Photo Courtesy: Pomona.edu
Pomona College campus in Claremont, CA

By Claire Lewis

Claremont – Harvard, Yale, Princeton…all great schools with excellent reputations, right?  Absolutely, but apparently they are not the best, at least according to Forbes magazine.  The well known and respected publication released their “America’s Top Colleges 2015” listing on Wed., July 29, placing Pomona College as No. 1 in the United States.

The private liberal arts college located in Claremont – who was Forbes-ranked No. 8 in 2014, and No. 2 in 2013 – is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution with approximately 1,600 students each semester, according to their website.  The School is part of the Claremont Colleges, a conglomerate of five undergraduate and two graduate institutions in the San Gabriel Valley.

Pomona College was founded in 1887, and the innovators that designed this beautiful school envisioned “a college of the New England type with small classes, close relationships between students and faculty, and a green jewel of a campus,” their website continues.  And from that beginning, Pomona has grown to be one of the nation’s premier liberal arts colleges, well known for not only the original vision, but also a challenging curriculum, quality academic programs, and a wide variety of personal growth and intellectual development opportunities for students.

Pomona College refers to its students as “Architects of Education.”  With an average class size of 15 and large-scale resources, students are easily able to cultivate a great enthusiasm for learning by collaborating with professors, who are also top scholars in their fields.  Notable Pomona College alumni include Roy E. Disney, Kris Kristofferson, Richard Chamberlain, and Joel McCrea.

For the 2015 listing, Forbes ranked Williams College No. 2, followed by Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Swarthmore, Brown, Amherst and M.I.T., respectively, completing the Top 10 in the country.  The rankings are a result of Forbes “return-on-invest” scale, which gives specific points for high graduation rates, career success, low debt, and student satisfaction.

Pomona College is located at 333 N. College Way in Claremont, California.  For admissions and more information, call (909) 621-8000.