Its 32-acre (13 ha) campus was designed by Gordon Kaufmann in the Spanish Colonial Revival style and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

[11] Its athletes compete on the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags and Athenas joint team in the SCIAC, a Division III conference.

In November 1908, Ellen Browning Scripps, a philanthropist and prominent figure in the worlds of education, publishing, and women's rights based in La Jolla, Calif., first visited Pomona College in Claremont for its Dedication Day.

Following an increase in enrollment of female students at Pomona College in 1919, Blaisdell turned to Scripps for the possibility of funding a "Woman's Campus."

Over the next several years, she bought surrounding lots of land in Claremont and funded the construction of a new set of dormitories in what would become "Scripps College for Women.

"[14] To provide a liberal arts experience with both an all-women's education and co-education, she wanted the college "to stress the essentials, reduce the size of the curriculum instead of increasing it.

[22] At the age of 89, Scripps founded the college as one of the first institutions in the West dedicated to educating women for both professional careers and personal growth.

Scripps's "experiment in education" called for a setting with an artistic connection between buildings and garden landscape on an intimate scale.

[23] In 1968, students occupied a grove of olive trees to save them from being cut down to make space for construction of the humanities building.

[24][25][26] In 2000, the college opened a centralized dining facility, Malott Commons,[27] ending the practice of serving meals in the residence halls.

[30][31][32][33] In its 2017 edition of The Best 379 Colleges, the Princeton Review cited the campus as the twelfth most beautiful in the United States, and has been corroborated by Forbes,[34] U.S. News & World Report, The Huffington Post, and others.

The original campus was designed by Gordon Kaufmann in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, featuring extensive use of domestic spaces that catered to a 1920s conception of femininity.

[42] The campus also offers a number of interactive landscaping elements, including a rose garden to the north designated for community cutting and fruit trees available for picking.

Among the holdings in the collection are works by American artists Andy Warhol, Ansel Adams, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, and John James Audubon, and an extensive collection of paintings by the California artist and Scripps Professor Emeritus Millard Sheets.

The garden is laid out in two distinct sections: the western area contains a sculpture by Albert Stewart called "Eternal Primitive".

The college commissioned Martinez in 1945 to paint a mural (entitled "The Flower Vendors" on the south wall of the Fowler garden.

Martínez sketched in the entire composition on the plaster wall and began working on several panels before dying unexpectedly on November 8, 1946, at the age of 72, leaving the mural unfinished.

Scripps has also downsized trash bins and made "to-go" containers recyclable, in order to divert more waste from landfills.

[52] Scripps is governed as a nonprofit organization by a board of trustees responsible for overseeing the long-term interests of the college.

Scripps students can cross-register for classes at or enroll in the majors of any of the undergraduate schools at The Claremont Colleges.

[59] Its most popular majors, by number out of 227 graduates in 2022, were:[60] A key part of the Scripps experience is the Core Curriculum in Interdisciplinary Studies, a sequence of three classes that encourage students to think critically and challenge ideas.

[67] Kiplinger's Personal Finance places Scripps at 39th in its 2019 ranking of 149 best value liberal arts colleges in the United States.

[74] Scripps is a residential campus, with nine halls and on-campus apartments providing living arrangements for all four years of undergraduate study.

[80] A student-run feminist coffeehouse known as The Motley is a popular hangout spot and focal point for social life at the college.

[91] Its flagship event, an annual hike up Mount Baldy in swimwear or goofy costumes,[92] can draw more than 100 participants.

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