He sought to provide the specialization, flexibility, and personal attention commonly found in small colleges, but with the resources of a large university.

[7] The consortium has since grown to roughly 8,500 students[8] and 3,600 faculty and staff,[8] and offers more than 2,000 courses every semester.

Among the undergraduate schools, there is significant social interaction and academic cross-registration, but each college maintains a distinct identity.

[14] The Fiske Guide to Colleges describes the consortium as "a collection of intellectual resources unmatched in America.

[22] Pomona began after a group of congregationalists envisioned a "New England-type" college on the West Coast.

In October 1923, President James A. Blaisdell of Pomona College wrote to Ellen Browning Scripps describing a vision of educational excellence he had for the future Claremont Colleges: I cannot but believe that we shall need here in the South [of California] a suburban educational institution of the range of Stanford.

My own very deep hope is that instead of one great undifferentiated university, we might have a group of institutions divided into small colleges—somewhat on the Oxford type—around a library and other utilities which they would use in common.

In this way I should hope to preserve the inestimable personal values of the small college while securing the facilities of the great university.

[27] The novelty of the arrangement, combined with marketing that drew up the perception of the west coast as a novel frontier, led to nationwide interest in and praise for the colleges in the 1930s.

[28] Paul Monroe of Harvard University, the foremost educational historian of the era, wrote that year that "The torch of learning was borne aloft in the first century by Antioch and Athens; in the second century by Rome and Alexandria; by Padua and Paris in the twelfth; Oxford and Cambridge in the fifteenth; Harvard and Yale in the seventeenth; Columbia and Chicago in the nineteenth; the Claremont Colleges of the West in the twentieth.

[30] HMC was founded by Harvey Seeley Mudd, a former chairman of the Board of Fellows of Claremont College.

[32] Initially planned to be located on Bernard Field Station lands, protests forced the institute to relocate to a site southwest of the Claremont Village.

[34] Specifically, TCCS aids in projects of group planning, establishment of new institutions into the consortium and hold expansion lands.

[35] A report commissioned for the colleges estimated that the consortium had a regional economic impact of $706.8 million during the 2016–2017 academic year.

The size of the library collection ranks third among the private institutions in California, behind only Stanford and USC.

Many research projects and courses use the Robert J. Bernard Field Station, an 86-acre (35 ha) natural area which consists principally of the rare Coastal Sage Scrub ecosystem.

[53] The college-specific newspapers Scripps Voice, CMC Forum, and Muddraker cover their home institutions.

[60] Its flagship event, an annual hike up Mount Baldy in swimwear or goofy costumes,[61] can draw more than 100 participants.

[68] One, the Claremont Shades, hosts the annual SCAMFest concert, which draws singers from other Southern California colleges.

[79] The teams participate in NCAA Division III in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC).

Other club sports offered at the 5Cs include men's lacrosse, field hockey, crew, and cycling.