Claremont McKenna College (CMC) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. CMC is one of the seven members of the Claremont Colleges consortium.
Established in 1946 as a men's college, CMC was officially incorporated in 1947 and began admitting women in 1976. The college focuses primarily on undergraduate education. In 2007, it founded the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, which offers a master's program in finance. Faculty at CMC are noted for exhibiting a more politically conservative orientation than those at similar liberal arts institutions. In 2019, there were 1,338 undergraduate students and postgraduate students.
CMC competes in the NCAA Division III's Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) conference in a joint athletic program with Harvey Mudd College and Scripps College. Notable alumni include prominent politicians and financiers such as Henry Kravis, a significant benefactor of CMC.
History Early history Known as Claremont Men's College at its founding in September 1946, CMC began with seven faculty and an incoming class of 86 students, many of them World War II veterans attending college on the G.I. Bill. Claremont Men's College was the third Claremont College, after Pomona College and Scripps College. The college's motto is "Crescit cum commercio civitas", or "Civilization prospers with commerce".
Coeducation In 1975, CMC trustees voted to admit women in a two-thirds vote supported by students representing the Associated Students of Claremont Men's College; the first women admitted to CMC joined in 1976. The move followed a national trend toward coeducation among peer schools. CMC president Jack L. Stark, who led the college during the transition, considered it CMC’s most important moment. The women of CMC's earliest classes are known as "Pioneers" and graduated with degrees that still bore the name "Claremont's Mens College". In 1981, CMC was renamed Claremont McKenna College in honor of founding trustee Donald McKenna.
In November 1989, the father of a CMC student hired a stripper to perform in the college’s dining hall, sparking protests among some students. Then-CMC president Jack Stark told The New York Times he did not wish to comment on whether the incident was "degrading to women".
2000s On September 27, 2007, the college announced a $200 million gift from alumnus and trustee Robert Addison Day to create the "Robert Day Scholars Program" and a master's program in finance. CMC literature professor Robert Faggen sent a letter signed by several other literature professors to CMC president Pamela Gann, saying they were concerned the gift would "distort the college into a single focus trade school." In June 2020, RePEc ranked the college's economics department, the Robert Day School, 4th on its list of top US Economics Departments at Liberal Arts Colleges.
In January 2012, a high-ranking official later identified as former dean of admissions Richard C. Vos was discovered to have been inflating SAT scores by 10–20 points over six years in submissions to the U.S. News & World Report. TIME magazine wrote that “such a small differential could not have significantly affected U.S. News & World Report rankings.” A study commissioned by the college claimed to have found no evidence that the misrepresentations were meant to inflate the school’s ranking in the publication’s annual listings. The controversy prompted Forbes to omit CMC from its yearly rankings in 2013.
In November 2015, the college made national news when the dean of students resigned after students protested what they called a lack of institutional resources for marginalized students; they interpreted an email message the dean had sent a student as implying that minority students did not fit the "CMC mold":
The same dean's response to an incident of allegedly culturally appropriative Halloween costumes was also seen as lacking. Protests closely followed and were associated with the 2015 University of Missouri protests.
On April 6, 2017, about 300 student protesters (many of whom attended the other Claremont Colleges) blockaded the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum in an attempt to shut down a speech by conservative pundit Heather Mac Donald. The college livestreamed the talk, as audiences were unable to enter the building. The college disciplined seven of its students who participated in the blockade, including suspending two for a semester and three for a year.
In 2021, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education ranked CMC first among all U.S. colleges and universities for free speech.
The college's capital campaign "Campaign for CMC: Responsible Leadership" concluded in 2023 and raised more than $1 billion. It helped the college double the size of its campus and expand science programs, faculty, and financial aid.
Campus
The predominant architectural style of CMC's campus is California modernism, reflecting the style popular at the time of the college's founding in the 1940s. In recent years, the older, more pedestrian and utilitarian buildings have begun to be replaced by more ostentatious constructions, such as the Kravis Center at the western edge of campus and the $70million Roberts Pavilion athletics center. The campus also has sculptures and murals by contemporary artists.
Organization and administration CMC is chartered as a private, nonprofit organization and is a member of the seven-institution Claremont Colleges consortium. Students can take classes at any of the member colleges, and the colleges share libraries, student health, a bookstore, athletic facilities, and various student services. The privately appointed, 40-voting-member board of trustees elects a president to serve as the college's chief executive officer. Hiram Chodosh is CMC's fifth president. The president has an executive cabinet of nine vice presidents, including a VP of Students Affairs and a VP of Academic Affairs.
