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Any thoughts or recommendations?

My main interests are neuroscience, ceramics, and women's rugby

By Bobmcc (Bobmcc) on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 06:53 pm: Edit

you know, this is an odd criterion, but, esp. if you're interested in outdoor sports, the LA basin is still awfully polluted. I was just at a epidemiology seminar that was examining space/time trends in particulate pollution and was kind of surprised to see how "badly" SoCal STILL stands out. Otherwise i'd say Pomona..you get the other Claremont colleges too.

By Roark08 (Roark08) on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 07:54 pm: Edit

are you joking? pomona is a far superior college, they're not really even comparable

By Argilospsychi (Argilospsychi) on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 08:15 pm: Edit

Roark: explain


Also, I'm not just looking at academics. The college itself, whole experience, etc.


thanks

By Qu1kslvr (Qu1kslvr) on Monday, December 22, 2003 - 10:50 pm: Edit

Academically roark is right, Pomona is on an entirely different level. It is the much better academic school. I can’t comment on the college experience at either school.

By Patient (Patient) on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 01:05 am: Edit

Bobmcc, on the Pomona board under Individual Schools, Momx4 had a question about the smog and its possible effect on her daughter's asthma, then affecting her singing. Given the post above, perhaps you could comment. My son is an athlete in an outdoor sport that plays in the fall and in the spring. Can you discuss this a bit more?

By Coureur (Coureur) on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 08:28 am: Edit

The rule of thumb for smog in LA is the farther east you go the worse the smog. Pomona is a good 10 or 15 miles inland, so smog will definitely be a factor, especially during the summers. I can't predict how it will affect anyone's asthma or singing. People vary quite a bit with respect to their sensitivity to the effects of smog.

By Andrey1225 (Andrey1225) on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 11:32 am: Edit

you guys are really overexaggerating this smog business--i doubt 10-20 million people would live in the LA area if the smog were really that bad. i live in orange county and travel regularly to los angeles and i've never had any problems with air pollution (with one exception: the forest fires in late october/early november really made the air foul--but that's a very rare circumstace and the only time that i can remember a fire bringing that amount of air pollution). smog should not be something to deter any applicant from southern california schools, there are simply too many positives to outweigh that small negative.

By Coureur (Coureur) on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 12:37 pm: Edit

Well, it depends on what you consider to be bad. It's very common in eastern LA county at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains to wake up in the morning with a fine view of them, but by mid-afternoon to not be able to see them any more. Only a few miles away, but the mountains have been completely hidden by the smog. And that's the same air that you are breathing.

I lived in OC for over 20 years and I became just as numb to the smog as you are, but once you step back a bit and get used to a cleaner place, you can see just how awful both LA and OC can get on on the bad summer days. And don't even mention Riverside....

By Genericname (Genericname) on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 12:40 pm: Edit

My main interests are neuroscience, ceramics, and women's rugby


wow, those have to be the most unrelated and random interests I have ever seen.

By Curious42886 (Curious42886) on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 12:59 pm: Edit

Renkle shenkl

By Bobmcc (Bobmcc) on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 06:17 pm: Edit

http://www4.stat.ncsu.edu/~fuentes/env/marc.html
Marc Serre's at UNC-CH school of public health.
http://www.unc.edu/~mserre/ESEhome.html
Until recently, PM monitoring focused on relatively "coarse" dust, < 10 micrometers in diameter). However "smaller" particles (<2.5 mm)are liable to cause the most health problems.

http://www.epa.gov/wtc/pm25/pm_fact_sheet.html

Umm..because there IS such a concentration of people/cars in a basin that boasts a high frequency of inversion, despite stringent regulations that have helped, some, SoCal remains among the worst regions in the country for particulate matter pollution. (And, yes, i wondered about the impact of forest fires on the time/space distribution of particulate pollution during his talk at the Nat. Inst. of Envi. Health Sciences last week.)

By Gnatcire (Gnatcire) on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 06:35 pm: Edit

I attend Pomona and I have ALWAYS been able to see the mountains, morning or afternoon. Coureur's comment on that is ridiculous. I have never had problems breathing there, but then again I am neither an athlete, singer, or person with asthma. However, there are many singers, a couple of ultimate frisbee players, and a person with asthma in my hall, and I have not heard them complain about the smog affecting them at all. Though I wish the smog problem could be improved, it really hasn't influenced much of my life at Pomona, because there are so many other great things about the school.

They say that the neuroscience program is really good here (in fact, I'm thinking about majoring in it myself). I am unfamiliar with ceramics here, but I heard from someone taking the intro class that it's intense. I just found out that there is a 5-C women's rugby team (I believe it's club), so you could also join that if you attended Pomona.

