Webinar Transcript: Live Q&A with Pomona College Associate Dean of Admissions

Anthony Su: Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us today on this bright Thursday evening… or afternoon; I don't quite know what five o'clock would be. We have a lot to talk about today.

I definitely want to be able to answer any student’s or parent’s questions. I know there have got to be a lot of rising seniors coming in and trying to also learn more about Pomona today. I definitely want to get to all your questions – and get you an idea of the campus.

We have Tina here today to really do that – and let us know a bit more about the school. Tina, do you mind introducing yourself? And then, Azure, you'll be introducing yourself as well.

Tina Brooks: Of course. Thank you, Anthony. My name is Tina Brooks. I'm an associate dean of admissions at Pomona College. And I'm delighted to be here with you tonight – or this afternoon

Azure Brown: And I'm Azure Brown. I'm the president here at ILUMIN, and I also work with students.

We're excited for Tina to be here today. A lot has been going on for the last couple years, and we're already getting questions emailed to Anthony – so I know there's a lot to talk about. But why don't we start with Tina – do you mind telling us a little more about your role at Pomona, and how you got into the whole admissions office?

Tina Brooks: Of course. My journey is probably not the traditional route to admissions. I started actually working in editorial work in New York City – working for a magazine. And then I went to graduate school, got a PhD in English, I was an English professor… and then I somehow transitioned into college admissions. So I came at it from the academic side.

My role with admissions at Pomona is to oversee all of our communications. Being an English person – loving reading and writing and editing – I write all our emails. I work on our print publications. I oversee a student blog: students who write about Pomona. And I do a lot of other things: I'm an athletics liaison. I have my territories of applications I read. I love reading student essays, for example.

But that's how I came to admissions. I would say most folks come because they are interested in promoting college access – working on opening up the process to students, maybe, who are underrepresented. Maybe they just had a really great experience working in admissions in college, and they want to continue that journey.

Azure Brown: Nice. Would you mind telling us a little bit more about what the admissions process at Pomona entails? Part of that – especially in 2022 – is we all want to know about the SAT/ACT being optional. Is it still a big factor? Is it going to stay that way? Or is it, maybe, dying out?

Tina Brooks: That's a great question. At a liberal arts college like Pomona College, we all practice what's called “holistic admission.” Maybe that phrase is familiar to you. It basically means we try to look at the whole person: the whole application. There's no one part of the application that is going to either get you in or doom you to a rejection. We really do consider multiple factors in your application.

There is one thing that all applicants need, and that is to show strong academic preparation. For any college, that's going to be the foundation of your application. We all want to admit students who are going to succeed at our institutions – who are going to do well, and who are going to graduate on time.

We do not want to take a risk and say, “Well this student doesn't have the right preparation, but let's just cross our fingers that they'll do well.” That's not the way admissions works. We try to make sure that students have taken the right kinds of classes: they have adequate preparation, and they can show with their grades, or sometimes with test scores, that they are ready to meet the challenge of that academic program.

Beyond the academics – of course, we have a lot of applicants who can show us they’re academically prepared – we have to still have some other factors to differentiate. What are you going to do when you're at Pomona? How are you going to contribute to our community here?

Maybe you have a special talent: it could be in athletics, or in music, or dance, or theater. Maybe you are a leader – and show us through your student government, or through clubs or organizations, or through leadership in your family. Maybe you've worked and contributed to your family. Maybe you're someone who brings other people together. Maybe you're someone who's worked in a pep band, or you've done work with some community organization to bring people together.

We're trying to find out from your application: what are the things that make you special, and that we can see you contributing to our campus. We really don't want to admit students who we think are going to stay in their room for four years with the door closed, studying. That's not the kind of college we are.

You have to be able to really let your personality shine. Show us your best qualities, so that we can figure out how you'd fit into Pomona College.

Azure Brown: Are there certain qualities that might make a student a better fit for Pomona, that may stand out to you?

Tina Brooks: That's a good question, too. We worked hard this year, actually, with our essay prompts – to try to identify those qualities. And so, when you look at those essay prompts, you're gonna see the kinds of things that we're interested in: things like leadership, things like diversity and inclusion, and things like empathy.

All schools really have these values, whether they're stated or not. Sometimes you can tell from the essay prompts what they are looking for. I encourage students to go to the website. If you can visit the school, see what that vibe is: the things that the school really is emphasizing.

For the kinds of students they're highlighting on their website, are they leaders? Are they academically successful? Are they strong athletes? What are the profiles that are standing out at that school?

I would say Pomona itself is very community-oriented, and very collaborative. We do like to see those kinds of qualities in applications: students we feel will thrive in a very collaborative, community-based college.

Azure Brown: Nice.

Some of the things you described – like leadership – are things that students think about a lot. How to show that? Of course, there are students who are president of a club, or captain of their team.

