Claremont McKenna College has been named a Top Ten Best College Eats by Parents & Colleges, a Web site helping parents become more informed of college options. The rankings put CMC smack-dab in the middle of the list at No. 5, sandwiched between top-ranked Bowdoin College and the University of California, Los Angeles, which finished at No. 10.
Claremont McKenna (http://www.cmc.edu) was the only 5C school to make the list, which also included Boston College (#2), Virginia Tech (#3), and Cornell (#4). (See full list: http://www.parentsandcolleges.com/top_ten_lists/list06_bce.html.)
The Parents & Colleges rankings based their findings on multiple sources of data, including student surveys, U.S. News & World Report standings, and student-based sources (such as College Prowler) as well as educational resources, including rankings by The Princeton Review.
Boosting CMC's presence on the Parents & Colleges list was Claremont McKenna's current standing as No. 16 in Princeton Review's "Best Campus Food" category, as well as the A+ grade that CMC recently received for its dining options by College Prowler, a resource featuring reviews by students for other students.
Parents & Colleges also noted CMC's place in the Claremont University Consortium (http://www.cuc.claremont.edu), which makes it possible for students to enjoy good food at not one, but four, other neighboring colleges. "Students can lunch at Pitzer, enjoy sushi night at Scripps or steak night at Harvey Mudd," the Web site reported. The Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum at CMC was also mentioned as a "classy dining room" where students could engage with a range of great speakers.
The rankings also rightly praised Collins Dining Hall, the primary source of food on CMC's campus, for its excellent selection of vegetarian/vegan and ethnic/Kosher options, something that recent vegetarian graduate Kristin Dessie '10 relied on.
"Even when I lived in the student apartments my senior year and had my own kitchen, I stayed on the meal plan," she said. "Collins has a wide variety of ingredients so that vegetarians have the ability to create options. They have a great selection of fruits and vegetables."
Katherine Wernet '11