Pomona College

Not to be confused with California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Pomona College

Type	Private liberal arts college
Established	October 14, 1887 (1887-10-14)
Academic affiliations	Claremont Colleges 568 Group Annapolis Group CLAC COFHE NAICU Oberlin Group Space-grant
Endowment	$2.8 billion (2023)
Budget	$259 million (2023)
President	G. Gabrielle Starr
Academic staff	278
Administrative staff	271
Undergraduates	1,732
Location	Claremont , California , United States 34°05′53″N 117°42′50″W
Campus	Suburban,
Colors	Blue and white
Nickname	Sagehens
Sporting affiliations	NCAA Division III – SCIAC
Mascot	Cecil the Sagehen
Website	www.pomona.edu

Pomona College (/pəˈmoʊnə/ pə-MOH-nə) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California, and in 1925 it became the founding member of the Claremont Colleges consortium.

Pomona is a four-year undergraduate institution and enrolled approximately 1,700 students as of the fall 2024 semester. It offers 48 majors and roughly 650 courses, though students have access to more than 2000 additional courses at the other Claremont Colleges. The college's main campus is in a residential community 35 miles (56 km) east of downtown Los Angeles near the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Pomona has the lowest acceptance rate of any U.S. liberal arts college, and is ranked in the top four liberal arts colleges in the country by the major rankings. It has an endowment of $2.8 billion as of June 2023, giving it the seventh-highest endowment per student of any college or university in the U.S. In 2020, Niche ranked Pomona as the most diverse college or university in the country; among enrolled students, 73% hail from out of state, 55% receive need-based financial aid, and 66% identify as a person of color or an international student.

Pomona has approximately 25,000 living alumni. Prominent alumni include Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony award winners; U.S. Senators, ambassadors, and other federal officials; Pulitzer Prize recipients; billionaire executives; a Nobel Prize laureate; National Academies members; and Olympic athletes. The college is a top producer of Fulbright scholars and recipients of other fellowships.

History

An exterior view of the college in 1907, featuring its two earliest buildings: Sumner Hall (right) and Holmes Hall (left)

Founding era

Pomona College was established as a coeducational and nonsectarian Christian institution on October 14, 1887, amidst a real estate boom precipitated by the arrival of a transcontinental railroad to Southern California. Its founders, a regional group of Congregationalists, sought to create "a college of the New England type". Classes first began at Ayer Cottage, a rental house in Pomona, California, on September 12, 1888, with a permanent campus planned at Piedmont Mesa four miles north of the city. That year, as the real estate bubble burst, making the Piedmont campus untenable, the college was offered the site of an unfinished hotel (today's Sumner Hall) in nearby Claremont; it moved there but kept the Pomona name. Trustee Charles B. Sumner led the college during its first years, helping hire its first official president, Cyrus G. Baldwin, in 1890. The first graduating class, in 1894, had 11 members.

U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt speaks at Pomona in 1903

Pomona suffered through a severe financial crisis during its early years but managed to survive, raising enough money to add several buildings to its campus. Although the first Asian and black students enrolled in 1897 and 1900, respectively, the college remained almost all-white throughout its early years. In 1905, during president George A. Gates' tenure, the college acquired a 64-acre parcel of land to its east known as the Wash. In 1911, as high schools became more common in the region, the college eliminated its preparatory department, which had taught pre-college level courses. The following year, it committed to a liberal arts model, soon after turning its previously separate schools of art and music into departments within the college. Daily attendance at chapel was mandated until 1921, and student culture emphasized athletics and class rivalries. During World War I, the college oriented itself towards the war effort.

Interwar years

The College Gates c. 1915

In the early 1920s, the college’s growth led its fourth president, James A. Blaisdell, to call for "a group of institutions divided into small colleges—somewhat of an Oxford type—around a library and other utilities which they would use in common." This would allow Pomona to retain its small, liberal arts-focused teaching while gaining the resources of a larger university. On October 14, 1925, Pomona’s 38th anniversary, the Claremont Colleges were incorporated. This decade also saw the start of construction of the Clark dormitories north of 6th St., a reflection of president Charles Edmunds' prioritization of the college's residential life. Edmunds, who had previously served as president of Lingnan University in Guangzhou, China, also inspired a growing interest in Asian culture at the college.

Soldiers drilling on North Campus in 1943

Pomona's enrollment and budget declined during the Great Depression, and it once again oriented itself towards wartime activities during World War II.

Postwar transformations

Pomona's longest-serving president, E. Wilson Lyon, guided the college through a transformational period from 1941 to 1969. Following the war, Pomona's enrollment rose above 1000, leading to the construction of several new residence halls and science facilities. Its endowment also grew steadily, due in part to the introduction in 1942 of a deferred giving fundraising scheme pioneered by Allen Hawley called the Pomona Plan, where participants receive a lifetime annuity in exchange for donating to the college upon their death. The plan's model has since been adopted by many other colleges.

Men protest the opening of Frary Dining Hall to women in 1957

Lyon made a number of progressive decisions relating to civil rights, including supporting Japanese-American students during internment and establishing an exchange program with historically black Fisk University in Tennessee in 1952. He also ended the gender segregation of Pomona's residential life, first with the opening of Frary Dining Hall (then part of the men's campus) to women beginning in 1957 and later with the introduction of co-educational housing in 1968. However, he wavered when it came to some of the more radical student protests against the Vietnam War, and permitted Air Force recruiters to come to campus in 1967. Pomona's previously conservative student body quickly liberalized during this era, and its ethnic diversity also began to increase. In 1969, a bomb exploded at Carnegie Hall, permanently injuring a secretary; no culprit was ever identified.