However, looking at this new class of students who are just getting ready to write their applications, I can't help but think: most of them were doing online school for a year and a half. I'm just curious if there are non-traditional ways that students can demonstrate leadership – that they may not even realize?

Tina Brooks: Very much so. I'm glad you asked that question.

We were just talking about this yesterday in our staff meeting – that this group of students is the first one where every year of their high school, I believe, has been touched by COVID in some way. And that makes a big difference. It makes a difference in the quality of the educational experiences you had, but also the opportunities that you had – both to develop those skills, and to show those skills.

So we get it. We understand. That's one thing you need to understand about admissions: we're living in the real world too. We know what you've been going through, to some degree.

So yes, you can show leadership in non-traditional ways. If you're an older sibling and you've been taking care of younger siblings, that's leadership. You can highlight that. Maybe you helped neighbors, or your grandparents. You can show how you stepped up in a difficult situation. Or maybe you were the one among your friends who organized some chat group that was supportive of each other, or some mental health resource. Whatever it is.

I know it's hard to think of yourself in a marketing way – to package yourself. It will help to talk to someone else about the things you've done, and have them tell you, “That shows your resilience,” or, “That shows your creativity,” or, “That shows your leadership.” Talk with someone who can put labels on the things you've done – if you can't do that yourself. It’s hard to do about yourself. But it's there – I promise you.

Even if you feel like you haven't been doing much, or you didn't have opportunities, I'm really confident that you probably can show more than you think you can, from the activities that you were able to engage in.

Azure Brown: That's great.

I know a big part of conveying the less traditional sides of leadership – and other student experiences – is through the essays. Can you tell us: what types of essays do you like reading? And maybe the ones that you don't like reading as much?

Tina Brooks: As I said, I love reading essays – because I'm an English literature-type person. I really like essays that show me the way a student thinks. For example, one essay I really liked was from a student who lived in the far north of California: out in the woods. They had this foreign exchange student with them. She said, “Oh, it's so quiet here!” because she came from a city. And he thought, “What? I hear so much!” He hears the wind, and he hears the animals, and he hears the leaves rustling.

His essay showed me his environment: how it had shaped him, how his perspective was different from other people's, and the fact that he could really analyze his own thoughts and share them with me. It was fascinating!

As we're reading, we're trying to get to know you. The more specific you can be about your own experiences and your own thoughts, the better.

I like basically anyone who can show me their personality through their words – whether they're being funny, whether they're being sort of self-deprecating, or whether they're being overly dramatic. The awareness of their own foibles. All of those things are great.

The essays that are not as enjoyable are those that are very generic: don't get very much below the surface. “My soccer team: we worked really hard, we got to the state championship, and looked like we were going to lose, and then we won.” It's just not very interesting. It didn't really tell me much about you.

A common pitfall is to write about a parent you admire, or your grandparent, or about an event – and take too much time telling me a narrative that's not really about you. The more you can focus on yourself, the better.

Azure Brown: And it sounds like you're not looking to hear just about accomplishments. It's more of the essence of who the student is: how they experience things even when things don't go right in their lives, maybe? Rather, just connecting as human to human.

Tina Brooks: Very much so. I think even the Common App prompts now tend to be more like that.

I'm just trying to pull out those qualities; I don't care what you write about. The subject is beside the point. We want to really pull out the qualities in your essay, like: “From the way this person writes, I can tell they are very forward-thinking.” Or, “I can tell that they have built some resilience,” or, “that they're very optimistic.” Or, “They're a deep thinker.” “They're philosophical.”

Those are the words I'm trying to pull out. I'm not trying to pull out what happened in the story you told.

I hope that helps.

Azure Brown: Yeah.

And what would you say is one of the most misunderstood parts of the whole admissions process?

Tina Brooks: There are a lot of misunderstood parts!

I guess the idea that you have to be perfect, or that you need to show a persona that has no flaws, and has got it all together.

We do want to see the edges. We do want to see the little, raveling threads. We do want to see the things that aren't perfect – because you do want to humanize yourself. We, as humans, when we read something about another person, we want to connect with them. I'm not going to connect with someone who's perfect.

Getting back to showing your personality: even if you're applying to a school, and you know your friend is applying; you think, “My friend is so much cooler than me. My friend has better grades than me.” That's no guarantee that we're not going to love your essay more – that we're not going to connect with you more, because of what you share with us.

Colleges aren't looking for perfection. Students with perfect test scores and perfect grades get denied at colleges all the time – because they're not standing out. Because they're not really showing who they are as a person.

Azure Brown: That's good advice.

Why don't we switch gears here: maybe you could tell us a little bit about the Pomona campus, for those of us who haven't been? What's it like there? How would you describe the culture of the campus, or the community?

