Visiting Alumni in SoCal

Written by Jennifer Krejcik, GISSV High School Counselor

Recently, the school kindly funded a trip for me to visit two students at their respective colleges in SoCal and to see whether the colleges are a good fit for GISSV students.

I first visited Jack Arnold, a 2017 graduate at Pomona College which was established in 1887 and is the founding member of The Claremont Colleges, a consortium of 7 colleges in Claremont SoCal. It is exactly an hour's flight from San Jose airport to Ontario, CA, and then a short drive to the colleges. Students attending any one of the Claremont colleges can attend classes at any of the others. I was extremely impressed by the variety of programs offered at each of the schools and the different philosophy of each school. Moreover, the students have small classes with a lot of individual attention while benefiting from participation in a host of multi-campus social, academic, political, creative and religious organizations. Pomona offers a traditional liberal arts program, with majors in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, to approximately 1,520 men and women.

Jack is on their varsity soccer team, and despite the rigorous practice schedule, he is doing very well academically and loves the school. I would recommend a visit to the consortium for any parent who is looking at colleges for their student in the next few years.

I then went on to visit Cintia Bajka, also a 2017 graduate, at Chapman University in Orange County, CA. It is a 1 hour flight from San Jose airport to John Wayne airport and a short drive to the campus. Chapman is a mid-sized private university with a total undergraduate and graduate enrollment of 8,305 students. It attracts students from different backgrounds and countries from all over the world with students from 49 states, the U.S. territories and more than 60 different countries. Cintia particularly appreciates the easy access to professors and ability to get support at any time, a definite benefit of a small school. She also appreciates the diversity and small classes allowing her to connect across borders and backgrounds. She showed me her comfortable dorm room which she shares with an east coast girl and one from India.

Another interesting side note is that the holocaust education at Chapman University has grown from a single course into a distinctive multi-faceted program. I would definitely recommend a visit to Chapman if you are in this area and looking for CA colleges for your student.

Suggestions for a college tour you can do over a weekend, preferably a long one.

Claremont schools, Chapman, UC Irvine. This is a great way to compare 3 very different types of colleges. I was very impressed by the much larger UC Irvine campus during a visit two years ago. I seriously recommend students visit campuses they are planning to apply to as each one has unique offerings.