During the tenure of president David Alexander from 1969 to 1991, Pomona gained increased prominence on the national stage, affirming its reputation as the premier liberal arts college in the West and one of the top colleges in the U.S. The endowment also increased ten-fold, enabling the construction and renovation of a number of buildings. Several identity-based groups, such as the Pomona College Women's Union (founded 1984), established themselves.

In 1991, the college converted the dormitory basements used by fraternities into lounges, hastening a lowering of the profile of Greek life on campus.

21st century

Pomona's Studio Art Hall, completed in 2014, garnered national recognition for its steel-frame design.

In the 2000s under president David W. Oxtoby, Pomona began placing more emphasis on reducing its environmental impact, committing in 2003 to obtaining LEED certifications for new buildings and launching various sustainability initiatives. The college also entered partnerships with several college access groups (including the Posse Foundation in 2004 and QuestBridge in 2005) and committed to meeting the full demonstrated financial need of students through grants rather than loans in 2008. These efforts, combined with Pomona's longstanding need-blind admission policy, resulted in increased enrollment of low-income and minority students.

In 2008, Pomona stopped singing its alma mater at convocation and commencement after it was discovered that the song may have been originally written to be sung as the ensemble finale to a student-produced blackface minstrel show performed on campus in 1909 or 1910. Many alumni protested the move.

In 2011, the college drew national media attention when it requested proof of legal residency from employees in the midst of a unionization drive by dining hall workers. 17 workers who were unable to provide documentation were fired; the dining hall staff voted to unionize in 2013.

A controversial 2013 rebranding initiative sought to emphasize students' passion and drive.

In July 2017, G. Gabrielle Starr became Pomona's tenth president; she is the first woman and first African American to hold the office.

Campus

Crookshank Hall, part of the Stanley Academic Quadrangle

Pomona's campus is in Claremont, California, covering an area of 140 acres (57 ha) on the alluvial fans from San Antonio Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains five miles (8.0 km) to the north. It is located directly northwest of the Claremont Village (the city's downtown commercial district) and directly south of the other contiguous Claremont Colleges.

In its early years, Pomona quickly expanded from its initial home in Sumner Hall, constructing several new buildings to accommodate its growing enrollment and ambitions. After 1908, development of the campus was guided by master plans from architect Myron Hunt, who envisioned a central quadrangle flanked by buildings connected via visual axes. In 1923, landscape architect Ralph Cornell expanded on Hunt's plans, envisioning a "college in a garden" defined by native Southern California vegetation. President James Blaisdell's decision to purchase undeveloped land around Pomona while it was still available later gave the college room to grow and found the consortium. Many of the earlier buildings were constructed in the Spanish Renaissance Revival and Mission Revival styles, and are of only one or two stories in height. Later buildings took inspiration from these styles, encompassing usually three or fewer stories bounded by stucco walls and facilitating both indoor and outdoor use.

As of 2020, the campus consists of 88 facilities, including 70 addressed buildings. It is bounded by First Street on the south, Mills and Amherst Avenues on the east, Eighth Street on the north, and Harvard Avenue on the west. It is informally divided into North Campus and South Campus by Sixth Street, with most academic buildings in the western half and a naturalistic area known as the Wash in the east.

South Campus

South Campus consists of mostly first-year and second-year housing and academic buildings for the social sciences, arts, and humanities.

Harwood Court, a south campus residence hall
(view as a 360° interactive panorama)

South of Bonita Avenue is a row of residence halls, including Wig Hall (built 1959), Harwood Court (built 1921), Lyon Court (built 1990), Mudd-Blaisdell Halls (built 1947 and 1936, respectively), and Gibson Hall (built 1949). Sumner Hall, the home of admissions and several other administrative departments, is located to the north of the dormitories, and Frank Dining Hall is located to the east. Oldenborg Center, a foreign language housing option that includes a foreign language dining hall, is across from Sumner.

South Campus includes several arts buildings and performance venues. Bridges Auditorium ("Big Bridges", built 1931) is used for concerts and speakers and has a capacity of 2,500. Bridges Hall of Music ("Little Bridges", built 1915) is a concert hall with seating for 600. It is adjacent to Thatcher Music Building (built 1970). On the western edge of campus is the Benton Museum of Art (built 2020), which has a collection of approximately 15,000 works, including Italian Renaissance panel paintings, indigenous American art and artifacts, and American and European prints, drawings, and photographs. The Seaver Theatre Complex (built 1990) includes a 335-seat thrust stage theater and 125-seat black box theater, among other facilities. The Studio Art Hall (built 2015) garnered national recognition for its steel-frame design. Pendleton Dance Center (built 1970 as a women's gym) is south of the residence halls.

Pomona's main social science and humanities buildings are located west of College Avenue. They include the Carnegie Building (built 1908 as a library), Hahn Hall (built 1990), and the three buildings of the Stanley Academic Quadrangle: Pearsons Hall (built 1898), Crookshank Hall (built 1922), and Mason Hall (built 1923).

Marston Quadrangle forms the center of Pomona's campus.
(view as a 360° interactive panorama)

Marston Quadrangle, a 5-acre (2 ha) lawn framed by California sycamore and coastal redwood trees, serves as a central artery for the campus, anchored by Carnegie on the west and Bridges Auditorium on the east. To its north is Alexander Hall (built 1991), which houses administrative offices, and the Smith Campus Center (built 1999), home to many student services, as well as a recreation room, the Coop Store, and two restaurants. East of the Smith Campus Center is the Rains Center (built 1989 and renovated 2021), Pomona's primary indoor athletics and recreation facility, and Smiley Hall dormitory (built 1908).

The college gates historically marked the northern edge of Pomona's campus.

