Pomona: The Big Picture
Pomona is amazing. It has a unique small college environment mixed with a big college social life due to the Claremont Consortium, while consists of five schools. We can take classes at any school in the Consortium and go to their parties, while still having small classes and close relationships with our teachers. It somewhat sad that when I tell people I go to Pomona the normal response is "Oh is that a community college?" Pomona is very selective and amazing, but virtually unknown. The town is small and has some good restaurants and some small boutiques, however students spend most all their time on campus and often neglect the town and Los Angeles which is only a 30 minute drive away. That said it's easy to get off campus and into LA if one wants too. There is not a lot of school athletic pride. Many students don't attend athletic events or even know what's going on with the school teams.
Pomona Academic Life
Professor definitely know your name and I've been to two of my professor's houses for dinner. Freshman get to take a really interesting freshman seminar of their choice and I took Dangerous Books, which was as interesting as the title sounds. Students study A LOT and if you don't learn how to skim reading then you may be in trouble. That said, it's really easy to learn how to balance your study time with a social life. Class participation is really important even in math and science classes on the whole because the class size is so small! Students NEVER talk about their grades and therefore aren't competitive with each other about grades, although they are very competitive with themselves. The academic requirements are pretty relaxed and can be fulfilled completely freshman year. The education is geared to learning for the sake of learning but Pomona students usually have no trouble finding a job once they graduate.
Pomona's Student Body
Pomona definitely leans to teh left. Students are very politically correct and there are groups for many races, religions, and for LGBT that students can easily get involved in. Financial aid is need blind so students come from all over the socio economic spectrum. Students are casual and often wear flip flops and tank tops to class.
Pomona Student Activities + Social Life
I'm involved with the Varsity softball team which is very competitive in itself, but in general sports are pretty much ignored by much of the student body. Lots of guest speakers come to Pomona--Bono was recently here and Bill Clinton came to speak a few years ago to name two. Dating often occurs when people start consistently hooking up drunk and it seems like people are either in long term relationships or single. Many of my closet friends are in my sponsor group, a group of 10-20 people who live together with two sophomore sponsors which is a group Pomona has for freshman to help them adjust to college. On people's birthdays they get thrown in a fountain. Also the school pays for Death by Chocolate every winter in December, which is where students are given an absurd amount of free chocolate. People can party or not party as much as they want to. There's something going on almost every night and there are also substance free events thrown by That Saturday Group weekly.
