Claremont McKenna is a small, private liberal arts college in Claremont, California with massive resources and opportunities. As one of , a consortium of schools that share resources, students at Claremont benefit from the opportunities provided by a large university while benefitting from a close-knit community. There are 23 majors, and the top programs are Economics, International Relations, and Government. The acceptance rate is only . 

If you are interested in applying to Claremont McKenna, or CMC, one of the first decisions you need to make is which route you want to take toward admission. CMC offers both Early Decision, which is binding, and Regular Decision, which is non-binding. ED is only a good option for students for whom CMC is their first choice, and they want the security of knowing that they are into college early and the boosted chance of acceptance that ED offers at CMC. For students entering in the fall of 2025, applying ED meant a more than 2x jump in acceptance rate (). This tells us that if you want to go to CMC, you need to apply ED. If you just like CMC and are interested in it being an option, though, Regular Decision is your best option. 

The other pieces of an impressive application, before they even get to your writing, are your grades and scores. To be a strong applicant to CMC, they really need to see an impressive level of academic accomplishment in courses that are harder than the standard offerings at your school. CMC does not report GPA, and they understand that different students have access to different resources. However, they want to see you pushing yourself and thriving in that challenge. 

CMC is test-optional (), too, which means that you don’t have to submit SAT or ACT scores. We strongly suggest working to get scores worth submitting, though, as strong scores bolster an otherwise impressive application. For CMC, you want to an ACT of 34+ or, on the SAT, an Evidence-Based Reading and Writing score of 750+ and a Math score of 750+ as well. 

With your grades and scores sorted and your route for application planned, it is time to start writing. Writing a college supplement doesn’t have to be painful, but it also isn’t something that you should do in an afternoon with no guidance or feedback. We support our students in writing acceptance-earning supplements, and we can help you, too. 

Getting into Claremont McKenna takes more than just strong grades. You need a strategy. Get yours.

The Claremont McKenna supplement is aimed at truly getting to know you, and there is more to it than simply writing a few paragraphs. As a super small school, they fiercely defend their culture on campus, and every admitted student is expected to not just thrive in, but contribute to, the CMC community. 

The first hurdle to clear is the interview. 

THE INTERVIEW 

CMC offers to all applicants, and while they do not require them they are “highly recommended” (their emphasis). Not doing an interview is basically saying that you don’t care to get in. That makes the entire application a waste of your time, so you absolutely need to request an interview. 

Now, there are situations when it is impossible to schedule an interview even when requested. There is a solution to that, which we’ll explore further down.  

When you do your interview, you need to come prepared. Obviously, you need to know what you want to study, what drives you, and have a strong grasp of the CMC curriculum and community. You also need to have questions that you plan to ask the interviewer. These should not be detailed questions, like whether you would be allowed to do x as a student. Instead, we work with our students to craft questions that turn the interview into a conversation, opening up space for the interviewer to share what excites them about CMC. 

SUPPLEMENTAL ESSAY PROMPT

The supplemental essays for CMC are required of all applicants, which we appreciate because ‘optional’ is never really optional in college admissions if you want to get in.  

There are two prompts that you have to write responses to: 

Prompt 1: CMC’s is to prepare students for thoughtful and productive lives and responsible leadership in business, government, and the professions. With this mission in mind, please explain why you want to attend Claremont McKenna College. (250 words)

We hope you have many reasons to want to attend CMC, but remember that it is a college, not a social club. For this prompt, you need to focus on the college’s academic offerings, speaking specifically to what you aim to study and why CMC is the best place for you to do that. Community will, undoubtedly, come into the picture as you write about a professor you hope to study under or an academic club you’d like to join, but this is not a place to praise the food services nor the well-cut grass. Since CMC is in California, which does not allow for legacy admissions preferences, it is also not a good idea to use any of your allowed words to highlight how a sibling or parent loved their time at CMC. 

We advise our students to instead start by pinpointing an aspect of the CMC academic program and pairing it to something you have appreciated, or even missed, in your own academic experience. Perhaps an English teacher showed you how hands-on learning wasn’t only for the sciences, and you see that same enthusiasm for getting into the thick of things at CMC. Use your experience as the ‘way in’ to writing about the CMC program. By pairing a story from your life with thoughts on what CMC offers, you are able to do more than simply compliment their course structure — you show them who you are. 

Your response to this prompt should incorporate both the name of your proposed major, a professor you hope to study under, and at least one course you hope to take that is above the introductory level. If you have space to mention a minor, that is great, too! 

Sign off by reiterating that you want to be at CMC, and you hope to find a home within their community. 

Prompt 2: A critical part of fulfilling our mission is living out the commitments of CMC’s : Freedom of Expression, Viewpoint Diversity, and Constructive Dialogue. We want to learn more about your commitment to listening and learning from others with different viewpoints, perspectives, and life experiences from your own. 

Describe a time when engaging with someone about a specific topic resulted in you changing your attitude, belief, or behavior, or you changed the belief or behavior of someone else. What was the change that occurred for you and what facilitated that change? What did you learn from that experience, and how has it informed how you engage with others?  (250 words)

At Claremont McKenna, students are expected to listen to each other and to challenge each other. The school appreciates the friction that comes with disagreement, and considers it healthy as long as it remains civil and constructive. This is one of the core reasons why the study of politics and economics has become so popular at CMC, and why their programs are so respected. Being uncomfortable is valued, not discouraged. 

It is not surprising, then, that CMC has the question of the moment on their supplement: the civil disagreement supplement. This question, although always worded a bit differently, has grown in popularity over the past few years and now it is one of the most common supplements across the country. What makes the CMC prompt unique, though, is that they aren’t actually interested in the moment of ‘conflict’, but in the change in you that resulted from it. 

Also, let’s get one thing straight. Being more confident in our original opinion is not the change they are talking about. They want to read a supplement that shows you being humble, being open to different ideas, and to walking away from an exchange with a new perspective. 

When we help our students with brainstorming ideas for this prompt, we ask them to think of moments when they had really good conversations with friends, family, or strangers. We don’t start with the mismatch of values or conflicting ideals. Instead, we start by thinking about exchange and listening. Then, we dig into what made those conversations memorable. Interestingly, one of the top reasons for why a conversation was remembered turns out to be because it involved exactly the type of mismatch or friction that CMC wants to hear about. 

Then, the key is to turn that experience into a short, compact story — not a sermon. This is not a moment to preach to CMC admissions about what you learned. Instead, show them.  

THE VIDEO 

CMC to submit an optional video response that is not, we repeat, optional. Yes, you can submit your application without doing the video response, but even if one of our students completes the interview and they are super confident that it went well, we will insist that they do a video. 

For the video, which is only 2-minutes, CMC wants to hear you talk about what you value, where you want to go in the future, and how CMC can get you there. You want to be specific, to not repeat anything that you said in the supplements, and to avoid being performative at all costs. Students will often ask us if it is good to do something funny or ‘clever’. Our response is that it is always best to be authentic to you and to lean on good feelings over the goal of getting a laugh. 

Throughout the CMC application, you’ve probably noticed the authenticity is key. After your grades and, if you submit them, your scores, the most important aspect of your application is the one thing no one else has in their application — you. 

If you think you’d benefit from support showing your best self, get in touch. We can help. 

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