Tina Brooks: I'd be happy to.

We are located about 35 miles inland from Los Angeles. We're in Los Angeles County: in the quaint, charming college town of Claremont. It's called the “city of trees and PhDs.”

It's a really nice college town. The campus is just a few blocks from the “village” – which is our downtown area. A lot of independent shops and restaurants. It has a lot of character.

There's also a Metrolink train station there – so you can get into L.A. quite easily.

We like the fact that we can balance that small town, livable vibe with easy access to a large city. Students can easily go for concerts, or go for a day at the beach. Our outdoors club runs a ton of different trips – like out to the desert to Joshua Tree, or for a day at the beach, or to the mountains. We have all of those things around us.

Pomona is part of the Claremont Colleges. There are five undergraduate colleges – and we're all within one square mile. You walk ten minutes, and you're on another campus.

The colleges were built at different periods. Their landscaping is different. So you do know you're on another campus. But they're all right next to each other. It's really unique; really cool.

We have about 6,000 undergraduates in Claremont. Although you're at a small college – (Pomona is the largest, with 1,700 students – you can take classes at any of the other colleges. You can go over there for lunch. You can join a club with students from all the colleges. It's a system that gives you a lot of opportunities and resources.

Our campus is used in a lot of films and TV shows – because it does resemble an East Coast campus, with the architecture and the green lawns and the trees. It’s very spacious; not crowded.

Students have a lot of access to different resource centers that are shared by the five colleges. It’s very livable – and yet you've got the natural environments around you, and the city very close as well.

Azure Brown: Thanks.

Pomona is consistently at the top of the ranking charts for liberal arts schools, and that's something I know that we get a lot of questions about. I was wondering if you could maybe explain what makes a school a liberal arts college, and also what are the benefits of that environment.

Tina Brooks: Of course.

With “liberal arts,” I think people have a misconception that it means you're only going to study the arts and humanities, or those are the only subjects that it's good at, or it's liberal as opposed to conservative. None of that is true.

“Liberal Arts,” in the original sense, meant you would be educated enough to be able to vote. This is a Greek system. “Liberal arts” meant you had exposure to different fields of study. You had exposure to math, science, literature, and the arts. That made you a more well-rounded citizen; it made you more discriminating and discerning when it came time to participate in government.

And that's really what we're based on. Students take a range of courses. They explore across the curriculum in order to figure out their major. All Pomona students will take a “quantitative” class. That could be computer science. I was looking up computer science today, and half of our students will take “Intro to computer science.” And all students will take a creative or performing arts class. The majority of students have taken a music class.

It just makes you more knowledgeable. It builds your skills and abilities, and it builds your ability to really look at a problem and see it from different dimensions. A lot of interdisciplinary work goes on at liberal arts colleges. One of our student interns this summer is a music major with a math minor. Being able to combine subjects and do things in interesting ways is a hallmark of a liberal arts.

It also means that we don't have graduate students. We’re an undergraduate-only college; most liberal arts colleges are. So you have a lot of opportunities to work directly with professors, or do research hands-on in the labs.

In a way, it can be a deeper learning environment, because you are able to experience things firsthand.

Azure Brown: You know, a lot of our students these days are thinking about computer science as a major. It's really, really increased. I think we've all seen that.

Tina Brooks: Yeah.

Azure Brown: I think that, a lot of times, our computer science students automatically think about the large research universities. What is it like to be a CS major at Pomona? How would you describe the difference?

Tina Brooks: You posed that question to me ahead of time, so I went on the website, I dove into computer science, and I learned so much. For one thing, our new dean of the college is a computer science professor. That's exciting. And it shows that, again, we have a commitment to all fields of study.

Computer science is one of our top majors – because it is so popular across the board. Of course, some of the things, I learned looking at the website – and I encourage students to do that; they have a great section of “Why I majored in CS,” and they profile a whole bunch of students who just graduated this year.

What I learned was a lot of them just took a computer science class on a whim, and became computer science majors. The nice thing is you can do that at Pomona. You can just take a class. You don't have to be a declared major.

You're not admitted to the major when you're admitted to Pomona. You're admitted to the college. After that, it's up to you what you major in. You don't have to declare your major till the end of your second year. So you have that chance to explore.

You can also take computer science with no prior coding experience. One of the things at a small college is there are not barriers set up for you – in terms of what you major in, what classes you can take, or what things you can participate in. Everything is pretty much open.

Students describe it as being very easy to get involved. It's a very tight-knit community with the professors and the students. Most of them were doing research: hands-on work with professors. Or they had internships during college. The professors are active outside of the college in work, and they can then share with students more about career fields, and more mentorship.