At the intersection of Sixth Street and College Avenue are the college gates, built in 1914, which mark the historical northern terminus of the campus. They bear two quotes from President Blaisdell. On the north is "let only the eager, thoughtful and reverent enter here", and on the south is "They only are loyal to this college who departing bear their added riches in trust for mankind". Per campus tradition, enrolling students walk south through the gates during orientation and seniors walk north through the gates shortly before graduation.

The less-developed 40-acre (16 ha) eastern portion of campus is known as the Wash (formally Blanchard Park), and contains a large grove of coast live oak trees, as well as many athletic facilities. It is also home to the Sontag Greek Theatre (built 1914), an outdoor amphitheater; the Brackett Observatory (built 1908); and the Pomona College Organic Farm, an experiment in sustainable agriculture.

North Campus

Walker Hall, a North Campus residence hall, viewed across the Walker Beach lawn

Frary Dining Hall, decorated for the holidays
(view as a 360° interactive panorama)

North Campus consists primarily of residential buildings for third- and fourth-year students and academic buildings for the natural sciences.

The academic buildings are located to the west of North College Way. They include Lincoln and Edmunds Halls (built 2007), Andrew Science Hall and Estella Laboratory (built 2015), the Seeley G. Mudd Building (built 1983), Seaver North (built 1964), Seaver South (built 1958), and the Seaver Biology Building (built 2005). The courtyard between Lincoln and Edmunds contains Dividing the Light, a skyspace by well-known artist and alumnus James Turrell.

The residence halls include the Clark Halls (I, III, and V; built 1930), Walker Hall (built 1953), Norton Hall (built 1956), Lawry Court (built 1980), and Dialynas and Sontag Halls (built 2011). The North Campus dining hall, Frary Dining Hall (built 1930), features a vaulted ceiling and is the location of the murals Prometheus by José Clemente Orozco and Genesis by Rico Lebrun.

Other facilities

The college also owns the Trail Ends Ranch (a wilderness area in the Webb Canyon north of campus), the 320-acre (130 ha) Mildred Pitt Ranch in southeastern Monterey County, and the Halona Lodge retreat center (built 1931) in Idyllwild, California. The astronomy department built and operates a telescope at the Table Mountain Observatory.

Along the north side of campus are several joint buildings maintained by The Claremont Colleges Services. These include the Tranquada Student Center, home to student health and psychological services, Campus Safety, and the Huntley Bookstore. The Claremont Colleges Library (also known as Honnold/Mudd Library) holds more than 2.7 million items as of 2020, of which 1.1 million are physical and 1.7 million are digital. The consortium also owns the Robert J. Bernard Field Station north of Foothill Boulevard.

Organization and administration

Governance

Pomona is governed as a nonprofit organization by a board of trustees responsible for overseeing the long-term interests of the college. The board consists of up to 42 members, most of whom are elected to four-year terms with a term limit of 12 years. It is responsible for hiring the college's president (currently G. Gabrielle Starr), approving budgets, setting overarching policies, and various other tasks. The president, in turn, oversees the college's general operation, assisted by a faculty cabinet. Other officer and leadership roles defined in the college's bylaws are vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college, vice president for student affairs and dean of students, vice president for advancement, vice president and treasurer, vice president and dean of admissions and financial aid, registrar, and secretary to the board. Pomona operates under a shared governance model, in which faculty and students have a degree of control over decisions.

Academic affiliations

Honnold Library, a shared Claremont Colleges resource

Pomona is the founding member of the Claremont Colleges (7Cs), a consortium of five undergraduate liberal arts colleges (5Cs) and two graduate schools, all located in Claremont. Although each member has individual autonomy and a distinct identity, there is substantial collaboration through The Claremont Colleges Services (TCCS), a coordinating entity that manages the central library, campus safety services, health services, and various other resources. Overall, the 7Cs have been praised by higher education experts for their close cooperation, although Pomona's greater wealth than some of the other members has led to occasional tensions.

Pomona is also a member of several other consortia, including the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges, the Oberlin Group, and the Annapolis Group. The college is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, and is scheduled to undergo reevaluation in May 2021.

Finances

As of June 2023, Pomona has an endowment of $2.8 billion, giving it the seventh-highest endowment per student of any college or university in the U.S. The college's total assets (which includes the value of its campus) are $3.67 billion. Its annual operating budget is $259 million, of which roughly half is funded by endowment earnings. In 2020, Fitch Ratings gave the college a AAA bond credit rating, its highest rating, reflecting an "extremely strong financial profile".

Academics and programs

Pomona operates on a semester system. Students generally enroll in four full-credit courses each semester, though they can take up to six provided they have good academic standing. The college awards the bachelor of arts degree; thirty-two credits are needed to graduate, along with the requirements of a major, the first year Critical Inquiry seminar, six courses within the "Breadth of Study" area requirements, proficiency in foreign language, two physical education courses, a writing intensive course, a speaking intensive course, and an analyzing difference course (the last three can fulfill the Breadth of Study or major course requirements simultaneously).

Bridges Hall of Music hosts a variety of performances by the college's musical ensembles.

The average class size at Pomona is 15. Of the 436 traditional courses (i.e., excluding thesis, lab sections, and independent study courses) at Pomona offered the fall 2020 semester, 96% had under 30 students, and only one had 50 or more students. All classes are taught by professors, and there is an 8:1 ratio of students to full-time professors. Eighty-five percent of faculty live within five miles (8.0 km) of campus, and each faculty member has two meal swipes each week, which they often use to interact with students.

