Pomona: The Big Picture
Pomona's pretty great in terms of on-campus resources and attention paid to students. The per-capita budget is a truly absurd amount of money, and generally it shows. The financial aid office has also been ridiculously helpful. I literally wouldn't be at the school without them given it's rapidly increasing price tag. On the downside, the administration, or rather the highest levels of the administration, do a really poor job of responding quickly and well to student opinions. The responses I've gotten from them usually amount to something like "Oh, that's nice, you have an opinion. Now go play and let the adults deal with this." Obviously this is a slight exaggeration, but only slight. Several recent cases of this are: an ongoing workers' rights campaign in which the administration has been incredibly slow to even consider what the students have been saying, or a recent decision in hiring a new XC coach that basically completely ignored the opinions of the entire team. Claremont is kind of a suburban yuppie haven too, so if you're into that kind of thing it's fine, but for anyone who doesn't have 10 dollars to spend on every meal it can be a little frustrating sometimes. I find myself eating a lot of 5 dollar burritos at the Taco Factory when I eat out, which is actually fine because they make a damn fine burrito. Most of the really good stuff to do is outside of Claremont though, or at least not in reasonable walking distance. My life got much more interesting after I got a car last semester, because it's very nearly impossible to get much out of the LA area otherwise.
That said though, I like a lot of things about Pomona. The size is pretty much exactly what I wanted, the campus is beautiful and pretty much treats us like we're in a country club most of the time. Finding a group of friends has been a bit of trial-and-error, but I've met some great, smart, cool people there. As far as school pride...I honestly think a lot of Pomona kids are almost too introverted for much of that. There's a lot of egocentricity, but more in the sense that people are really focused on themselves and their careers.
Pomona Academic Life
Academics at Pomona are largely great. Classes are small, participation is encouraged and sometimes even required, professors will pay as much attention to you outside of class as you need/want, and are almost entirely friendly, interesting and helpful people. As a music major, my classes tend to be even smaller, and the camaraderie between the few of us and our professors is a very cool thing most of the time. The flip side of that is that you spend a lot of time with the same people, which in my case is fine because I like all of them. I actually had three of my classes last semester with the same teacher, who also happens to be my advisor, and we're still speaking to each other. So I see it as being largely a positive thing.
I think it's possible to work very little at Pomona and graduate. I also know that my last three semesters have been absurdly busy, although a lot of that is due to extracurriculars and work. The workload is definitely what you decide it's going to be though. Competition among students is pretty much nonexistent; people generally help each other out and want each other to do well.
General education requirements are pretty lax, you basically have to take a class each in five very general areas, plus foreign language proficiency of some sort and a PE class. I never had trouble finding something I was interested in.
The intellectual atmosphere is kind of a mixed bag. A lot of people definitely spend a lot of time getting wasted and pretend that they're not the dorks we all know we are, but there are plenty of people who have a pretty rich intellectual life outside of class. You just have to spend a little bit of time finding them.
Academics, at least in the departments I've spent most of my time in (Music, Spanish, Japanese) are definitely geared towards academia and future academics. There's definitely a way things are done, and it's generally a good way, but it can be a little stifling if you want to do something more, say, practical sometimes. It depends a lot on your department though.
Pomona's Student Body
Pomona is a relatively diverse campus, although there are certainly plenty of rich, pretty white kids. There is a lot of effort made to ensure that other groups have a voice though, as well as some sort of "support" organization or friendly space. This leads, in a lot of times, to different groups being fairly insular; i.e. "clicks" of people of similar backgrounds. This isn't to say that there isn't interaction, it's just that you have to be willing to step out of your comfort zone to form meaningful relationships with people who aren't like you. Which I'd say is pretty normal.
A bit more than half of the student body is on financial aid, and the average aid package is about half of tuition. So with that in mind, you have to assume almost half of Pomona's students can afford the hefty price tag. That said though, "income discussions" are pretty rare, and we're pretty liberal and largely politically aware and active on some level.
Pomona Student Activities + Social Life
Oh boy...Pomona's kind of a weirdo in terms of teams/organizations/etc. Our most successful sports teams are typically Men's XC, Women's Water Polo, and both Rugby and Tennis teams. This means that athletics and athletes occupy a less-important position socially than they would otherwise, although basketball and football games are still pretty big draws. Theater productions are usually fairly successful, if somewhat infrequent. The improv comedy and acapella groups on campus have regular shows which are generally well-attended and worth attending. Guest speakers are almost uniformly big-name and worth going to. The Smith Campus Center organizes a lot of pretty cool events, like a free arcade night, $1 movies, DDR and foosball tournaments, etc, and other student groups organize tons and tons of different kinds of events. Another great resource is On The Loose, which gets groups of kids to various cool parks/camping/adventuring types of things. Whatever your taste on the weekends, chances are you can find something to do on campus. Also, if you have access to a car, the range of stuff to do in the LA area is pretty crazy. Concerts, theater, opera, clubs, rallies, food, national parks, sightseeing, beaches, etc. LA is a big, intense places, and once you start to get a feel for it there's really a lot of cool stuff to do. You just need a car.
At least in the freshman halls, open doors and lots of interaction is very common. I'm still close with kids I lived with freshman year. I met some great kids on the XC team, and a fair amount in classes and music extracurriculars. The dating scene is, for lack of a better term, kind of bipolar. It's commonly said that there are two speeds for Pomona dating, either just sleeping together or in a really serious relationship, which I've found to be pretty accurate. People tend to be inwardly-focused enough such that there's not much room for relationships of other types, although the rest of the spectrum IS there if you look for it hard enough.
Partying depends a lot on who you talk to. I know people on every end of the partying spectrum, from five nights/days a week borderline alcoholics to people who are completely sub-free. Wherever you fit in, there's probably a group for you though.
Pomona Naked Truth
Hah, Say Anything. Funny movie.