I looked up where the students are working now – and these are students who just graduated this year. They're working at Intuit, Lyft, Microsoft, Boston Consulting Group, Esri – which is a geolocation company, Google, Meta, grad school at Carnegie Mellon, Cornell…

The other thing they mentioned is you can be multidimensional. You can be a student athlete and major in computer science. Several of our athletes are computer science majors. You can be active in music. You can study abroad; we have a computer science program in Budapest.

So you can have that rich college experience and come out with a computer science degree – having gained hands-on experience, an internship, and research – and get a great job. I think what's a little different is the ease with which you can do it.

Actually the one thing that really stood out is we have “mentor sessions.” All the students mentioned how great those are. The math department has that as well. Students who have taken the class before are paid to be available for mentor sessions. If you're taking the class, you go there, and you can work together with other students.

That's one of the hallmarks of the collaborative nature of Pomona College, academically. Students who go to really competitive high schools come… and they're shocked by how collaborative it is at Pomona. They have to get used to that: they're not competing with each other. They really do a lot of collaborative projects and work with other students.

Azure Brown: What stands out to me about what you're saying about being a CS major at Pomona is that you can decide later.

Tina Brooks: Exactly.

Azure Brown: That option does not exist in a lot of places.

Tina Brooks: Right.

Azure Brown: Based on what you said, you don't admit by major. Do you have the same chances no matter what major you put on your application?

Tina Brooks: We can't admit 1,700 computer science majors, right? We try to admit students who are interested in different fields.

So we do ask students to tell us, “What are you thinking of majoring in? Tell us a little bit more about that.” That's one of the three short responses – less than 150 words: “Tell us about your major.”

If we do have a lot of computer science-interested students, we're really going to be looking at those for whom a liberal arts context seems the best fit. Students who just want to come to Pomona and do computer science – and that's all they want to do – probably not the best fit. We do like to see that there's that appetite for other things: doing things outside the classroom, taking other classes, or they want to do something interdisciplinary. That's a better fit with Pomona.

We don't admit by major because we do realize people will change their minds. But we do try to balance the division: STEM, arts and humanities, social, and interdisciplinary. We try to keep those somewhat even.

Azure Brown: That's good to know.

Tina Brooks: Yeah.

Azure Brown: In a few minutes we're going to transition over to questions from the audience, but I wanted to ask you about applying as a transfer student to Pomona – because we also work with transfer students. Is there anything you can share around that, or what you're looking for?

Tina Brooks: Sure. I've been the transfer coordinator for several years. I'm just transitioning out of that, but I have a lot of experience with transfer students; love transfer students.

We do look for different things. Transfer applicants don't always have that linear path that a first-year student might. They might have hit some bumps in the road. They may be students who didn't have a stellar high school experience – but they started doing great in community college. They may be a student that ended up at the wrong college, and maybe didn't do well – for whatever factor. Maybe it was mental health struggles. Maybe something happened there. Maybe it wasn't the right environment for them.

So maybe their performance was rocky. Every transfer applicant has their own story. We really are trained to look at them individually, for where they're coming from.

We have a dedicated cohort of transfers every year. So it doesn't depend on first-year admission. At my previous institution, we only had room for transfers depending on first-year admission. At Pomona, we try to have 20 transfer students enter every year.

And they form a tight cohort. They have a sponsor group together. They live, typically, in a section of the residence hall; they all have singles. But they have mentors assigned to them, etc., etc.

We're looking for students who've had a different experience, frankly – because that's what a transfer can bring to Pomona: something different from what our first-year applicants might bring. But the strong academics, and what they're going to contribute, would be similar to what I said about a first-year.

But, for transfers, we want something a little bit different than we'd get with a first-year applicant.

Azure Brown: It sounds like what you're saying is that they do need to demonstrate the same sort of academic ability to graduate on time. But if everything didn't go perfectly on the way there, it's okay.

Tina Brooks: Yeah. And as a transfer, we do expect that you will be able to advocate for yourself – because you're going to enter, and you're going to have to hit the ground running! You're only going to have two or three years. It's going to be a shorter timeline. If you want to study abroad, you’ve got to get on that right away. You’ve got to get your advisor. You’ve got to do this and that.

So we do want to see, in the application, students who are proactive. Probably you need to know your major, if you're going to be a junior. Again, you don't have to declare until the end of your sophomore year, but hopefully you have a sense. Because we want you to graduate on time.

But you don't have to have the perfect résumé.

Azure Brown: That's good to know.

Anthony, do you want to see what questions we're getting?

Anthony Su: Yeah. We're gonna have a lot of time for Q&A.

Let's start with always the most contentious topic: test-optional – given that this is a changing thing, and kind of a major thing that has shifted. I think this is a good one: I don't want to say better phrasing, but I think this question is the most comprehensive of what a lot of parents are thinking.