Any student attending Pomona can take up to 50% of their classes at the other four colleges in the Claremont Colleges. This policy is similar across the Claremont Colleges system; this concept is meant to give students the resources of a larger university while maintaining the positive qualities of a small liberal arts college. The academic calendars and registration procedures across the colleges are synchronized and consolidated, and there are no additional fees for taking courses at another college. In total, Pomona students have access to over 2,700 courses each year, including graduate level courses at the Claremont Graduate University and Keck Science Institute. In addition, students from any department can create independent study courses evaluated through the guidance of individual faculty mentors, with a limit of one course per semester in the first and second year, and two per semester in the third year and after.

Estella Laboratory, opened in 2015, houses Pomona's Physics and Astronomy Department and Math Department.

Pomona has 48 majors and 44 minors; students who would like to create their own major are eligible to do so following specific guidelines. The 10 most popular declared majors for Fall 2018, in order, are: Economics (118 students), Computer Science (91), Mathematics (67), Neuroscience (58), Politics (42), International Relations (41), Public Policy Analysis (41), Molecular Biology (39), Media Studies (38), and Psychology (32). The most popular major for Class of 2018 graduates was Economics, and approximately 15% of them received a double-major. While engineering is not directly offered by the college, students are eligible to cross-register at Harvey Mudd College or to pursue a combined engineering plan in collaboration with California Institute of Technology, Washington University in St. Louis, and Dartmouth College. Pomona College also offers a teaching credential program with the Claremont Graduate University and is a partner school with the Harvard Business School HBX-CORe program.

49% of Pomona students study abroad. Pomona offers 62 pre-approved programs in 34 countries. Students can study abroad in any major, and can petition to study abroad in an outside program. The college has a semester study-away program in Washington D.C. and the Silicon Valley offered through consortium member Claremont McKenna College, as well as a semester program in environmental science sponsored by the Marine Biological Laboratory. In addition, students can do a semester-exchange at Colby College, Spelman College, and Swarthmore College.

Pomona spent an average of $300,095 in educational spending per degree completion as of 2013, ranking it the highest among all peer liberal arts colleges for educational spending per capita and in the top 25 of all four-year private non-profit colleges and universities. For comparison, the average California four-year private non-profit spent $125,902, and the average among all four-year private non-profits in the US was $101,725.

Pomona is home to several research institutes, including the Pacific Basin Institute. The Sontag Center for Collaborative Creativity, colloquially termed "the Hive", was established in 2015.

Professional development

The majority of faculty work with one or more students on research projects in a variety of academic disciplines. 53% of students do research with faculty, and the College sponsors a subsidized Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) for its students every year. Students may choose to either work side-by-side with professors, or pursue their own independent projects. For the summers of 2012 and 2013, more than 460 students were involved with summer research. Many students also work with professors or do independent research during the school year. In addition, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) summer research program sponsors a consortium college summer research program, enabling Pomona students to participate in research opportunities at the other Claremont Colleges. Pomona was named by The Wall Street Journal as one of ten institutions where "Great Research Meets Great Teaching".

Pomona's Career Development Office is located in Alexander Hall.

The Pomona College Career Development Office provides pre-professional opportunities. The Pomona College Internship Program (PCIP) connected 134 students in the 2014–2015 year to paid internships undertaken during the school year at 102 different organizations in Southern California. Students receive a wage as well as transportation funding. The Summer Experience Funding (SEF) program provides funding for students with unpaid or low paying summer internships, including international internships. For the 2015–2016 year, 103 students received these awards in 90 sites, including 21 international internships; destinations included the United States Department of the Treasury, United Nations, Sony Entertainment Television, Ernst & Young, American Enterprise Institute, the International Criminal Court, and the Smithsonian, as well as academic experiences at research universities including UCLA, Caltech, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, and Stanford. The Shadow a Sagehen program enables current students to shadow alumni during winter break, the Sagehens in Residence program brings alumni to speak to students on campus, and the SagePost47 program links students to young alumni on a virtual platform for mock-interviews and networking. In addition, Pomona participates in Winter Career Recruiting, which provides travel funds for students applying for full-time positions and summer internships offered by companies based in Boston, New York City, Washington DC, and Los Angeles. By graduation, 89% of Pomona students have completed at least one internship experience; 70% have completed two or more.

Pomona collaborates with the other Claremont Colleges and consortia such as Selective Liberal Arts College Consortium (SLAC), Career and Intership Connections (CIC), and Liberal Arts Career Network (LACN). Most career based events are five college in nature, enabling students to attend a larger diversity of events than would be available at a single liberal arts college. The online HandShake program contains over 9,100 job postings, and the LACN database contains over 13,000 postings. 175 employers hosted on-site informational events at the Claremont Colleges, 265 unique organizations were represented in 9 career fairs, and 150 employers participated in interview and on-campus recruiting specifically for Claremont College students.

Outcomes

Pearsons Hall

Within 10 years, 83% of Pomona graduates attend graduate and/or professional school. Among Pomona applicants applying to medical school in the 2018 cycle, 85% were accepted, more than twice the national average of 32%. A 2016 study by College Transitions listed Pomona as among the 20 best colleges and universities for sending students to the top-ranked medical, business, and law schools per capita, as analyzed by LinkedIn profiles of alumni. Pomona ranks 12th among all colleges and universities for graduates receiving doctoral degrees on a size adjusted basis from 2006–2015, as well as 12th among those receiving STEM doctoral degrees alone.

Payscale ranked Pomona College 45th among colleges and universities (and 13th among liberal arts colleges) for its 2017–2018 Salary Report, with graduates earning an average early career salary of $60,600 and an average mid-career salary of $130,100. In a study on student debt produced by the Project on Student Debt for the Class of 2011, Pomona College was among the top 20 colleges and universities in the least amount of debt taken on by graduates.

Pomona has been recognized as a major contributor among small colleges sending alumni to the Teach for America program, and it ranks among the top 50 U.S. colleges and universities for producing career diplomats.

