Robert Day Scholars Program
—Jessica Fox, CMC’09
The CMC Robert Day Scholars Program is a selective, pre-professional, co-curricular program for students pursuing a broad array of careers with particular proficiencies in economics, finance, accounting and other data, technical, or integrated disciplines. It is aimed at building, augmenting, and honing ethical and responsible leadership, organizational capabilities, and critical thinking through a foundation of both hard- and soft-skills. The Robert Day Scholars Program prepares highly motivated students for leadership roles across a range of industries and sectors, including financial services, corporate finance and operations, consulting, technology and not-for-profit organizations, as well as further post-graduate academic pursuits. Robert Day Scholars (RDS) encompass a wide range of majors, dual-majors, minors, and sequences across the Claremont Colleges.
The program centers on the vision and generous contributions of Mr. Robert Day ’65, P’12:
“To provide a unique program that seeks out students who have proven their leadership potential and provides them with the technical fluency necessary to navigate today’s complex markets, the skills required to lead modern organizations, and a strong sense of judgment to ensure responsible leadership.”
Since the first class of RDS graduates in 2009, the Robert Day Scholars Program has provided each cohort of students with academic, personal, and professional development programming designed to support future success in leadership positions across disciplines and industries. Each student receives extensive co-curricular programming and access to experiential funding (up to $10,000 over the program for approved development needs) to augment their academic curriculum. In turn, RDS Program graduates have consistently achieved a placement rate of 98-100% into their choice of a variety of roles or further graduate-level academic pursuits.
As a member of the Robert Day Scholars Program, in addition to their required courses, RDS students are required to actively participate in a rich program of personal and professional development initiatives including workshops, seminars, events, and experiences. These initiatives are designed to strengthen the RDS community while also building strong foundations in ethical decision-making, critical thinking, interpersonal skills, communications and broader leadership.
RDS Alumni continue to deeply engage with and benefit from the RDS community well beyond graduation. The Program continues to tap the expertise of the RDS alumni and the RDS Board of Associates, which is comprised of RDS BA, BA/MA, and MA tenured alumni who help guide the program on strategic topics, provide mentoring and engagement directly with RDS students, and assist in the review and selection of each new RDS cohort.
Curriculum: The highly respected Robert Day Scholar Program offers a set of programs that provide curricular depth including in economics, finance, accounting, integrated sciences, organizational behavior, and leadership. Each scholar is required to maintain academic excellence after selection into the program.
The Robert Day Scholar Program tracks are as follows:
RDS BA Scholars: This program is open to all 5C students and requires specific and elective courses in economics, finance, accounting and leadership studies. The finance curriculum requirements are satisfied with the completion of ECON 134: Corporate Finance and the accounting requirements are satisfied with the completion of ECON 86: Accounting for Decision Making plus a second, high-level Economics-Accounting course. Additionally, two leadership courses are required from the CMC Leadership Studies course offerings. RDS BA students are also required to participate in several workshops, events, and experiences from a menu of programming options. All course substitutions must be pre-approved, in writing, from the respective CMC Faculty department chair.
RDS BA/MA Scholars: This accelerated option, only available to CMC students, enables completion of the Master’s Program in Finance (MA) concurrently with earning their undergraduate degree at CMC. This program requires a total of 36 credits, completion of an approved summer finance internship, successfully completing FIN 300, FIN 301A, FIN 301B, and defense of a thesis in finance. RDS BA/MA students are also required to participate in several workshops, events, and experiences. Given the rigorous course requirements for BA/MA, students studying abroad and/or registering for courses at the other 5Cs, must get pre-approval in writing from the Graduate Programs Director, Professor Eric Hughson: [email protected]
MA Scholars: This stand-alone program allows students at the Claremont Colleges and select partnering institutions to complete a Master's degree in finance in one year. Eligibility, applications, and selection is only via select partnered liberal arts colleges. Scholars are expected to maintain academic excellence after selection.
Prospective Students:
Selection:
The Robert Day Scholar Program application and selection process takes place in the Fall semester of Sophomore year and is only applicable to Sophomores (as defined by the Registrar). First-year, junior, and senior candidates are not accepted into the RDS program.
Selection to each of the Robert Day Scholars Programs is highly competitive and is based on a holistic review designed to identify a combination of both prowess and potential across leadership, academic, and interpersonal attributes. The Selection Team also aims to build each newly selected RDS cohort with a composition that it believes will enrich the scholars’ overall experience during and after their time at CMC as the on-going RDS community is a vital attribute of the program at-large.
The RDS application may include the following: resume, unofficial transcript, essay(s), video statement, LinkedIn profile, references, and other materials. Students must indicate at time of application whether they are applying to the BA (open across 5C’s) or BA/MA (CMC-only) program. The application deadlines and number of students selected in each class has varied year over year, as have requirements for application materials, assessment exercises and interviews as part of the selection process.
Prior to the application opening, information and Q&A sessions about the Robert Day Scholar Program are held to provide students with an understanding of what it means to be a Scholar. These sessions are announced via Handshake and/or first-year career services newsletters.
All questions about the RDS Program should be directed to Director - Robert Day Scholars Program, Prag Shah at: [email protected]
Current Robert Day Scholars
Curriculum
Current RDS students in the BA program who have questions concerning satisfying the curricular requirements of the program should direct them to the Faculty Chair of the Robert Day School, Professor Cameron Shelton: [email protected]
Current RDS students in the BA/MA or MA program should direct curricular questions to the Graduate Programs Director, Professor Eric Hughson: [email protected]
Career Development
Questions about ongoing personal and career development should be directed to Director - Robert Day Scholars Program, Prag Shah at: [email protected]
Leadership, Personal & Professional Development
RDS BA Program – Several co-curricular workshops, events, experiences are required to fulfill RDS requirements.
RDS BA/MA and MA Programs – FIN300, FIN 301A (Fall), and FIN 301B (Spring) are required partial credit, co-curricular classes in junior year comprised of workshops and interactive class sessions dedicated to development as an individual, member of a team, part of society, and as a future leader. Collectively, FIN300/301A/301B total one (1) credit toward the 36 credits BA/MA requirement. Scholars studying abroad in junior year will be required to complete all the relevant course(s) during their senior year. The stand-alone MA students will also be required to take FIN30, 301A, and 301B during their one-year program at CMC.
RDS Experiential Funding – As a Robert Day Scholar, students have access to experiential funding allocations which can be used to support personal and professional development over sophomore, junior, and senior years.
Experiential learning is the epitome of CMC’s ethos to “learn to do and do to learn.” With that in mind, the nature of any worthwhile experiential learning should have a logical connection to personal and professional development goals. For more information, current Robert Day Scholars should visit the Robert Day Scholar Program Experiential Funding web page.
Questions should be directed to Director - Robert Day Scholars Program, Prag Shah at: [email protected]
Robert Day Scholars and Alumni
The RDS community has approximately 700 alumni, contributing to CMC/5C’s and society in a wide range of industries, sectors, functions, and geographies.
Please use the links below to see the list of recent classes of Robert Day Scholars:
Class of 2025 Robert Day Scholars
Class of 2024 Robert Day Scholars