The question was, “How can one expect the admission process to be unbiased if there are students with scores and without scores?” Also just touching on this idea of, “How are you supposed to evaluate those two types of students in that context?”

Tina Brooks: Yeah, and I realize that was brought up before, and I didn't really address it. So thanks for picking it up again.

There are a lot of differences in the process, anyway, for different students. Test scores are not the only thing that's going to be different in applications. Some students go to schools that don't provide grades, and they apply to college, and we don't have grades for them. Some students go to schools where there are no advanced courses offered, and we have to compare them to students who go to schools with 24 APs offered. Some students apply without a counselor recommendation because their counselor doesn't write them – because their caseload is a thousand students.

There are apples, oranges, and grapefruits already going on in the applicant pool. It's never a level playing field. We're not comparing students who are presenting the exact same materials. They're not.

Test scores are just another one. It didn't actually throw a huge curveball for us. It wasn't as big a deal, I think, as for students or parents.

I think it is a really difficult decision for students to make – and they ask it all the time. They don't know if they should take the test. They don't know if they should submit their scores.

At Pomona we're test-optional because we want to gather some data. What difference does it make if a student is admitted without test scores? Are they going to do well at Pomona? Are they going to graduate on time? How does that compare?

Admissions doesn't set that test-optional policy at any school. It's the board of trustees right, and the faculty, and the presidents. We need to show them some data, so that they can decide if we're going to continue test-optional

Right now our data isn't great. We're finding about half our applicants are submitting test scores, and about half the students we admit submitted test scores. Right now we don't have much to show you… but we're waiting to see how those students do in college.

I don't think test scores are as important as people think they are. I think people latch onto test scores because they’re so concrete. It's a number. It's not like an essay. If you are in the ballpark, it's not going to matter one way or the other whether you submit the test scores, because you're admissible.

If your scores are lower than what your grades are showing, it's probably not going to help you to submit them. If your test scores are really high, that's fine; you can submit them. Again, it's not going to be that factor that gets you admitted. We're much more concerned about your grades and the courses you took. That's how we really evaluate what kind of student you are.

But maybe you don't have grades to show during the pandemic – like you didn't have grades for a whole year. And maybe you didn't do that well during remote learning. And then you scored really well. Great. Submit the scores.

I always encourage students to do whatever helps – whatever shows your strengths. I don't like to encourage people to spend a lot of time studying for tests, because I feel like that time could be spent in better ways: on your activities or on your schoolwork. If it's a matter of taking the test over and over again – and really investing a lot of time in it – do think carefully about that. What else could you be doing with that time?

Azure Brown: I just have a follow-up: are you looking at AP exam scores as well? I'm wondering, if there's not an SAT or ACT, are you looking for that as a replacement?

Tina Brooks: We used to be a little more like, “You've got to do the AP test!” But then, of course, during COVID, folks weren't able to do that as well.

Anything you can show us that will show your strengths, go for it.

You probably should take the AP test if you can; you can get college credit for those. At Pomona – and more selective schools – we’re a little stingy with that: we only award two course credits for AP scores. I know that's not a lot. But I would probably encourage you to take the test; you've already invested in the class.

Anything that you can show us – any proof point or any data that you learned the material – is good.

Anthony Su: And correct me if I'm wrong, but some parents might think you are empirically comparing students to students, when you're trying to make an evaluation, right? There's not a bar every student must cross, or that this student did a little bit better on the SAT or the ACT, right?

Tina Brooks: Right.

Anthony Su: I think, when we talk about misconceptions, that might be one of the ones that a lot of students or parents have in mind.

Tina Brooks: I don't want to go so far as to say it's all subjective, and it's all just our opinion about your essay. The data and the numbers count – we certainly do look at GPAs and the courses you took. We're looking at that. But it's not always the case that we're going to take the top GPA.

Let's say we have 14 applicants from a high school. We might admit someone right in the middle – because they put together a fantastic application, their recommendations were amazing, the courses they took all made sense, and they put together an awesome application. The people above them maybe just didn't stand out at all; they all sounded the same: they all wanted to do the same major and they did the same activities.

You can stand out even if you're not at the tippy top academically.

And no, we're not saying, “You've got 20 points more in the SAT, you're in and that other one's out.” That's not the way it's going to work.

Anthony Su: Awesome. And I think the immediate follow-up is, for those that send tests and those that don't, it is a factor that can be considered but – the way you're putting it – it's not a defining factor on any application. There can be variation – as you were saying, like with students who were homeschooled and have no grades, or if they don't necessarily have a letter from the counselor.

Tina Brooks: If you don't have many proof points – if you don't have a lot of grades or whatever – you may want to test, to be able to show us something that we can rely on, as some indicator of your abilities. But it's not going to be that deciding factor, as you said.