In a 2015 bulletin published by the Churchill Scholarship foundation, Pomona ranked as the liberal arts college with the highest number of students awarded the scholarship from 2005–2015, and fifth among all colleges and universities alone, tied with the California Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University. It also ranked as the liberal arts college with the largest number of students and alumni receiving National Science Foundation graduate research fellowships in 2017, with a total of 14 recipients. Since 1904, 12 Pomona alumni have received Rhodes Scholarships, the third most of any California college or university after Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley (Rhodes Scholarships are distributed equally among each state). 13 Pomona alumni have received Marshall scholarships since 1954, the third highest among liberal arts colleges and within the top 40 colleges and universities overall. From 2012–2017, six students and alumni received Gates Cambridge Scholarships. From 2008–2017, Pomona produced the most Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship recipients of any primarily undergraduate institution, with a total of 20 students. The college ranked second among all liberal arts colleges for students winning Fulbright Scholarships in the 2016–2017 cycle, tied with consortium member Pitzer College. Out of the quarter of the Class of 2017 who applied for fellowships in their senior year, 28 students received a total of 31 awards, including 13 Fulbright awards, 2 Downing Scholars in Downing College, Cambridge, 1 Watson Fellowship, 1 Princeton in Asia Fellowship, and 2 NYU Shanghai Teaching Writing and Speaking Fellowships. 15 Pomona alumni have received Truman Scholarships.

Rankings

Academic rankings
Liberal arts
U.S. News & World Report	4
Washington Monthly	6
National
Forbes	12
WSJ/College Pulse	23

The 2021 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking categorizes Pomona as "most selective" and names it the fourth best liberal arts college in the nation, along with second for "Best Value" and seventh for "Best Undergraduate Teaching". Pomona has been ranked in the top 10 liberal arts colleges every year by U.S. News since it began ranking them in 1984, and is one of only five schools with such a history.

In 2019, Forbes ranked Pomona 12th overall in its America's Top Colleges ranking (which includes 650 military academies, national universities, and liberal arts colleges) and first among liberal arts colleges alone. In 2015, it ranked Pomona first among all colleges and universities in the U.S.

In 2020, Washington Monthly ranked Pomona sixth out of 218 U.S. liberal arts colleges, based on its contribution to the public good, as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service.

The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education 2020 rankings rated Pomona 23rd out of over 800 U.S. colleges and universities, and third among liberal arts colleges alone.

Parchment ranked Pomona first among all colleges and universities in its 2017 Student Choice College Rankings, a measure of admitted students' revealed preferences among their college choices.

The Princeton Review has regularly included Pomona in several of its rankings, including best value colleges, best classroom experience, best financial aid, best run schools, most loved schools, most accessible professors, best quality of life, happiest students, best college dorms, and best science facilities.

Admissions and financial aid

Admissions

Admissions statistics
2019 entering classChange vs. 2014
Admit rate	7.4% ( −4.8)
Yield rate	54% ( +6)
Test scores middle 50%
SAT EBRW	690–750
SAT Math	700–790 ( +20 median)
ACT Composite	32–35 ( same median)
High school GPA
Top 10%	92% ( +1)
Top 25%	100% ( +1)

Pomona offers three routes for students to apply: the Common Application, the QuestBridge application, and the Coalition Application. Applicants who want an earlier, binding decision to the college can apply either early decision I or II; others apply through regular decision.

The college considers a variety of factors for the admissions process, placing greatest importance on course rigor, class rank, GPA, test scores, application essay, recommendations, extracurricular activities, talent, and character. Interviews, first generation status, geographic residence, race and ethnicity, volunteer work, and work experience are considered. Alumni relationships, religious affiliation, and level of interest are not considered.

Pomona has the lowest acceptance rate of any national liberal arts college in the U.S. For the 2023 entering class, Pomona admitted 6.8% of applicants. 47.8% of admitted applicants chose to enroll.

Pomona College's office of admissions is located in Sumner Hall.

The number of transfer applicants admitted has varied significantly by year. In 2020, Pomona admitted 39 of 396 applicants (9.8%). The college has publicly announced an interest in identifying community college transfers who are a good fit for the school.

Pomona is also a Posse Foundation partner college, and is part of many coalitions and initiatives targeted at bringing underrepresented demographics to higher education. Domestic programs include the Say Yes Education Compact, which offers full-tuition scholarships to students from urban school districts, the American Talent Initiative, a group of 86 colleges and universities seeking to "expand access and opportunity for highly-talented lower-income students", and Service to School's VetLink program, a group of 14 leading universities and liberal arts colleges seeking to support veteran applicants in the admissions process. International initiatives include the Sutton Trust, which identifies high-achieving low-income students in the United Kingdom to study in U.S. colleges, Bridge2Rwanda, a non-profit seeking to increase access to U.S. colleges for Rwandan students, and the Grew Bancroft Foundation, an organization seeking to connect Japanese students to U.S. liberal arts colleges.

Costs, financial aid, and socioeconomic impact

Pomona practices need-blind admission for students who are U.S. citizens, permanent residents, DACA status students, undocumented students, or who graduate from a high school within the United States, and meets 100 percent of demonstrated need for all admitted students, including admitted international students. No loans are packaged in the financial aid package, though students can choose to borrow if so desired. No merit awards or athletic scholarships are offered by Pomona.

For the 2024–2025 academic year, Pomona charged a tuition fee of $65,000. 55 percent of students received a financial aid package, with an average award of $56,395. 49 percent of international students received financial aid, with an average award of $66,125.

