College, Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College, Pitzer College, Claremont Graduate University and Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences. More than half of Pomona students study abroad through the nearly 50 programs Pomona offers in approximately 30 countries. "Ski-Beach Day" takes advantage of Pomona’s unique location: Students ski at a local resort in the morning, and spend the afternoon at a beach in Orange County. Notable alumni include former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller and renowned choral conductor Robert Shaw.

Pomona offers its nearly 1,600 students-evenly divided between men and women-a comprehensive curriculum in the arts, humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. With a student-faculty ratio of eight to one, students have the opportunity to work closely and collaboratively with professors who are also top scholars in their fields. Students and faculty challenge each other in laboratories, classrooms, and co-curricular activities, and everyone benefits from the energy generated by such an assemblage of sharp and eager minds. Friendships forged among Pomona faculty and students frequently endure far beyond the four years of college. Few institutions offer Pomona's ability to combine intimate qualities as an average class size of 15 with such large-scale resources as a two-million-volume library. Fewer have enrolled as talented and high achieving a student body which is as happy with their environment and choice. As the founding member of The Claremont Colleges, a unique consortium of seven independent institutions on adjoining campuses, Pomona offers its students the experience of a small, academically superb liberal arts college and the breadth of academic and social resources normally associated with major universities. Students challenge and learn from one another not only in the classroom but also in daily life. On-campus housing is guaranteed, and few students choose to live anywhere else. The extraordinary ethnic and social diversity of its student body gives Pomona a broader mix of backgrounds than just about any comparable educational institution. Our location-within an hour of the Pacific Ocean, the Mojave Desert, the San Gabriel Mountains and the city of Los Angeles-informs and shapes daily life at the College. There aren't many places in the world where you can ski in the morning, play on the beach in the afternoon, and take in a major league baseball game or an opera at night. Beyond the recreational and cultural possibilities, our location offers unequalled opportunities for field study, community involvement and internships. Pomona students are so varied that they resist easy categorization. They embrace new ideas, take initiative, ask questions and challenge the status quo. They are as academically capable a group as any college or university can claim, and they are interested in doing something important with their talents.

Our students share a spirit of openness and collaboration. Our students are competitive but not cutthroat - a very important distinction. They work hard, but don't compare grade point averages to peers. Maybe it's the weather or the palm trees but, we tend to think it's something more: a cooperation fostered by faculty in the lab and classroom. Professors encourage collaboration, and many students continue working together after class, forming study groups that meet in the residence halls, in lounges and computer labs and over laptops and shakes at the Coop Fountain. Students come to Pomona from every state in the nation and from many other countries, from private and public schools, from large cities, suburbs and towns so small they don't appear on most maps. More than one-third are students of color, and a substantial portion are in the first generation of their families to attend a four-year college or university. To maintain the remarkable strength and variety of Pomona's student body, the College's financial resources are critical.

For U.S. citizens and permanent residents, admission decisions are made without consideration of a student's financial circumstances. Over half of Pomona's students receive financial aid from the College to support their study, and the College meets 100 percent of the demonstrated financial need of every enrolled student. This practice ensures that the most capable students will always be able to enroll at Pomona regardless of their financial circumstances.

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