By Coureur (Coureur) on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 07:42 pm: Edit

Ridiculous? Not at all. Read this:

http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/~roger/as3_downloads/Sept29/RecentSmogLevels.pdf

Moreover, on the very day we toured Harvey Mudd the mountains did their disappearing act behind a curtain of smog. It's not for nothing that some chemistry professors at UC Riverside are the world's top experts on studying the photochemistry of smog.

Now whether smog will interfere with your enjoyment of your college experience is a seperate question. But if you are asthmatic or otherwise sensitive, it's a factor to consider when choosing a school.

By Andrey1225 (Andrey1225) on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 08:25 pm: Edit

while studies and research measure parts per thousand or concentration or anything regarding smog and air pollution, they do not measure the actual attitudes of the population to those levels. as gnatcire said, neither him nor other students at pomona have had problems with the pollution. and im sure 4 years in los angeles won't be much worse than 4 years in new orleans in terms of health; both cities have there own types of pollution (water pollution in NO from what I've heard--don't have anything to back it up though).

By Argilospsychi (Argilospsychi) on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 08:58 pm: Edit

As it turns out, smog is not my number one criterion in choosing a school.

Any more thoughts related to the tulane v pomona thing?

By Coureur (Coureur) on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 10:58 pm: Edit

Well, as others have suggested, Tulane/Pomona is sort of an apples/oranges comparison. So it's hard to really provide the comparsion you are looking for. One thing that is certain is that Pomona's academic reputation and selectivity are much higher than Tulane's.

In looking over your three interests, one school that occurs to me is UC Davis. It has a decent neuroscience program:

http://neuroscience.ucdavis.edu/

And prior to his death, Robert Arneson, one of the top American ceramic artists, was a professor at UCD. Whether the department is still strong now that he is gone, I do not know. And they do have a varsity women's rugby team.

It's the only school I know that I'm certain combines all three.

By Argilospsychi (Argilospsychi) on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 - 11:19 pm: Edit

UC's and other public schools are pretty much out of the picture.

Not because they aren't great institutions (they are), but because I need lots of financial aid!!

I think the two schools are comparable. They are very different, that's for sure. I'm basically asking for pros and cons of each, or recommendations towards one paticular school or the other.

By Gnatcire (Gnatcire) on Wednesday, December 24, 2003 - 02:09 am: Edit

Just a last note about the smog - as the article suggested, the pollution is at its worst during the summer months when school is not in session.

Pomona does give really good financial aid. I even feel as if I got too much.

Well, I have lots of good things to say about Pomona, but I'd rather answer any questions that you have about the school. Since I've never been to Tulane, I can't really compare it to Tulane, so you might get a biased opinion from me. Is this a decision to apply ED? Have you visited both campuses? If not, I'd just wait and see what happens in April and maybe go visit them both and see which one you like better.

By Momx4 (Momx4) on Wednesday, December 24, 2003 - 12:50 pm: Edit

Patient, thanks for bringing up my question on this thread and Bobmcc and Coureur for the links on air pollution in the LA basin and east to the mountains. Now I realize that D and I should have visited the Claremont Colleges in the summer rather than in February and April. Neither one of us had flare-ups of asthma while we were there, but it would be pretty miserable for D if her asthma flared up in May during finals.

By Jlq3d3 (Jlq3d3) on Wednesday, December 24, 2003 - 04:01 pm: Edit

I live in LA and have never experienced trouble bc of smog. And the only time smog is ever a problem for anyone is in the summer. I also dont think it will affect athletic play in LA, because LA is probobly the biggest professional and amature sports city in the US. Look at UCLA and USC sports teams.

By Flgirl04 (Flgirl04) on Thursday, December 25, 2003 - 11:47 pm: Edit

If you want to go into Neuroscience, Tulane has good bio and phsyc departments. Its awsome you're interested in that field Agril. That is one of my interests too!

By B18c1cx (B18c1cx) on Friday, December 26, 2003 - 02:02 am: Edit

Faber College v. Amherst

By Bobmcc (Bobmcc) on Friday, December 26, 2003 - 03:31 pm: Edit

btw - i do think the Claremont colleges are pretty terrific. My stepmom went to Scripps and was the librarian there for many years. I enjoyed the area when i'd visit my folks after they retired back to Claremont; and the nearby mountains were great for trail running.

By Argilospsychi (Argilospsychi) on Thursday, January 01, 2004 - 06:15 am: Edit

bump

By Bobmcc (Bobmcc) on Thursday, January 01, 2004 - 02:39 pm: Edit

you might write to Jay Mathews, the ed. reporter for the Wash. Post. His daughter is a fresh. at Pomona. He's an interesting person to have a conversation w/..and responds, often at length, to emails.

By Argilospsychi (Argilospsychi) on Sunday, January 18, 2004 - 05:00 am: Edit

bump

By Cantdcide (Cantdcide) on Sunday, April 25, 2004 - 05:48 pm: Edit

Any thoughts on Vassar vs. Pomona? I only have a few days and I'm getting desperate... Thanks for anything you can provide!

btw im from utah