The Wall Street Journal named Claremont McKenna (CMC) and Harvey Mudd College (HMC) in their 2025 Best Colleges in the U.S. ranking, released on Sept. 5. CMC ranked fifth – up four spots from last year – while HMC secured the 20th spot after not being ranked in the previous year.
On Tuesday, Sept. 17, the Wall Street Journal also named Scripps College as the No. 1 U.S. college for student experience, giving it a Student Experience Score of 75.5.
Each year, the Wall Street Journal partners with College Pulse, a digital survey and research company, and Statista, an online data gathering and visualizing company, to produce these college rankings.
The 2025 rankings are largely based on surveys from college students and recent college graduates. Colleges are assessed based on three categories: student outcomes (success after graduation), learning environment and diversity.
Student outcomes – which include salary impact, graduation rate impact and the number of years to pay off net price of attendance— make up the largest portion of the ranking at 70 percent, with learning environment and diversity making up the final 20 percent and 10 percent respectively.
Zach Roerden CM ’27 suggested that CMC’s high rate of students pursuing economics – many of whom go into the notoriously high-paying field of finance – puts CMC at an advantage compared to other liberal arts schools.
“It’s not so surprising when you consider the fact that probably a higher [percentage] of the student body is going to be earning more money [right] out of college,” he said.
Economics was the most popular major of CMC’s 2023 graduating class, vastly outnumbering other majors with 124 students compared to the next highest, psychology, with 35 students. CMC released a list of firms where their students have received internships or full-time offers. The list included companies such as JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs and Bain & Company, known to offer high-paying positions.
HMC’s top major for 2022 graduates was engineering; Forbes recently ranked engineering as the bachelor’s degree with the highest 2024 average salary.
Besides the popularity of high-paying majors, Roerden also suggested that these colleges have more to offer than schools with more name recognition, pointing to their close-knit environment.
“I’ve had friends who got into Dartmouth, they got into Ivies, and ones that other news outlets might rank as the best colleges, but [the Wall Street Journal] picked CMC knowing the smaller school [size] and sense of community,” Roerden said.
Lou Delano HM ’26 shared this sentiment, noting that the rankings match the student experience at HMC regarding the quality of education and learning environment.
“I think you learn a lot at Mudd about yourself as you do in college, but a lot about the value of hard work, and obviously all the technical things you would need to know in the industry,” Delano said. “I feel pretty well prepared.”
Roerden also acknowledged the positive impact of CMC’s diversity, reflecting on the diverse and unexpected friendships that he has made during his time at the college.
“There [is] a girl from Singapore, a girl from Mexico, a guy from Chicago, a guy on the football team [and] a girl who paints … these were never people I expected to be friends with,” he said. ”CMC somehow brought us all together.”
In 2023, Pomona College also ranked 40th on the Wall Street Journal’s list, but it did not make the cut this year.
However, for Sydney Tai PO ’26, her college experience is not defined by a ranking.
“I’m here, I’m happy here and I’m satisfied with the quality of my education, so I don’t need that to be determined by a ranking list,” she said.
Tai did suggest that Pomona could use some growth in the area of student success after graduation.
“I think there is a lot of pre-professionalism, but at the same time, it feels like Pomona doesn’t always have the resources for that,” Tai said. “It feels like there’s less built-in infrastructure for [success after graduation].”
While Roerden says he feels CMC does provide a good quality education and diverse environment, he also noted debate surrounding the validity of the ranking.
“There is a lot of sentiment that it’s not a legitimate ranking,” Roerden said. “When a news outlet is deciding to make a list of ‘best’ anything, ‘best’ is subjective.”
Despite this sentiment, according to Roerden, many CMC students were posting the rankings on their Instagram stories. However, this reaction does not seem to be as popular among HMC students.
“I haven’t really heard anybody talk about it honestly,” Delano said. “I feel like Mudd kids don’t get too tied up in the rankings.”
All rankings considered, Delano expressed content with his choice of college.
“It’s the best school I could have picked,” Delano said. “For me, it’s number one but that doesn’t mean it’s the number one school for everyone.”
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