And just to point out, you can self-report your scores. You don't have to send official reports unless you're admitted. Then we will want the official score, of course.

Anthony Su: Sounds good.

There was a question around sports recruiting: if there's a test score requirement there, or anything like that. Can you just clarify that?

Tina Brooks: At Pomona, we can do pre-reads. The coaches will ask certain recruited athletes to submit just their transcript. They can submit test scores; they don't have to.

We use a rubric that is basically what we would consider admissible ranges of scores – not a GPA so much as grades and rigor. We're only doing an academic pre-read, to say: “This student athlete is admissible.” Because student athletes at Pomona are the same as everyone else in terms of their academics: they're excellent. There's no differentiation between, “That student's an athlete; they got in because they're talented at water polo.” No. They're admissible academically; we've already checked that.

They still have to go through the whole application process and be reviewed. We look for a high level of academics for student athletes.

Anthony Su: I do want to discuss this one: there's a question, “Is there data about students after they graduate?” Are they going to a master's program? Information like that? Where can students find that information as well – because I remember you were talking about that for CS.

Tina Brooks: Yeah, I did. As I said, I do communication – so I was just updating that on a slide this week. This is data for the class of 2021; obviously we don't have 2022 yet.

But for 2021, 70% of students had a job or internship, and 25% were either going to graduate or professional school, or had a fellowship: something like a Fulbright, or there are a lot of other fellowships. That's 95% already. The rest of the five percent were either doing a service opportunity, or we didn't know what they were doing. Taking a break!

Those are the career outcomes. If you go to the website, I think you can look up, “Where do students go?” or even the career development office. They have this career report for that year's graduates.

Anthony Su: There was a question about the support system for students with learning disorders, or mental health challenges, like anxiety eating disorders.

Also a related question: “Is this something I should touch on if I'm going to be applying?” What would you recommend for a student facing those challenges?

Tina Brooks: That's a good question. I know that gets talked about a lot in counselor forums.

Again, it's up to the student – and it depends on how you present it. You always want to put your best foot forward, but you also want to make sure the college can meet your needs. If you're not disclosing something that's going to be important, and you're going to need services, and then you're admitted and you find out they don't have the services you need… That's not great. You're not going to want to go to that college.

So it might be worth doing more research on the college before you apply, to make sure they have the services you need – whether that's mental health support or support for learning differences or eating disorders. What is offered there? Is the college talking about that? Are they being really open, like: “This is what we have to offer.” Or is it really hard to find on the website? Are you not able to see it? That gives you a clue as to whether it's something that's going to be advisable to talk about in your essay.

I always say: if your essay is going to be about a struggle or an issue, make sure that, at the end, the reader is going to feel like, “They found a way to cope with this, so they have a way to deal with this,” or, “They're managing this.” You don't want the person to be worried – at the end of the essay – that you're still in the middle of a crisis, or you're still really grappling with how to handle it.

If it's an issue you're still grappling with, I wouldn't write about it. If it's an issue for which you feel you've come up with coping mechanisms or adaptations or whatever, it may be fine to write about.

At Pomona, we have a lot of 5C resources [5C is the five Claremont Colleges] – including a counseling service. But Pomona offers counseling on top of that. I know most colleges struggle with providing enough counseling services for students – and that means meeting with a therapist. At Pomona, if you can't get an appointment in a reasonable amount of time, you can also go to outside providers. I mentioned “the Village” – which is a couple blocks from campus. There are therapists there, and you can use their services at no additional cost.

There are a lot of mental health support and awareness student groups at Pomona. We have a new wellness center that's opening – that's our “gym.” But the emphasis is really on whole-person wellness. There's a lot of awareness and support for that.

There's also a five-college disability resource center that coordinates any services or supports that students might need. And a lot of students – or even faculty and staff – need certain supports: whether it's for a hearing disability or whether it's for an attention disorder. It's not uncommon at all.

The supports are there for you, but you have to be proactive – even before you apply – to find out what's being offered. And – certainly if you're admitted – that should be one of the first things you look into.

Azure Brown: Let me ask: if you have a student who did really well junior year, but had a dip in their grades sophomore year – when they were in online schooling, or something happened. Maybe they even left or changed schools due to something around mental health. Just some academic challenges. Do you take that into consideration if they clearly explain what it was – and you can see, since then, it's been corrected?

Tina Brooks: Totally. We can't read your mind – so you do have to tell us. We can't just assume that COVID impacted everyone the same way, or online learning. Some people thought it was great. Some people struggled with it. You should share that with us in a way that helps us understand how it impacted you, and how you dealt with it.

So yes: if you had a period away – maybe you didn't go to school for a while, changed schools, or went to some alternative learning situation – we'd love to know more about that. Why you did it. How that was resolved. What you learned from it. How you grew from it. Do you now have ways of coping, if you get in a crisis again? Do we know what you're gonna do?

