Pomona
So, what’s not to like about Southern California? LA’s an armpit and the smog isn’t terribly charming, but other than that it’s gorgeous. And that’s one big thing Pomona’s got going for it. The people reflect the weather, too - sunny and friendly. Very un-East-Coasty. Which is, I admit, where I am more likely to end up, but I cannot help holding out for California. I’m really curious as to what Stanford will be like, because it’s also got all that California appeal and even better weather. Again with the crowding, but we’ll see.
Pomona itself is in the vast sprawling suburbs of LA, yet feels very isolated. You can’t get around without a car, which is really unfortunate. And even with a car, it would take an hour to get to downtown LA with the traffic. So it’s there, but not so accessible that I think anyone takes much advantage of it. So you’re sort of stuck on campus, which might get a little small. The nice thing is that there are the other consortium schools right there as well, so it might be a little harder to run out of social space than it would be at another tiny liberal arts college. So it’s got that going for it. And it seems that the facilities are nice, the campus is pretty, and again that weather. I still don’t know whether or not I’d get sick of it.
Pomona’s also just a really good school, tough enough to get into, and has that West Coast laid back attitude about it (at least to some degree; it’s impossible to gauge how much this actually affects things from my position as an outsider). But lately I cannot help but think the small liberal arts school thing might be a bit tiresome after a while. I’d still rather do that than go to a big state school, but more and more I am drawn to that elusive 4,000-6,000 student body size, difficult to find outside of the Ivy’s. My mind has been mostly on Princeton lately. Pomona does, again, have the advantage of being next to other small schools (literally next to - the campuses run into one another). So, as far as small liberal arts schools go, I think it remains near the top of my list.