The Claremont Colleges are a consortium of colleges located in Claremont, California within walking distance of each other. The plan behind the consortium is to provide the specialization, flexibility and personal attention of a small college, with the resources of a large university. The colleges have a tradition of being selective about students, and most are rated near the top of their market-segments.
Each college is independent, but large or expensive facilities are shared. For example, the library is organized as a series of collections, each at the college whose students most use it.
The shared facilities particularly include course schedules and budgets. These are coordinated, particularly amongst the undergraduate colleges. Students at any college in the consortium may take classes from any of the other colleges, a policy facilitated by the fact that the individual colleges' campuses are adjoining, forming in effect one large campus for the consortium.
The five undergraduate colleges are:
- Claremont McKenna College (a top-10 liberal-arts college focusing on management, government and pre-law)
- Harvey Mudd College (a top-3 engineering college)
- Pitzer College (a liberal-arts college organized for independent-study)
- Pomona College (The oldest, a top-3 liberal-arts college)
- Scripps College (A women's college with a focus on interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the humanities)
- Claremont Graduate University
- Keck Graduate Institute (a biomedical graduate school)
Athletics teams from Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College and Scripps College compete as one team. Male athletic teams are called the Stags, and women's teams are called the Athenas. The teams participate in the NCAA's Division III and in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC). Pomona College and Pitzer College compete together in the SCIAC. Their teams are called the Sagehens.
