Pomona College is a liberal arts college located in Claremont, California, and is a part of the consortium known as the Claremont Colleges. The Claremont Colleges (sometimes known as the 7C’s) share a central library and have adjoining campuses with shared resources. With under 1,400 undergraduates, Pomona is tiny, but for many, that is part of the draw. Pomona had an 8.6% acceptance rate for the class of 2024, making it a very selective school.
Some of Pomona’s questions have changed from last year (except the very annoying potato question), so we’ve updated our guide to give you the best advice on how to answer this year’s prompts.
Optional Short Response
If there are aspects of your identity that you feel are not captured elsewhere in this application, please provide that information below. (50 words or less)
First, we advise reading through the entire supplement and probably answering some of those questions first before coming back to this question. You want to add something, it needs to be completely not mentioned on any other part of your application. If your identity is inextricably linked to your gender, religion, sexuality, or race, this could be a place to touch on that. If you are the one who bathes, feeds, and clothes your siblings for school, you could also talk about that here.
Before jumping into the required essays, you have the option to show us a little more of your personality. You can answer one, two, three or none of the following questions. (1-50 words each)
Marvel or DC? Pepsi or Coke? Instagram or TikTok? What's your favorite "this or that" (you are not restricted to these three examples), and which side do you choose?
This question is very “how do you do, fellow kids?” but anyway…
The Office or Parks and Recreation, minimalism or maximalism, Mozart or Beethoven. Whatever you decide to use here, make it based on something about yourself they haven’t seen yet in your application.
What's your favorite way to eat a potato?
Our biggest advice for this one is to be specific. Don’t just say “fries,” but expand on what kind of fries. Are they from a fast food place or a local burger joint? Are they the frozen ones from the grocery store? Do you use ketchup, or maybe mayonnaise, or maybe even both mixed together?? Truly, just tell them your favorite potato item and add some extra details. Oh, and please try the ketchup and mayo mixed together, it’s very tasty.
You're relaxing on a Friday night. Suddenly, your favorite song pops into your head. What is it?
Make a list of your ten favorite songs. Then go ahead and cross off any that an adult might find slightly offensive, like WAP, or cliche, like the Final Countdown. Don’t overthink this, or any of these short responses.
One note about this section: we hate it. USC also asks some horrendous questions, and we hate them too. Sure, these questions are technically “fun” and we would enjoy answering them at a dinner party (maybe?). But we think they’re really bad questions for admissions. We work with actual human teenagers so we can tell you, Pomona, that these questions make them anxious because they think there is a “wrong” way to eat a potato and that if they say “mashed” they might get rejected. Pomona, we strongly feel you should not be asking these questions. Making kids feel like their admission hinges on how they like their potatoes or their favorite song is a weird vibe. And if you’re actually making life-changing decisions for students based on this, that’s even weirder. You charge $56,284 for tuition and have a $2.25 BILLION dollar endowment. Act like it.
Anyways, onto the required questions.
Required Questions
Pomona is committed to achieving the benefits of diversity for all students by creating a community that learns and grows together through the exchange of different lived experiences and perspectives. Our community is made up of students from diverse cultures, races, ethnicities, and linguistic backgrounds; political, religious and social views; physical abilities; home environments and socioeconomic backgrounds; hometowns and regions; and sexes, gender identities and sexual orientations.
Both of the following prompts address this topic, and we ask you to respond to one of them. We give no preference, so choose the prompt that resonates the most with you. (200 words or fewer)
We believe that everyone has something to contribute and receive from a diverse community. Why is belonging to a diverse and inclusive college community important to you?
First of all, supplemental essays are a great way to learn about the college you’re applying to and gauging their values. If you don’t connect to these two diversity prompts, Pomona is not the right college for you.
The key to this supplement is to not get too into the weeds or too broad. Tell a story about a time you opened your mind to hear diverse thoughts and maybe it changed your mind (or maybe it didn’t, but you learned something), or a story about you shared your cultural traditions with a friend. Show them, don’t tell them. Use a beginning, middle, and end to bring your story to life, and focus on a singular moment. Add details and feelings into it so we feel like we’re there with you.
Advancing diversity and inclusion (D&I) can be hard work and a continuous learning process. Tell us about how you have either recently championed D&I or how you plan to maintain a deep commitment to D&I in college.
This is very similar to the above question, but we have a slightly different approach. You want to tell a story that is reflective of your reality right now and carry it through to college. For example, if you started an interfaith club at school, talk about how you’d want to bring that with you to Pomona -- or, if you helped petition your school for more accessibility policies, talk about how those values will impact how you operate on their campus. If like above, you have an example or story about how you interact with people who challenge your views, talk about how you’d bring that respect for other viewpoints with you too. It’s important to keep this as a narrative, so use your story as your beginning, carry it through to the middle and end on how you will continue showing your values at Pomona.
According to our Board of Trustees, "Institutions such as Pomona College should prepare their graduates to lead lives of creative leadership and exemplary service." How do you hope to use the knowledge you will gain in college to impact something greater than yourself, such as your family, neighborhood, community, city or society? (200 words or fewer)*
The best way to tackle this essay is to start by grounding your story in the now. If you start this essay with how you’re president of the student council and want to study politics and then end it with how you want to be an astronaut, that makes no sense.
Your story should have a through-line, something that connects it all together and is currently grounded in something you do. Tell them, for example, about how you started a recycling program at school, and how you want to study Environmental Analysis at Pomona so you can work in sustainability policy for your state government. Research a few upper-level classes, something you can only take at Pomona, like EA170 PO - U.S. Environmental History, and talk about why that is important to you. Talk about how the EA degree at Pomona offers you research opportunities with professors like Marc Los Huertos, who studies aquatic ecology and fire policy. Draw a line from where you are now to where you want to end up, so tell your story (with a distinct beginning, middle, and end) and connect it to where you see yourself in the future.
These prompts can throw you for a loop—especially those short answers. But, don’t worry, you’re going to be able to master these. Make sure to edit your essays for clarity and grammar, and make sure they’re at or under the word count.
If you find yourself struggling with your supplemental essays or with the Common App in general, don’t be afraid to reach out to us here for one-on-one assistance.