One thing you should be tracking is that I think CalTech and Mudd (and probably others, but I don’t remember) require a very large amount of humanities as well as classes in science fields you might not be interested in. You can get almost all the Mudd opportunities with almost none of the requirements at either Pitzer or Pomona. Both these schools (as of 2011, my data might be out of date) have almost no gen-ed requirements, while Mudd has quite a lot. The degree looks worse (At least for Pitzer. Pomona might be comparable), but you can take almost all the same classes if you want to. (Scripps and CMC also have fewer requirements than Mudd, but more than Pitzer and Pomona).
However, it is worth noting that not having the STEM dorm mates is a nontrivial sacrifice, possibly larger than the sacrifice of how good the degree looks.
I went to Pitzer for 3 years. Pitzer did not have a CS major, so I was able to get a CS major with an advisor from either Pomona or Mudd. I chose Pomona, and got a double major in math/CS. The entire time I was there, I took nothing but math classes. Even for the CS major, I only took two classes where I had to program a little bit, and the rest were theory, and all of my (very small number of) gen-ed classes were math-adjacent. (They let me skip the intro level CS classes where I would have had to program.) Because it was all math, the classes were easy enough for me that I could take 6-8 at a time, and graduate early. I think graduating early would have been much harder at Mudd. Most of my classes were through Pomona, CMC, or Mudd.
A decade later, I sometimes wish I had rounded out my studies a little more, but in directions I would not have predicted, like history/philosophy/CogSci (If I had to predict the directions I would have wished I branched out, I would have predicted physics/econ.) but overall I have no major regrets, and undergrad worked out very well for me.
One thing you should be tracking is that I think CalTech and Mudd (and probably others, but I don’t remember) require a very large amount of humanities as well as classes in science fields you might not be interested in. You can get almost all the Mudd opportunities with almost none of the requirements at either Pitzer or Pomona. Both these schools (as of 2011, my data might be out of date) have almost no gen-ed requirements, while Mudd has quite a lot. The degree looks worse (At least for Pitzer. Pomona might be comparable), but you can take almost all the same classes if you want to. (Scripps and CMC also have fewer requirements than Mudd, but more than Pitzer and Pomona).
However, it is worth noting that not having the STEM dorm mates is a nontrivial sacrifice, possibly larger than the sacrifice of how good the degree looks.
I went to Pitzer for 3 years. Pitzer did not have a CS major, so I was able to get a CS major with an advisor from either Pomona or Mudd. I chose Pomona, and got a double major in math/CS. The entire time I was there, I took nothing but math classes. Even for the CS major, I only took two classes where I had to program a little bit, and the rest were theory, and all of my (very small number of) gen-ed classes were math-adjacent. (They let me skip the intro level CS classes where I would have had to program.) Because it was all math, the classes were easy enough for me that I could take 6-8 at a time, and graduate early. I think graduating early would have been much harder at Mudd. Most of my classes were through Pomona, CMC, or Mudd.
A decade later, I sometimes wish I had rounded out my studies a little more, but in directions I would not have predicted, like history/philosophy/CogSci (If I had to predict the directions I would have wished I branched out, I would have predicted physics/econ.) but overall I have no major regrets, and undergrad worked out very well for me.