Pomona College Top Questions

Yes and no. It's a particularly kind of snobbery. We are academic snobs, but in general, Pomona students are very welcoming and warm.

I think that the stereotypes of all the schools in the Claremont Consortium are rooted in truth but that they don't affect daily interactions; most people have friends at other colleges.

yes!

Hmm, I'd have to say it can be a pretty fair assessment. Some kids here are real assholes/douche bags... For the most part people are okay, but I would say that a lot of Pomona students do look down on the other 5Cs. Now, whether or not that’s a legitimate mindset is a different story, haha. As for the “rich white kid” stereotype, that’s true. Students here predominately come for elite preparatory schools and have never had a hard day in their life, economically speaking. Oh, and they tend to be very white. I’m not saying they’re all bad people, but it can be hard to relate to them if you come from a different background. Plus they tend to be kind of boring, predictable, and fake. On the opposite end of the spectrum you have the people of color, who are mostly crazy. They are so militant and out of touch with reality that it would be laughable if they weren’t so annoying. You might think I’m joking, but I’m not. These are (mostly) the sort of people that have largely forgotten what liberalism is and instead try to enforce their quasi-fascist (I’d rather not use that word, but I don’t know how else to convey it…) viewpoint on everyone else. The most annoying thing of all is that the most vocal group is AAMP (the Asian-American Mentor Program), but Asians have the least to complain about among all minorities. Don’t get me wrong—I’m a minority and am quite liberal. But I’m also rational, and most of these “people of color” (oh, be prepared to encounter all sorts of terms like this if you head to Pomona, e.g., “power dynamics” and “WOCs” aka “women of color”) just don’t have much ground to stand upon. They complain about the most trivial things and are waaaaay too sensitive. As a liberal, I do sympathize with a lot of their political views: imperialism is/was horrible, Latin America got fucked by the US, the US still fucks tons of people/countries over and it’s unacceptable, the government is a piece of shit, and so on. Also the white people here can be very stupid, so sometimes one just does want to smack them upside their heads and knock some sense into them. On the other hand, as a liberal, I also think there is something very wrong going on when you suspect that the people of color on campus would brainwash (well, actually I think they do brainwash people in some cases) or use Orwellian “thoughtspeak” to control the views and minds of others to conform to their agenda. As for the gay people, I’d actually say there really aren’t that many here, but they are very vocal. Not a bad thing, although all the minority communities here (as I implied earlier) tend to be extremely sensitive and can get annoying. The people here are generally liberal (white people mostly follow some sort of lackadaisical liberal agenda and pat themselves on their backs undeservedly, while the people of color tend to go the on the opposite end and follow the contrarian path of liberal insanity; thankfully there are some people who take the middle ground between the two extremes). So I guess the moral of the story is that you’ll have trouble relating with any major group on campus if you don’t share their background or their agenda. Pomona students also tend to be very cliquey, which just compounds the problem. That said, I don’t fall into any said group and I’ve found some of the best friends of my life here, so the picture is probably not as bad as I might have painted it. Or maybe I’ve just been lucky, haha.

To some extent. I think a lot of it can be attributed to jealousy. I know I'm being stuck up when I say this, but Pomona is the biggest campus, offers the most classes, is the most prestigious, etc. Taking a class at another school is generally just easier. Except for science classes at Harvey Mudd.

These stereotypes are completely inaccurate. Pomona students are as far from pretentious as they can possibly be. In fact, Pomona students are some of the most enthusiastic about interacting with students from the other four colleges.

On the whole, no these stereotypes are not accurate. They tend to eminate from the fact that Pomona usually has the most rigorous admissions standards of the five colleges, and there are a FEW students who remind opposing of that at competitions and athletic events. It also doesn't help that some students tried to make fun of the accusations by donning shirts that read "We're not elitist, we're just better than you." However, all the references to our students being "better" than those from other schools is simply done in rivalry and in jest, just as a majority of students from universities across the country will claim their own school's superiority at sporting events. This does not make us elitist. In fact, in my experience, Pomona students are as down-to-earth as any group of students at the colleges or any other schools I have visited.

Somewhat; Pomona students know that they must be smart if they got into Pomona, but I think the real source of campus rivalry among the Claremont Colleges comes from the sports teams. Pomona and Pitzer share sports teams, and Claremont McKenna, Scripps, and Harvey Mudd share teams. This rivalry is usually more fun than harmful.

The school is definitely way too politically correct for its own good.

Uh, see previous response. I don't think the kids as a whole are particularly snobby, although a few certainly are. I'm pretty sure they'd be jerks wherever they went to school though. Mostly we're sort of dorky, I think.