Often it's the students who've gone through some tough times that are more appealing to colleges – because we say, “They're gonna hit some bumps in college. College is gonna be hard. It's all new people, and there are a lot of challenges. If they've already been through some tough stuff and come out on the other side, I think they're gonna do fine – they have ways to cope with these situations.

It's actually not a bad thing at all to have some resilience that you can show us.

Azure Brown: Yeah, good.

Anthony Su: And definitely, moving into a reading perspective: the question is, “Is there only just one reader per application, or is there some kind of voting system?” If it's like three readers, and people disagree? Could you give some more clarity on that?

Tina Brooks: Yeah! I love talking about our reading process; it's very interesting. It's “evolved.”

A process was developed – I think at the University of Pennsylvania – called collaborative-based evaluation: CBE. We've been doing it now for four years, probably. And I really like it.

What it means is we all have territories. And this is typical at smaller colleges. For instance, I read applications from Connecticut and from New York and from Marin County, and from Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Let's say I'm going to read all my Minnesota applications today. I'll be working with a partner: Anthony, you're my partner today. You're my colleague in admissions. We pull up the Minnesota applications, and we read them together. We're both on our laptops reading the application: going over it and talking about it.

I say, “Oh, there was a dip in grades sophomore year. Do you see anything?”

“Yeah, this essay mentions they had some financial struggles then, and how they dealt…”

“Okay, okay.”

We're conversing. It's not my bias. We're both looking at the application. And we come to a consensus after reading it – we're assigning some values to different qualities: the academics, the personal qualities, and things like that. And we come to a consensus about what we want to do with that application.

I'm the lead person, because I know Minnesota. I've been reading for years – I know the high schools and I know the kinds of students. Let's say we say, “I think this is a waitlist right now. We're on the waitlist.” Okay, great.

Stage two is me going back over all my Minnesota applications that I wanted to waitlist or admit, reading them all again thoroughly, and writing notes boosting them up. I'm preparing for committee. I might change my mind: I might say, “That looked like a waitlist, but now that I've read all of Minnesota it's actually really strong; I want to admit this person.”

Then stage three is committee. We all bring our applications to committee. We meet in small groups around a table. And it's like, “Tina, let's look at all the Minnesota applications.” At that point I'm like a lawyer in court, advocating for you – because I have spent so much time on your application. I've grown to love you and I want to admit you. I need to convince my peers that this is a great application: this is why we should admit this student. And, hopefully, they agree with me. Sometimes they don't.

The committee process is where the decisions are made. But then there's a step beyond that, of course – because once we get done with all the committees, we typically have too many students we want to admit. Then we have to shape that down a little.

But we'll put a little tag on you if we thought we wanted to admit you but we didn't have room. We're going to put a little tag on you, so we can find you again if we have room for you.

That's the process in a nutshell.

It doesn't mean, if you were read once and denied, you won't come back – because there have been cases where I went back and looked at my denies. Because I didn't have enough, or I was like, “This one student's stuck in my mind. Actually, they're good; I'm gonna put them forward.” There's a lot of movement; it's a multi-stage process, and a lot of people have looked at your application.

That's a look behind the process.

Anthony Su: Sounds – at least to me – like a lot of fun. But I'm sure, with committee, lots of people in the room, and you must get heated trying to defend them…

Tina Brooks: It's fun, though – because at that point, you're hearing about all these amazing students. And that's the heart of our work. So we enjoy it.

Anthony Su: Perfect.

We're definitely going to run out of time, based on the questions! There are a few questions that you can stick in Google and you can find an answer, so I'm going to reserve ones where Tina can chat a little bit more.

There are questions around the core curriculum. That would be great – if you could talk a little bit about what those first two years are like for students. And just clarifying around major as well: “If I'm really enthusiastic about something, can I pick it early?” or, “Can I say, ‘I'm already set on double-majoring in this and this, and I need to get ahead.’” How would that process work?

Tina Brooks: Sure. Let's say you're an admitted student. You're going to enter Pomona in the fall.

During the summer, you write a letter to your liberal arts advisor, introducing yourself – and you get matched with a faculty member. Sometimes in the field you're interested in, sometimes not. You meet with that advisor when you first come to campus, during orientation week – before you register for classes.

You can talk about, “This is what I'm thinking of majoring in. Here are the classes I'm thinking of taking.” Or, “I want to take an econ class, but I'm a little concerned, because I've never had calculus.” All that stuff. They're going to be able to advise you on that.

All students take a freshman seminar class. Beyond that, there are no required classes. And the freshman seminars are on all kinds of topics. You get to rank those.

