The Psychology Program at Pomona College
Pomona College appears in our ranking of the 50 Great Small Colleges for a Bachelor’s in Psychology.
The Department of Psychological Science at Pomona College offers a psychological studies major for undergrads. Students can contact liaisons to learn more about the program. These liaisons are current students who want to share their knowledge with others. Majors have multiple opportunities to do independent research projects and projects with their professors through the Deep Structure Culture Lab, Child Relationships, Attachment and Emotion (CARE) and other labs on the campus. Pomona also encourages psychology majors to do an internship. It maintains an active database of all internship opportunities and how students can apply.
Students in the psychological science major take classes from five disciplines, including communications, professional development, and critical thinking. It features Introduction to Psychological Science, Research Design and Methodology in Psychological Science with Lab and two other lab classes such as Social Science, Emotion, Neuroscience and Memory and Language. Students will also take three electives and have the option of taking those classes through other campuses in the Claremont College Consortium. Their electives may include Language Development, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, The Social Brain, Human Neuroscience and The Psychology of Health and Medicine.
Though the college offers only one psychology program, it offers related majors in cognitive science and neuroscience. Both of these programs are suitable for students planning to study clinical psychology or neuroscience at the graduate level. Majors in cognitive science can minor in linguistics to learn more about languages too. Courses in the linguistics and cognitive science programs include Fundamentals of Computer Science, User Interfaces and Experience, Language and Gender, Language and Society, Corpus Linguistics and Topics in Data Mining. The college also awards majors credits when they pass a comprehensive exam and/or do an independent research project.
In the neuroscience major, students look at the human body and how different systems regulate their actions and affect their brains and thoughts. It features biology, chemistry, math, and psychology courses that majors need to take before they reach the advanced course offerings. They can take The Stressed Brain, Introduction to Neuroscience, Genes and Behavior, Directed Readings in Neuroscience and The Human Brain: From Cells to Behavior and other classes as their neuroscience electives.
About Pomona College
Pomona College is a private college and one of the main campuses in the Claremont College Consortium. The college started the consortium as a way to reach more students and to increase the opportunities that were usually available at small colleges. Students can take classes on any of the six other campuses and get credit at Pomona. The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and U.S. News and World Report all rank Pomona as one of the top five liberal arts colleges in the United States. USNWR included the college on that list every year since it started ranking liberal arts schools in the 1980s. Pomona College also ranks as on the lists produced by Princeton Review of the happiest students, best financial aid packages, best dorm rooms and most affordable colleges in the country.
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Pomona College Accreditation Details
Pomona has accreditation from two organizations affiliated with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). The first comes from the Senior College and University Commission (SCUC), which accredited all its undergraduate programs. It also has accreditation from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) of the WASC for the college’s lower level degree programs. Both forms act as the regional accreditation needed for students to get financial aid after they complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). WASC accreditation also allows students to either transfer credits to Pomona or transfer credits from the college.
Pomona College Application Requirements
Fewer than 10 percent of those who apply to Pomona will receive an acceptance letter. The college has an early action deadline of November first, which is a binding deadline. If accepted by the college, the student must agree to withdraw the applications they submitted to other schools. The college notifies students by the middle of December and asks for a response by January first. A second early action deadline is on January first and is nonbinding. Students receive an answer by the middle of February and have until March first to respond. Pomona also has a final deadline on the same date. This gives students more time to submit their required information. They have until May first to respond and will get an answer by the first of April.
Though the college charges a $70 application fee, students can qualify for fee waivers. They’ll need to use the Common Application and fill out a waiver request. Their school counselors will receive a form that they need to fill out and send back. When the student accesses the application later, it will let them apply without paying the fee. Pomona requires two letters of recommendation from a guidance counselor and teacher, a high school transcript, mid-year report, and an ACT or SAT score. Students have the choice of interviewing with an admissions counselor too.
Tuition and Financial Aid
The cost of attendance at Pomona College includes $54,280 in tuition and $382 in fees each year. Those fees cover the costs associated with the college’s library and all the other resources that it offers. Students pay $2,551 for health insurance through the college if they do not have coverage under their parents. Pomona estimates that they pay an average of $2,500 a year for their books and other expenses. On-campus psychology majors pay another $17,218 a year in room and board costs too.
Students can easily qualify for financial aid from the college when they file the FAFSA, which they need to do every year. Pomona awards more than $50 million in scholarships each year to students based on the need they show on the FAFSA. Roughly half of those scholarships come from the donations that the college receives from organizations and individuals. Pomona has a few scholarships that it gives to students who perform better than their peers in terms of their standardized test scores and high school grades. Students can get loans, grants, and work-study through the FAFSA too. Once Pomona College receives the FAFSA, it can inform students about parental loans and other programs that will help them pay for the psychology program or another degree.
Related Resources:
- 5 Tips for Landing Your First Job after Earning a Psychology Degree
- Is an Online Psychology Degree Cheaper Than a Traditional One?
- Should One Expect to attend Graduate School with a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology?
- What Can I Do With a Bachelors Degree in Psychology?
- What Can I Do with a Master’s Degree in Psychology?
- What Interests Would Lead One to Obtain an Online Degree in Psychology?
- What is the Future Job Outlook for Careers with an Online Degree in Psychology?
- What is the Future Outlook for Careers in Psychology?
