Claremont McKenna College

Introduction

Claremont McKenna College (abbreviated CMC) is an independent, co-educational, and private liberal arts college with a curricular emphasis on economics, government, and public affairs. CMC is also a member of the Claremont Colleges located in Claremont, California, United States.

Founded as a men's college in 1946, CMC became co-educational in 1976. Its 69-acre campus is located 35 miles (56 km) east of Downtown Los Angeles.The college focuses primarily on undergraduate education, but in 2007 it established the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, which offers a masters program in finance. As of 2015, there are 1,293 undergraduate students and 20 postgraduate students.

Forbes ranks Claremont McKenna as the 18th best college in the nation, the 6th best liberal arts college, and the 3rd best college in the West in the 2015 rankings. Claremont McKenna is ranked tied for 8th with Carleton and Haverford for liberal arts colleges by U.S. News & World Report. The Princeton Review rated Claremont McKenna 2nd in the nation for happiest students; The Daily Beast placed Claremont McKenna as one of the top 25 most rigorous colleges in the nation; and College Factual has Claremont McKenna as the 14th most selective college in the nation. With an acceptance rate of 9.76% for the Class of 2019, the college has the lowest acceptance rate of any liberal arts college in the nation.

Organization and administration

CMC is chartered as a private, non-profit organization and is a member of the seven-institution Claremont Colleges consortium. Students can take classes at any of the member colleges, and the colleges share libraries, a bookstore, athletic facilities, and various student services.The privately appointed, 40-voting-member board of trustees elects a president to serve as chief executive officer of the college. Hiram Chodosh is CMC's fifth president and began serving on July 1, 2013, succeeding President Pamela B. Gann who served since July 1999. The president has a senior staff of 13 vice presidents including a Dean of Students and Dean of the Faculty.

school mission and unique qualities

Claremont McKenna College is a highly selective, independent, coeducational, residential, undergraduate premier liberal arts college. Its mission is to educate its students for thoughtful and productive lives and responsible leadership. The College is differentiated by its "learning by doing" approach, which values creativity, empathy, and courage and fosters a social entrepreneurial focus that encourages students to make a difference in the world. By taking a student-centric approach that inspires student-faculty research collaboration, the College contributes to the intellectual vitality of its campus community and an understanding of public policy issues. The College pursues its mission by providing a strong liberal arts foundation that emphasizes economics, government, and public affairs while supporting a professoriate dedicated to effective undergraduate teaching, a robust exchange of ideas, a close student-teacher relationship that promotes critical inquiry, an interactive intellectual environment that encourages responsible citizenship and a unique array of research institutes and related scholarly support made possible by a world-class faculty of teacher-scholars.

Applying

When applying to Claremont McKenna College, it's important to note the application deadline is January 1, and the early decision deadline is November 1. The application fee at Claremont McKenna College is $60. It is most selective, with an acceptance rate of 10.8 percent.

Academic Life

The student-faculty ratio at Claremont McKenna College is 8:1, and the school has 81.7 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students. The most popular majors at Claremont McKenna College include: Economics, General; Political Science and Government, General; Psychology, General; Accounting; and International Relations and Affairs. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction, is 96 percent.

Student Life

Claremont McKenna College has a total undergraduate enrollment of 1,301, with a gender distribution of 51.7 percent male students and 48.3 percent female students. At this school, 97 percent of the students live in college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing and 3 percent of students live off campus. Claremont McKenna College is part of the NCAA III athletic conference.

Campus Services

Claremont McKenna College offers a number of student services including nonremedial tutoring, placement service, health service, and health insurance. Claremont McKenna College also offers campus safety and security services like 24-hour foot and vehicle patrols, late night transport/escort service, 24-hour emergency telephones, lighted pathways/sidewalks, and controlled dormitory access (key, security card, etc). Alcohol is permitted for students of legal age at Claremont McKenna College.

Curriculum

As a liberal arts college, about one third of the classes students complete are general education requirements. These include a humanities seminar and a writing seminar their first year, three semesters of a foreign language or demonstrated proficiency, a mathematics or computer science course, one laboratory science course, and three semesters of a P.E. course or two seasons on a sports team. In addition, students must complete at least two humanities courses and three social science courses, all in areas outside the student's major. All students must complete a senior thesis, which can be either one-semester in length or, to receive departmental honors, two semesters.

Claremont McKenna's curricular emphasis is on its social sciences, particularly economics, government, international relations, and psychology. About forty percent of students major in either government or economic CMC also offers an Oxford-style Philosophy, Politics, and Economics major with two separate tracks of 14 students each. Other multi-disciplinary majors include management engineering, philosophy and public affairs, science and management, econ-accounting, biology-chemistry, and environment, economics, and politics (EEP). CMC also offers the Robert A. Day 4+1 BA/MBA, in which students receive both their BA from Claremont McKenna and their MBA from the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University in 5 years.