If you're pre-health – like, you want to do pre-med – there'll be a big meeting for anyone interested in that, where they're going to sit you down and say, “This is what you’ve got to do. If you're going to be pre-med, you can major in anything you want, but you have to take these classes. And here's how the advising works. We have pre-health liaison students who are there to mentor you, too, and here are all the resources.”

Some students will leave that meeting like, “I'm super excited! I want to go to med school.” And others will leave saying, “You know what? I like Grey's Anatomy, but this really isn't for me.” It's fine to change your mind.

We do encourage you to try to take some of those breadth requirements in your first year – to explore across the curriculum. Students tell me that it's kind of a natural process. You take classes you're interested in, and you end up fulfilling those requirements anyway. I mentioned you probably will have a quantitative class. You'll have some science class. You'll have a creative arts class, a social science class, and a humanities class. There are six areas that basically cover those things. Whatever you're interested in majoring in, that's going to fit into at least one of those requirements.

You can declare your major anytime you want. Most Pomona students are busy exploring, and they don't really want to nail it down until the end of their sophomore year. When you decide on your major, though, you will pick an advisor: someone in your field you probably had a class with, or the work they do is something you're interested in. You pick your advisor that way.

In general, about a third of your classes are going to be major classes, a third are going to be electives and a third will be those breadth requirements. That's the way it works.

If you double major, it's just going to cut down on those electives that you're able to take. Students tend to major and minor, or they do a concentration in the major. Double majoring really narrows down the breadth of classes you can take.

Anthony Su: With just a few minutes left, I want to ask this question about the larger consortium: how much of this information – whether courses or the college experience – is applicable to the other campuses as well, and what is that experience like?

Tina Brooks: There are certainly commonalities across the colleges. I think all the colleges offer small classes, a great quality of professor student-relationships, a really nice residential experience – on-campus housing – and a community feel. In general, Claremont College students are quite happy with their situation.

But things are going to differ in terms of curriculum and rules, and things like that. For instance, Pomona has 48 majors. I mentioned we're the largest of the colleges. So at Pomona, you can't major off campus. I used to work at Scripps. At Scripps – because it's smaller and has fewer majors – you could major off campus. Things like that will vary.

But the general experience is going to be somewhat similar at most of the Claremont Colleges.

Anthony Su: One more final question – that's sort of two-part: “Is there going to be a specific info session for international students, and how has that process changed in these past few years?” But I'm going to tag along: “Where can more students learn about Pomona?” Are there some info sessions that are going to happen? Where can they find more resources?

Tina Brooks: Indeed, indeed: we have webinars. Actually we're just having one: “Applying to Pomona for international students.” This is in the first week of August. It's at eight in the morning [Pacific Time], because we're trying to hit different time zones. We're having one for domestic students as well.

We also have these “Hens@Home” Zoom chats that are with our student interns. Those are typically on Thursdays. We have upcoming ones about social life and clubs at Pomona. I know there have been ones about being in Southern California, or research and internships, or things like that.

If you want to be invited to these things, you should definitely go on our website and just click that “Request information” button; just give us your email address, so I can send you the emails about our webinars. You can also just go to the website and sign up for the webinar there, or the Hens@Home sessions.

We have stuff like that every month. We also have a virtual information session once a week. Lots of ways to find out more.

Anthony Su: It looks like there's “Finding yourself in SoCal,” “Deep diving into STEM majors”… So, yeah. You definitely can get a lot of information there.

Let's wrap it up. Apologies that we can't get to all the questions, but I'm sure there's a contact form, or some information that you can ask for through the website.

Any other final thoughts, Tina, or anything else that you'd want to discuss?

Tina Brooks: You’re welcome to write to me. I can also connect you with your counselor: the person who reads applications for your area. We really welcome your questions at any time.

I just want to encourage students out there not to get too stressed. I know it's easy to say… but part of this is fun. It's kind of fun to explore different colleges, and picture yourself in different places – and to really think about what you want for the next four years of your life.

And it's also not bad for parents to spend some time with their students. If you're able to go visit campuses, that's a fun experience: to spend that time together.

Where you can and when you can, enjoy as much of the process as you can. It's all going to turn out. You're going to go to college. There are probably lots of colleges that would love to have you, and where you're going to have a great experience.

So please try to enjoy your senior year. I think one thing we've learned from COVID is to just appreciate being able to do things when we can.

I really wish you all luck and hope that the next year goes really well for you.

Azure Brown: Thanks so much. That was very helpful.

Anthony Su: Yeah. Maybe just because it comes from an admission officer, you believe it a little bit more from that perspective. But absolutely.

Thank you, everyone, for joining the webinar today, and have a good early weekend; I'm gonna count Friday as an early weekend.

All right. See you, everyone.

Azure Brown: Bye.

Tina Brooks: All right, thank you!