Claremont McKenna College | Student Reviews | Best College

Student Profile

Olivia

Class: Senior
Major: Environmental Sciences
Gender: F

High School: Montgomery Blair High School
Transfer Student: N

Big Picture

CMC is awesome. It's in a gorgeous area with perfect weather and there's always a lot of stuff going on on-campus. You get the benefits of a small school in terms of small class sizes and getting to know your professors on a really personal level, but you have the resources of a large school because it's part of a larger consortium. If you get sick of the kids on campus there's always four other schools where you can go hang out. You won't spend much time partying off-campus because there isn't much of a college town, but then again partying on-campus is way more fun than going to the local bars where everyone's old and ugly and the drinks are expensive. There are tons of AWESOME places to go hiking, and if you don't have a car or gear it doesn't matter because there is an extremely well-organized outdoors club among the five colleges, and the club helps fund trips, coordinates carpools, and provides gear for free (unless you damage it). One really cool thing about CMC is that it will help fund you for almost anything you want--trips, internships, events, speakers, etc. For instance, the school gave me several thousand dollars to go to Ecuador and work with an environmental NGO this summer--the faculty is very invested in helping you chase your goals.

Academic Life

Professors know you by name and almost all of them will take the time you meet with you individually throughout the semester. Students are not competitive at all--no one really cares what grades other people are getting. There are tons of opportunities to get to know your professors outside of class--you can go to lunch with them or visit them during their office hours almost every day. CMC's academic requirements are very reasonable--I personally think it's a lot less work than I had in high school or middle school.

Student Body

CMC students are generally pretty spoiled, but no more so than at any other private liberal arts college. You can wear whatever you want to class--if you show up in pajamas, no one will care. People generally dress preppy at CMC, but not to the point where you feel like you're living in an Abercrombie ad. In terms of homosexuality, people are generally pretty cool, although maybe not as universally open-minded as kids at, for example, Wesleyan. I'm speaking from the perspective of a girl though--I think it's probably a lot harder to be a gay guy at CMC than a gay girl. But the gay guy friends I have at CMC are all super-active in campus events and clubs and are really happy at CMC.