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Claremont Colleges

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Address
  
Claremont, CA 91711, USA

Founded
  
1925

Phone
  
+1 909-621-8000

Claremont Colleges

Subsidiaries
  
Claremont McKenna College, Pitzer College

Similar
  
Claremont McKenna College, Pomona College, Pitzer College, Scripps College, Harvey Mudd College

Walking through the claremont colleges


The Claremont Colleges are an American consortium of five undergraduate and two graduate schools of higher education located in Claremont, California, a city 35 miles (56 km) east of downtown Los Angeles and 25 miles (40 km) west of downtown San Bernardino. Unlike most other collegiate consortia, such as the Five College Consortium in Massachusetts and the Tri-College Consortium in Pennsylvania, the Claremont College campuses are adjoining and within walking distance of one another. Put together, the campuses cover roughly 1 square mile (2.6 km2).

Contents

Known colloquially to students as the 7Cs—or the 5Cs, when referring only to the undergraduate institutions—the Claremont Colleges were founded in 1925 when the all-graduate Claremont University College (now Claremont Graduate University) was established in addition to the older all-undergraduate Pomona College. The purpose of the consortium is to provide the specialization, flexibility and personal attention commonly found in a small college, with the resources of a large university. Their compartmentalized collegiate university design was inspired by Oxford University and Cambridge University. With more than 6,300 students, about 700 faculty, and approximately 1,600 staff and support, the colleges offer more than 2,000 courses to students. The Claremont Colleges are a unique consortium that the Fiske Guide called "a collection of intellectual resources unmatched in America". For the Class of 2020 admissions cycle, four of the five most selective liberal art colleges in the U.S. by acceptance rate were among the Claremont Colleges, while Scripps had the second lowest acceptance rate among women's colleges, preceded by Barnard College.

Claremont colleges promotional video circa 1963


Colleges

The five undergraduate colleges are:

  • Pomona College (founded 1887), a small, coeducational, liberal arts college which offers majors in humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Pomona College is the founding member of the Claremont Colleges.
  • Scripps College (founded 1926), a small, liberal arts, women's college, which offers 35 majors in both the sciences and humanities.
  • Claremont McKenna College (founded 1946), a small, coeducational, liberal arts college which specializes in economics, political science, international relations, and public policy. It also maintains a broad set of majors in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Claremont McKenna College is also home to the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, which offers both an undergraduate program and a master's program in finance.
  • Harvey Mudd College (founded 1955), a small, coeducational college specializing in engineering, mathematics, computer science, and the physical and biological sciences but also includes coursework in the humanities and social sciences.
  • Pitzer College (founded 1963), a small, coeducational, liberal arts college offering an alternative curriculum, noted for interdisciplinarity. It also has a particular emphasis upon social justice and social responsibility. Pitzer is part of the SAT optional movement among liberal arts colleges.
  • The five undergraduate Claremont Colleges are commonly referred to as the "5Cs", while "7Cs" is used to refer to all the colleges, including the two graduate institutions.

    The two graduate universities are:

  • Claremont Graduate University (founded 1925), awards master’s and doctoral degrees in 31 disciplines: arts, humanities, social sciences, behavioral & organizational sciences, management/executive management, psychology, educational studies, religion, mathematical sciences, information systems & technology, community & global health, and botany.
  • Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences (founded 1997), a biomedical graduate school offers professional Master of Bioscience (MBS) degree and PhD in Applied Life Science for MBS graduates. It also offers a Postdoctoral Professional Masters (PPM) and a joint PhD program in computational biology with Claremont Graduate University. The Keck Graduate Institute School of Pharmacy opened in 2014 offering a four-year Doctorate of Pharmacy degree (Pharm.D.).
  • The Claremont School of Theology (founded 1885) (and thus Claremont Lincoln University) is affiliated with the consortium, but is not a member.

    Rankings

    According to the American Liberal Arts College rankings released by U.S. News & World Report in fall 2016, the "5Cs" were ranked among the top 40 liberal art colleges in the United States: Pomona College (#7), Claremont McKenna College (#9), Harvey Mudd College (#21), Scripps College (#23), and Pitzer College (#32). Additionally, all of the undergraduate colleges are categorized as "Most Selective". U.S. News & World Report also releases individual graduate program rankings for the Claremont Graduate University, with several of its programs ranking in the top tier of graduate programs nationwide.

    History

    In October 1923, President James A. Blaisdell of Pomona College wrote to Ellen Browning Scripps describing a vision of educational excellence he had for the future Claremont Colleges:

    I cannot but believe that we shall need here in the South [of California] a suburban educational institution of the range of Stanford. My own very deep hope is that instead of one great undifferentiated university, we might have a group of institutions divided into small colleges — somewhat on the Oxford type — around a library and other utilities which they would use in common. In this way I should hope to preserve the inestimable personal values of the small college while securing the facilities of the great university. Such a development would be a new and wonderful contribution to American education. Now the thing which would assure this future institution to Southern California is land... It is now or never. To save the needed land for educational use seems to me to guarantee to Southern California one of the great educational institutions of America. Other hands through the centuries will carry on the project and perfect it. But never again can there come so fundamental a service as this.

    Athletics

    Athletics teams from Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College and Scripps College compete as one team. Male athletic teams are called the Stags, and women's teams are called the Athenas. The teams participate in the NCAA's Division III and in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) as Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS). Pomona College and Pitzer College compete together as Pomona-Pitzer in the SCIAC. Their teams are called the Sagehens.

    In addition to the Stags/Athenas and the Sagehens, there are several 5C club sports teams, including roller hockey, men's and women's rugby union, both of whom attended Division II Nationals in 2004 and 2006, the men's team winning the Division II national championship in 2010, men's lacrosse, field hockey, crew, cycling, women's ultimate, who reached Nationals in 2004, 2011, and 2013, and won the tournament in 2012, and men's ultimate frisbee, 2008 Southern California Sectional champions and 2011 Division III National champions.

    The Claremont Roller Hockey Club, the Claremont Centaurs, has also been one of the more successful Claremont Consortium clubs, winning the Division 3 Championship of the WCRHL (West Coast Roller Hockey League) in 2009–2010, 2010–2011, and 2011–2012.

    References

    Claremont Colleges Wikipedia