Why these schools warrant consideration
Similarities and differences
The Maine reasons to attend
If Pomona College is a school of interest, then you should consider three comparable schools in Maine: Bates, Bowdoin, and Colby. The three share Pomona College’s size, liberal arts orientation, and strength of science and humanities curriculum, while maintaining their unique charm, programs, and historical roots.
Each of these colleges has around 1,700 students, no graduate students and all their classes, which average between 16-30 students, are taught by professors. The student to faculty ratio is 10:1. Their campuses are gorgeous and, considering the number of students attending, spacious. Bates is the smallest with 109 acres—yet it abuts the Morse Conservation Area which adds another 574 acres. Bowdoin’s 205 acre campus contains over 124 buildings; it also owns a 118 acre island. Colby is over triple the size of Bowdoin, with 714 contiguous acres. None allow fraternities or sororities. Each of their cost of attendance (COA), full retail—but note all have generous financial aid comprised of scholarships and grants, is $53,000 a year, and standardized test are ‘test optional,’ though virtually all applicants submit either ACT or SAT scores. The three are a lot alike, though they’re each quite different.
Bates is the youngest of the three, having been founded in 1855 by abolitionists. Located in Lewiston, a blue collar town about 35 miles north of Portland, Bates contains a mix of Georgian and Victorian buildings. Academics are intense. Students spend many hours within the Ladd library, which contains over 600,000 volumes. Virtually all seniors cap their Bates career with a senior thesis, which can cover either a semester or the full year. Bates is strong in natural science; it has lots of opportunity for undergraduate research, and has excellent foreign language programs. Over a third of the students are varsity athletes. In a small school, it needs everyone participating to field a range of sports teams.
Bowdoin, whose alumni include Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Admiral Peary, the first man to reach the North Pole, is located in Brunswick. The architecture of the campus is eclectic with Gothic, neo-Georgian, and German Romanesque buildings scattered throughout the campus. There is a strong student research emphasis along with superb departments in the natural sciences, classics, English, and Economics. Bowdoin provides a superb orientation for entering freshmen, which features hiking or kayaking, reading the same book for conversation starters, or a community service projects for those less outdoors inclined.
Colby, located in Waterville in central Maine, sits high atop a hill with panoramic views of the city and countryside. As with Bates and Bowdoin, the academics are of the highest caliber. Professors are very accessible, and most of the classes have fewer than 25 students. In addition to the 50+ majors, Colby has a 3+2 engineering program with Dartmouth. Colby also has the COOT 4-day orientation program for incoming freshmen. The strongest concentrations are natural sciences, area studies, economics, English, and art. Athleticism is welcome, as over 60% of the students are active in some sport. During off-season there is the new, 200,000 square foot Alfond Athletic Center.
All three historical liberal arts campuses are focused strictly on the undergraduate, have superior departments and dedicated faculty, encourage outdoors activities and athletics, and have gorgeous campuses, excellent food and top grade housing options. Two areas where these schools might do better are in creating a solid core curriculum which would ensure topics of history and literature are covered capably (something few selective schools address with the exception of Columbia and University of Chicago) and in raising their 4-year graduation rates. All are now around 85% (which is comparable to Occidental, but quite a bit lower than Pomona College, which is over 90%). All three represent a different yet rigorous undergraduate experience, especially for a Southern California high school student.