22 percent of Pomona College students qualify for Pell Grants, a federal financial aid grant reserved for domestic students of the neediest backgrounds. A 2017 review among top 50 LACs (as ranked by US News & World Report) identified Pomona as having the third highest Pell population as a percent of the first year class, after Soka University of America and Vassar College. According to a 2018 report by Third Way, Pomona was one of five colleges or universities (among 1566 analyzed) to graduate 100% of Pell Grant recipients within six years, considerably above the national graduation rate of this group at 51%. In 2017, The New York Times listed Pomona at #8 among "Top Colleges Doing the Most for the American Dream", based on net-prices for middle-income students and Pell percentage; Amherst College and Harvard University were the only other private institutions within the top 10.

People

Student body

Racial and ethnic composition of student body^† (spring 2021)

  White (30.2%)

  Hispanic (18.2%)

  Asian (18.9%)

  Black (11.1%)

  Native American (0.1%)

  Pacific Islander (0.4%)

  Multiracial (7.3%)

  International (10.5%)

  Unknown (3.3%)

^† "Hispanic" includes Hispanics of any race. All other categories refer to non-Hispanics.

As of the fall 2024 semester, Pomona's student body consists of 1,732 degree-seeking undergraduate students and a token number of non-degree seeking students. Compared to its closest liberal arts peers, Pomona is generally characterized as laid-back, academically-oriented, mildly quirky, and politically liberal.

The student body is roughly evenly split between men and women. 56.0% of students are domestic students of color, and an additional 10.5% are international students, making Pomona one of the most racially and ethnically diverse colleges in the U.S. The geographic origins of the student body are also diverse, with all 50 U.S. states (as well as D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam) and 59 foreign countries represented. 27% of students are from California, and there are sizable concentrations from the other western states. As of 2013, the median family income of students was $166,500, with 52% of students coming from the top 10% highest-earning families and 22% from the bottom 60%. The college has enrolled higher numbers of low-income students in recent years, and was ranked second among all private institutions in The New York Times' 2017 College Access Index, a measure of economic diversity.

For the 2020 entering class, the middle 50% of enrolled first-years scored 690–750 on the SAT evidence-based reading and writing section, 700–790 on the SAT math section, and 32–35 on the ACT. 29% were valedictorians of their high school class, 90% ranked in the top tenth, and 98% ranked in the top quarter (among students with an official class rank).

For the 2019 entering class, 97% of students returned for their second year, giving Pomona one of the highest retention rates of any college or university in the U.S. For the 2014 entering class, 89% of students graduated within four years (the highest of any U.S. liberal arts college) and 94% graduated within six years.

Alumni and faculty

Main article: List of Pomona College people

Jennifer Doudna '85 received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 for her work on CRISPR gene editing.

Pomona has approximately 25,000 living alumni. Of those who are working, 23.5% are in education, 23.8% are in business and finance, 10.4% are in law and government, 9.9% are in health and medicine, 4.3% are in science and technology, 5.1% are in arts and media, and 23% are in other fields.

Notable Pomona alumni include anthropologist David P. Barrows (1894); pioneer of Chinese social science Chen Hansheng (1920); U.S. Circuit judges James Marshall Carter (1924), Stephen Reinhardt (1951), and Richard Taranto (1977); actors Joel McCrea (1928) and Richard Chamberlain (1956); avant-garde composer John Cage (attended 1928–1930); U.S. Senators Alan Cranston (D‑CA; transferred c. 1934) and Brian Schatz (D‑HI; 1994); Flying Tigers member and Medal of Honor recipient James H. Howard (1937); fourteen-time Grammy-winning conductor Robert Shaw (1938); Gumby creator Art Clokey (1943); senior Disney executive Roy E. Disney (1951); several Academy Award-winning screenwriters, including Robert Towne (1956) and Jim Taylor (1984); writer, actor, and musician Kris Kristofferson (1958); Light and Space artist James Turrell (1965); Civil Rights activist and NAACP chairperson Myrlie Evers-Williams (1968); New York Times executive editor Bill Keller (1970); self-help author Marianne Williamson (attended 1970–1972); Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist Mary Schmich (1975); and Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Jennifer Doudna (1985).

As of the fall 2023 semester, Pomona employs 278 faculty members, approximately three quarters of whom are full-time. Among full-time faculty, 35.4% are members of minority groups, 46.1% are women, and 97.5% have a doctorate or other terminal degree in their field.

Notable faculty of the past and present include kabuki expert Leonard Pronko (taught 1957–2014), former U.S. ambassadors Michael Armacost (1960s) and Cameron Munter (2013–2015), jazz musician Bobby Bradford (1974–present), NBA basketball coach Gregg Popovich (1979–1988), novelists David Foster Wallace (2002–2008) and Jonathan Lethem (2011–present), and poet Claudia Rankine (2006–2015).

Student life

The Claremont Colleges

Further information: Claremont Colleges

Pomona is a member of the Claremont Colleges, and most social activities revolve around the five colleges, or "5Cs". Pomona College, Claremont McKenna College, Scripps College, Pitzer College, and Harvey Mudd College share dining halls, libraries, and other facilities throughout the contiguous campuses. All five colleges, along with Claremont Graduate University and the Keck Graduate Institute, are part of the Claremont University Consortium. Notable benefits of being in the consortium include equal access to seven dining halls and 10 additional on-campus eateries, the fifth largest private library collection in California, interaction with over 7,000 students, access to programs such as Harvey Mudd's Clinic Program and Claremont McKenna's Semester in Washington (DC) program, and the opportunity to do a housing exchange with a student at another college. Most events sponsored by each school are open to students from all of the Claremont Colleges, including invited speakers and performers, employment and recruiting events, and social events.

Campus organizations

North Campus in winter

There are more than 200 clubs and organizations across the Claremont Colleges.

The Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) serves as Pomona's official student government. Composed of elected representatives and appointed committee members, ASPC distributes funding for clubs and organizations, represents Pomona's student body in discussions with the administration, runs student programming (such as the Yule Ball dance and Ski-Beach Day) through the Pomona Events Committee (PEC), and provides various student services such as an airport rideshare program.

There are several media organizations at the Claremont Colleges, including most prominently The Student Life, the oldest college newspaper in Southern California. It publishes a weekly print edition as well as online content. Pomona also has a student-run radio station, KSPC. The Claremont Independent, a conservative magazine, has produced articles about the campuses' political culture that have been picked up by national conservative media outlets and drawn criticism from many students. The Golden Antlers publishes satirical content. Pomona's yearbook, Metate, was founded in 1894 and discontinued in 2012.

The Smith Campus Center is a focal point of campus life and houses the offices of the Pomona's student government.
(view as a 360° interactive panorama)

The Pomona Student Union (PSU) facilitates the discussion of political and social issues on campus. They describe their mission as "promoting honest and open dialogue in order to challenge the assumptions of students and the wider campus community." They hold discussions, panels, and debates with prominent speakers with the goal of stimulating conversation and creating an environment in which all viewpoints are represented. Notable speakers the PSU has brought to Pomona include Jon Meacham, Mari Matsuda, Sam Harris, Nadine Strossen, Michael Isikoff, and Slavoj Žižek.

The Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance Company (CCBDC) is one of the largest organizations on campus, with over 130 dancers. It offers dance classes on a variety of expertise levels and showcases several events and performances each year. CONTRAversial, the contra dance club of the Claremont Colleges, hosts monthly dances that are open to both students and community members. Other dance groups include the 5C Dance Company, hip-hop dance crews Groove Nation and Reverb, Tamasha (5C Bollywood Dance Company), 5C Ballet Company, Underground Blues, and 5C Freestylin' Collective.

On The Loose, the outdoors club of the Claremont Colleges, organizes frequent hikes in the San Gabriel Mountains north of campus.

On The Loose (OTL), the outdoors club of the 5Cs, sponsors trips to outdoors destinations. Its flagship event, an annual hike up Mt. Baldy in swimwear or goofy costumes, can draw more than 100 participants. It is affiliated with the Outdoor Education Center of Pomona College (OEC), which lends equipment to students for free and provides outdoor leadership training.

Pomona has numerous singing and a cappella groups, including Men's Blue and White, Women's Blue and White, the After School Specials, the Claremont Shades, Midnight Echo, the 9th Street Hooligans, Kosher Chords, and Mood Swing. It hosts the annual SCAMFest concert, which also draws in a capella singers from other Southern California universities, as well as the regional quarterfinals for the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. Other musical groups include the Pomona College Orchestra, Band, Choir, Glee Club, Jazz Ensemble, and Balinese Gamelan Ensemble. All Pomona College students, and Claremont College students in Pomona College ensembles, can receive private music lessons at no cost. The Pomona College Theater Department leads 3–4 mainstage productions each year, and there are a number of smaller student-run productions as well. The college also hosts two improv groups, Without a Box and Underground Theatrical Institute (UTI).

Pomona has two remaining local Greek organizations, Sigma Tau and Kappa Delta, both of which are co-educational. Neither have special housing, and they are not considered to have a major impact on the social scene on campus akin to that of Greek organizations at many other U.S. colleges.

Pomona's secret society, Mufti, is known for gluing small sheets of paper around campus with cryptic puns offering social commentary on campus happenings.

Sagehen Capital Management, Pomona's student-run hedge fund investment club, manages assets of over one million dollars from the college's endowment.

Pomona is home to numerous student support offices, which provide mentoring programs for students with particular identities. These include the Women's Union (WU), Office of Black Student Affairs (OBSA), Asian American Resource Center (AARC), Students of Color Alliance (SOCA), Chicano Latino Student Affairs (CLSA), Queer Resource Center (QRC), and the International Place of the Claremont Colleges (I-Place). The low-income and first-generation community on campus, Quest Scholars, has over 160 active members and provides all incoming first year low income students with upperclassman mentors. The Pomona Advocates support survivors of sexual violence and work to promote consent culture.

Residential life

Harwood Court, a south campus residence hall

Pomona is a residential campus, and students must apply to live off campus. Virtually all students live on campus for all four years in one of Pomona's 16 residence halls. All first-year students live on South Campus in Mudd-Blaisdell, Harwood, Wig, Lyon, and Gibson residence halls. All incoming students are placed into a sponsor group, with 10–20 peers and two or three upperclassmen "sponsors". This tradition, dating back to 1927, is meant to ease the transition to college life. Most juniors and seniors live on North Campus.

Every Sunday through Wednesday night, Frary Dining Hall opens for a late-night study-break known as Snack.

Traditions

Main article: Traditions of Pomona College

47 reverence

The number 47 has historical implications to the college and has been incorporated into various aspects of campus life. The tradition began in the summer of 1964, when two students, Laurie Mets and Bruce Elgin, conducted a research project seeking to find out whether the number occurs more often in nature than would be expected by chance. They documented various 47 sightings, and professor Donald Bentley produced a false mathematical proof that 47 was equal to all other integers. The number became a meme among the class, which spread once the academic year began and snowballed over time.

Notable 47 sightings include the fact that Pomona is located off of exit 47 of Interstate 10, and the fact that the largest residential building on campus, Mudd-Blaisdell (formally Florence Carrier Blaisdell and Della Mullock Mudd Hall, a title with 47 characters), was completed in 1947 and contains a staircase with 47 balusters.