CMC's science program is offered through the Joint Science Department of Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, and Scripps Colleges. The Joint Science Department offers a double year-long introductory science class to allow more flexibility than the former 3 year-long introductory biology, chemistry, and physics courses that most science majors must complete.

Nearly half of CMC students study abroad. Another popular option for off-campus study is participating in one of two domestic programs, one in Washington, D.C. and the other in the Silicon Valley. In both of these programs, students complete a full-time internship with a business or government department, remaining full-time students taught at night by CMC professors stationed in the two locations."

More than 75% percent of students attend graduate school within five years of graduation, and those who choose to go straight to the workforce average a starting salary of $57,156 for the class of 2014, with average signing bonuses averaging $7,905. Of those CMC graduates applying to medical school, 80% get into their first or second choice institutions.According to a 2009 PayScale report, CMC ranked first among all liberal arts colleges in the nation for highest starting salary.

Traditions

    Many incoming freshmen participate in W.O.A!, or "Wilderness Orientation Adventure" W.O.A! is a student-run pre-orientation program. Options have included backpacking, camping, and rock-climbing at Yosemite, canoeing down the Colorado River, and beach camping at Catalina Island. Each trip is led by current students and a member of the faculty or alumni. W.O.A.! allows incoming students to develop friendships and get a sense for the college community before the formal beginning of their college careers.

    The "Madrigal Feast" was an annual dinner held in the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum. Both current students as well as alumni typically attended. Guests were treated to a medieval-themed feast, complete with wassail, and a spirited musical performance put on by other students in medieval dress. This 26 year tradition was suspended in 2009.

Several of Claremont McKenna College's traditions are water-related:

    It is a tradition for students to get ponded (thrown into one of the two fountains located on campus) by their peers on their birthday.[citation needed]

    At noon on the due dates of senior theses, the students turn in their theses to the registrar, after which they are given a bottle of champagne by the registrar. In recent years, the class president has provided the champagne. The students spend the remainder of the afternoon in the fountains at the school, drinking, singing, celebrating and enjoying the warm California sun.

Athletics

Athletes from CMC, Harvey Mudd College, and Scripps College compete under one program – Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) Athletics. The mascot for the men's team is Stag, and that of the women's teams is Athena. The 19 teams (including Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's basketball) participate in the NCAA's Division III and in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Ducey Gymnasium has been slated for a complete overhaul beginning in 2009, with new fitness facilities including a weight and cardio room overlooking Zinda Field.

The Biszantz Family Tennis Center opened in 2009 and hosted the NCAA Division III Championships. The facility offers locker-rooms, offices, restrooms, an adjacent parking lot and a "championship court". It is located south of Sixth Street at Brooks Avenue.

Over the years, a rivalry has formed between the opposing sports teams CMS (Claremont-Mudd-Scripps) and PP (Pomona-Pitzer).

The Claremont McKenna golf team ranked first among NCAA Division III teams according to Golf Digest, and 17th overall (including Division 1 schools). The rankings are based on the "Balanced" category which is "for students who place equal emphasis on school and sports.

Summary

Claremont McKenna College is a private institution that was founded in 1946. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 1,301, its setting is suburban, and the campus size is 69 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Claremont McKenna College's ranking in the 2016 edition of Best Colleges is National Liberal Arts Colleges, 9. Its tuition and fees are $49,045 (2015-16).

Claremont McKenna College is located in Claremont, California, at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. The school is part of the seven-college consortium known as The Claremont Colleges, which includes Scripps College, Pomona, Harvey Mudd College, Pitzer College, Claremont Graduate University and Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences. Students can take classes at any of the member institutions as well as enjoy the social activities, athletics and dining services at the five undergraduate and two graduate colleges. The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Athletics program combines student-athletes from Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd and Scripps to compete in the NCAA Division III Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Students can find clubs that fit a wide variety of interests, from Without the Box improv group to Shades a cappella group, among many others. All freshmen are required to live on campus, and about 97 percent of students remain in college housing for four years.

Although it is primarily an undergraduate college, Claremont McKenna offers a graduate master’s program in finance through the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance. Claremont McKenna was originally founded as Claremont Men’s College but became coeducational in 1976. While at Claremont McKenna, slightly over half of all students study abroad in locations all over the world. The school is home to 10 distinguished research institutes offering students the ability to conduct graduate-level research with faculty. Notable alumni include actor and comedian Robin Williams and Paul Brickman, who wrote and directed the 1983 film "Risky Business."