Presidents George C. S. Benson, founding president (1946–1969) Howard R. Neville (1969–1970) Jack L. Stark (1970–1999) Pamela Gann (1999–2013) Hiram Chodosh (2013-2026) William C. Dudley (2026)
Academics Rankings
Claremont McKenna ranked 6th overall in the The Wall Street Journal/College Pulse 2026 Best Colleges in the U.S. list.
U.S. News & World Reports 2027 rankings rated Claremont McKenna as tied for 3rd-best national liberal arts college in the U.S.
Time ranked Claremont McKenna 9th overall in its 2026–2027 list of "America's Best Colleges".
In 2024, Forbes ranked Claremont McKenna the 19th-best among 500 colleges, universities, and service academies in the nation, in between Brown University and Duke University.
Admissions
+ Admission statistics 202520242023202220212020 Applicants6,9396,5295,7995,7095,6325,306 Admits655626645591633708 Admit rate9.4%9.6%11.1%10.4%11.2%13.3% Enrolled335337321322358315 SAT range 1480 - 15401490 - 15501470 - 15301450 - 154014701330 - 1460 ACT range 33 - 3533–3533–3533–353331–34
CMC is classified as "most selective" by U.S. News & World Report. For the Class of 2029 (entering Fall 2025), CMC accepted 655 (9.4%) from a pool of 6,939 applicants.
Financial aid Tuition for the 2018–19 school year was $54,160 ($27,080 per semester) for a full-time student, and room and board on average $15,930 ($7,965 per semester for double room and 12 meals per week), for a total annual cost of attendance of $70,212.50 with other expected costs included. CMC admits students on a need-blind basis and guarantees to meet all its students' financial needs as determined by the FAFSA and the College Board's CSS Profile. For the 2016–2017 year, CMC awarded $27,021,024 in financial aid. 38.9% of students received need-based financial aid, with an average total grant aid package of $42,445, while 5.8% of students received merit aid, with an average award of $15,744.
The college operates on a semester system and has 12 academic departments, 11 research institutes, and 33 on-campus majors, the most popular of which are economics, government, psychology, economics-accounting, and international relations. CMC students may also major in subjects not offered at CMC if another college in the consortium has such a major. A popular example is computer science, which is offered by both Harvey Mudd College and Pomona College. The student to faculty ratio is 8:1 with an average class size of 18. 85% of the classes have fewer than 19 students. The six-year graduation rate is 93.3%, and the freshman retention rate is 92.7%.
Curriculum
About one third of the classes students complete are general education requirements. These include a humanities seminar and a writing seminar their first year, three semesters of a foreign language or demonstrated proficiency, a mathematics or computer science course, one laboratory science course and three semesters of a P.E. course or two seasons on a sports team. In addition, students must complete at least two humanities courses and three social science courses, all in areas outside the student's major. All students must complete a senior thesis, which can be either one-semester in length or, to receive departmental honors, two semesters. Claremont McKenna's curricular emphasis is on its social sciences, particularly economics, government, international relations, and psychology. CMC also offers an Oxford-style tutorial Philosophy, Politics, and Economics major with two separate tracks of 14 students each. Other multidisciplinary majors include management engineering, philosophy and public affairs, science and management, econ-accounting, biology-chemistry, and environment, economics, and politics (EEP). CMC also offers the Robert A. Day 4+1 BA/MBA, in which students receive both a BA from Claremont McKenna and an MBA from the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University in five years. Its most popular undergraduate majors, by 2021 graduates, were: Economics (90) Multi-/Interdisciplinary Studies (27) Political Science and Government (24) Computer Science (17) Experimental Psychology (16) International Relations and Affairs (16)
CMC's science program is offered by the Keck Science Department of Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, and Scripps Colleges. The Keck Science Department offers a double year-long introductory science class to allow more flexibility than the former three-year introductory biology, chemistry, and physics courses most science majors must complete. In 2018, CMC announced that it planned to withdraw from Keck to create its own science department.
Many CMC students study abroad or participate in one of two domestic programs, one in Washington, D.C., and one in Silicon Valley. In both these programs, students complete a full-time internship with a business or government department, remaining full-time students taught at night by CMC professors in the two locations.
More than 75% percent of students attend graduate school within five years of graduation, and those who do not averaged a starting salary of $57,156 for the class of 2014, with average signing bonuses averaging $7,905. Of CMC graduates applying to medical school, 80% get into their first- or second-choice institutions.
Campus life