Many Pomona alumni have deliberately inserted 47 references into their work. Joe Menosky (class of 1979), a writer for Star Trek: The Next Generation, inserted 47 mentions into nearly every episode of the show, a practice that has been picked up by other Star Trek writers. Pomona hosts a community service–oriented celebration every April 7 (abbreviated 4/7 in the U.S.). In the early 2010s, the college's clock tower was set up to chime on the 47th minute of the hour.

Other traditions

As part of Pomona's 10-day orientation, incoming students spend four days off campus completing an "Orientation Adventure" or "OA" trip. Begun in 1995, the OA program is one of the oldest outdoor orientation programs in the nation.

Every spring, the college hosts "Ski-Beach Day", in which students visit a ski resort in the morning and then head to the beach after lunch. The tradition dates back to an annual mountain picnic established in 1891.

All incoming students are placed into a sponsor group, with 10–20 peers and two or three upperclassmen "sponsors" tasked with easing the transition to college life but not enforcing rules (a duty given to resident advisors). Sponsor groups often share activities such as fountaining, a tradition in which students are thrown into a campus fountain on their birthday. The program dates back to 1927 for women, and was expanded in 1950 to include men.

Since the 1970s, Pomona has used a cinder block flood barrier along the northern edge of its campus, Walker Wall, as a free speech wall. Over the years, provocative postings on the wall have spawned a number of controversies.

Transportation

Claremont's train station is located two blocks south of campus, and provides direct access to downtown Los Angeles.

Pomona's campus is located two blocks from the Claremont Station, where the Metrolink San Bernardino Line train provides regular service to Union Station, Los Angeles (the city's main transit hub), and the Foothill Transit bus system connects to cities in the San Gabriel Valley and Pomona Valley.

The Green Bikes program at Pomona allows students to check out a bicycle free of charge for the duration of the semester, and provides free bicycle servicing and repair to all employees and students. More than 300 bicycles are available.

The college also has several Zipcar vehicles on campus that may be rented, and owns vehicles which can be checked out for club and extracurricular purposes. PEC and Smith Campus Center off-campus events are usually served with Pomona's 34-passenger bus, the Sagecoach.

Sustainability

The Sontag and Dialynas residence halls, built 2011, were the second large-scale residence halls in the United States to earn LEED platinum certifications.
(view as a 360° interactive panorama)

Pomona's Board of Trustees adopted the College's first Environmental Policy in 2002. The school subsequently hired its first Sustainability Coordinator in 2008 and its Sustainability Integration Office was created in 2009. The College buys local and organic food for its dining halls, has undertaken a variety of outreach initiatives; requires that all new construction meet LEED Silver standards; offsets a percentage of its emissions with Renewable Energy Credits; and reduces water consumption, especially in landscaping. The College was awarded an "A" for its sustainability initiatives by the Sustainable Endowments Institute in the College Sustainability Report Card 2011.

Community engagement

The Draper Center for Community Partnerships, established in 2009, serves as Pomona's community engagement center. The center provides students funding for summer and winter engagement, transportation costs for volunteering during the school year, leadership opportunities through which students can lead the various programs offered (known as Draper Center Coordinators), and advising for community engagement applications. It also provides students, faculty, and local residents a multitude of community engagement programs, including the Pomona Academy for Youth Success (PAYS), a three-year pre-college summer program for local low income and first generation students of color, and Alternabreak, a week-long community engagement trip for students during Spring Break.

Athletics

Main article: Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens

A Pomona-Pitzer football game

Varsity teams

Women's	Men's
Basketball	Baseball
Cross country	Basketball
Golf	Cross country
Lacrosse	Football
Soccer	Golf
Softball	Soccer
Swimming and diving	Swimming and diving
Tennis	Tennis
Track and field	Track and field
Volleyball	Water polo
Water polo

The school's varsity athletic teams compete in conjunction with Pitzer College (another consortium member) as the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens. The 11 women's and 10 men's teams participate in NCAA Division III in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC). Pomona-Pitzer's mascot is Cecil the Sagehen, a greater sage-grouse, and its colors are blue and orange. Its main rival is the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags and Athenas (CMS), the other sports combination of the Claremont Colleges.

Club and intramural sports are also offered in various areas, such as dodgeball, flag football, and surfing. The physical education department offers a variety of activity classes each semester, such as karate, playground games, geocaching, and social dance.

Athletic facilities at Pomona include five basketball courts, four racquetball courts, two squash courts, a weight room, an exercise room, two pools, two tennis court complexes, a football field, a track, a softball field, a baseball field, and four fields for soccer, lacrosse, ultimate frisbee, and field hockey.

Athletics history

Members of the Pomona football team from the class of 1907

Pomona's first intercollegiate sports teams were formed in 1895. They competed under a variety of names in the school's early years; the name "Sagehen" first appeared in 1913 and became the sole moniker in 1917. Pomona was one of the three founding members of the SCIAC in 1914, and its football team played in the inaugural game at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1923. In 1946, Pomona joined with Claremont Men's College (which would later be renamed Claremont McKenna College) to compete as Pomona-Claremont. The teams separated in 1956, and Pomona's athletics program operated independently until it joined with Pitzer College in 1970.

The Sagehens ranked 15th out of 322 competing Division III schools and 2nd among SCIAC schools in the 2023‍–‍2024 Division III NACDA Directors' Cup, which ranks athletics programs and awards points relative to their finish in NCAA championships.

Further reading

• Lyon, E. Wilson (1977). The History of Pomona College, 1887–1969. The Castle Press. OCLC 4114776.

External links

• Official website
• Website of The Student Life, the 5C newspaper
• Accreditation information at Western Association of Schools and Colleges
• Pomona College at College Navigator, a tool from the National Center for Education Statistics