zweebopp

Brown? Don't have any first hand experience, but isn't its reputation liberal?

schleen

UW-Madison: Still has that 60s, hippie vibe as an undercurrent.

Silly, but telling, example of "PC" behavior there: the word "lame" was banned by RAs in my son's dorm his freshman year so as not to insult students who can't walk. That feels like something a liberal campus would produce.

The place is big enough, though, that conservative students' views are represented.

Parent

TrumpetDad

The ISI publication, Choosing the Right College, is easily the best written college guide around: CollegeGuide.org - Home

Even if you don't care for its unwaveringly conservative slant [I don't care for the "right-wing" characterization], you'll find great information on many of the top colleges and universities.

And you might be surprised at some of the schools that get a green light rating [e.g. Colorado College]. What they look for is philosophical tolerance, and they recoil at over-politicization of academics and political correctness to the point of absurdity ... even unfairness. A campus that's heavily weighted to the left can still get a green light rating if it allows conservative voices to be heard.

ghostbuster

Oh this is easy.....about 90% of American colleges are "Liberal." Too funny.

Put it this way, the list of "Conservative" colleges is really quite small in comparison to the total number of four year colleges in the United States.

But seriously, to "trumpet" what TrumpetDad said above, that resource is really one of the best out there (and its not perfect....but has made a lot of headway in giving parents and students a pretty good idea of the "culture" on those campuses it examines.)

I fully agree that the goal is to find a "tolerant" campus culture, both from faculty as well as the student body. Where varying opinions are honored and respected and nobody is denigrated for a particular viewpoint, be that secular versus religious, democrat versus republican, straight versus gay, green versus pro industrial capitalism. Whatever the topic.

Some people want to be in an environment where everyone thinks like them. Clones if you will. Not me. I relish diverse points of view and the healthy discussions that ensue resulting in a consensus, or perhaps just a new found respect for the other side of the fence. I would RUN (not walk, but RUN!) away from any school, left or right, that was oppressive and exclusive and one-way thinkers. Or schools known for proselytizing (not religious..but political!) one agenda that is both divisive and radical, often cloaked in smarmy condescending arrogance.

I don't want to send my kids off to college to be indoctrinated. These are growing and learning years for certain. Lots of changes in one's thinking may come about. But it should be fostered in an environment of tolerance, acceptance, mutual respect and genuine concern for everyone, regardless of their political, religious or "other" point of view.

Gwen Fairfax

hmmm...great post, ghostbuster....you may have convinced me to actually buy it.... (I assume the title is a pun....so 'right-wing' is meant descriptively, not insultingly.)

TrumpetDad

Well said, ghostbuster.

goaliedad

1) College Name - University of California, Berkeley

2) Your reason(s) for calling it "Liberal" - Don't have time to write the book.

3) Your source of information (first-hand experience as a student or parent? friend of current student or alum? etc.) - Alum.

I can't believe someone hasn't mentioned Berkeley yet.

debrockman

What has been interesting to me about much of the CC Board has been the discovery that if a college is tolerant of conservatives, it is mocked for being a home for the dimmer bulbs. The truth is, conservative kids are the individualists these days, and frankly, to be a liberal on a campus is to be part of the group think. Interesting to me how smart kids are so willing to be part of this....kids who claim to want to be individuals. They go and sit in these classrooms where the liberals have self-selected their own to lead the minds full of mush. That is exactly what they are doing. Leading the kids to follow a thought pattern. So, my national merit son is avoiding these schools.....and intending to spend his years where independent thought is cherished. From what I can see, that independence of thought is not to be found in the Ivy League. And who knows. When he is done with his education, maybe he can start his life in a new country, someplace where independence is still considered a virtue....New Zealand, anyone?

TrumpetDad

Thanks, debrockman. At the risk of lowering myself to the level of the Parent Cafe [something I'm loathe to do], a corollary to the OP could be that those 'who claim they want a school with a "liberal" campus climate' aren't truly looking for an education, but rather some alternate reality that blindly justifies their pet assumptions [whether true or not].

Feral24

Cornell is pretty liberal. I'm a student.

debrockman

At a local State U, known to be very liberal within some (not all) of its programs, our campus guide was very proud to tell us that courses could be structured around any interest...that he was aware of a class that had been structured to teach Elvish. I did not know that there was academic, market or intellectual value in learning fictional languages.

mommusic

Surprised Amherst hasn't been mentioned yet. My aunt visited and was shocked, shocked, to see women holding hands in public.

Her story, not mine, but that's why I would call it liberal.

eadad

UNC

Parent of UNC Grad

When the initial appropriation for funding a state zoo was being discussed some years ago, the late Jesse Helms delivered what is probably his most famous quote: "Why build a zoo when we can just put up a fence around Chapel Hill?"

Mr Helms also said that UNC stood for the "University of Negroes and Communists".....

What a nice and enlightened man......

appdad

debrockman
It is interesting to hear that the Ivies are all ultra liberal. Most ivies have strong and active student conservative groups and multiple conservative publications.
Folks life style does not define you as liberal, I have known a number of very conservative republican gays.

schrizto

I'd say Columbia is really liberal. It seems like everyone loves Obama there, and not just because he is an alumnus.

And UC Berkeley, probably because of this youtube clip I watched, and because someone conservative I know called it UC Berzerkeley.