Claremont McKenna College has been named "Hottest College in an Election Year," in Kaplan/Newsweek's 2008 How to Get Into College guide, based on the CMC tradition of passion for politics and civic engagement.
Editors say the guide is designed to help college-bound students and their families by highlighting issues and opportunities within the search process, and that this year's list of 25 focuses on colleges with top academic programs, as well as extra "buzz." Other institutions included Harvard, Cornell, Eastman School of Music, Princeton, Fordham, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Smith, University of Texas, University of Wisconsin, Tulane , and, on the West Coast, UCLA and Cal Tech.
Each year Kaplan interviews students, admissions staff, and others with insider knowledge of the happenings in higher education, to sift through a competitive pool of colleges. The end result is a list of those schools that truly stand out in areas that are in the limelight of current events.
In its rankings, Kaplan/Newsweek notes how "two of every five CMC students major in government/international relations. Most of the rest are also talking politics, the campus obsession." Case in point: Last fall's launching of Fantasy Congress, a virtual politics game created by four CMCers, in which players draft members of Congress and earn points based on metrics such as the success of their team's legislation.
(Full story: http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/news/pressreleases/article.asp?article_id=762).
Kaplan also reported that "few selective colleges in America have such ideologically balanced faculties and student bodies," noting CMC visits last spring by guest speakers former President Bill Clinton and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
CMC, one of the five Claremont Colleges, "is vibrating with anticipation of the 2008 presidential race," Kaplan added.