Doubling down on your position via continuing to debate, however, is not
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So basically, if the student body is “98% liberal” (choose your number) there will be disagreement and debate within that environment? As in, how liberal is liberal enough. 
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You are not being narrow-minded. Unless you are under a court Order from a divorce case (or under some other legal compulsion) to pay for your child’s college education, then you are not obligated to pay for a college that your child wants to attend – no matter how badly the child may want to attend.
Maybe you should have a sit-down with your child and let them know that you are not comfortable with Smith as a college destination, because you do not believe that it has an environment that lends itself to fostering the type of intellectual growth that you think a college should foster – and especially for $85-$90K/year.
Yes. Self-identified liberals are not monolithic. And that’s an understatement.
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I think there are self-described moderates at Smith, but yes, of course, people who self-describe as liberal are constantly disagreeing and debating with each other, in just about any forum I know about.
So to unpack this, such a debate as described would necessarily be based on a unidimensional framework. All worldviews would have to be categorizable as just different points along one line, such that every disagreement between people with different worldviews is just a form of debate about where along that line is the ideal point.
Once you start thinking in terms of N-dimensional conceptual spaces, that framework falls apart. People can and will disagree and debate about so many, many different issues and questions and so on, about the right descriptions of the world, highest values and top priorities, best practices, and on and on.
So just knowing someone self-identifies as “conservative” or “liberal” does not mean you can then predict everything they will believe about all those many different issues and questions. And framing all the ensuing debates as “more/less conservative” or “more/less liberal” can’t possibly capture the true complexity of all that.
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OP- if your daughter were to be invited to participate in Smith’s STRIDE program (which also comes with a $96k award over 4 years), would you allow her to attend?
https://www.smith.edu/academics/applied-learning-research/stride-program
Not everything, but it doesn’t take N-dimensions to see that there is not any real conservative portion of the student body on campus. Does anyone really Smith has a thriving conservative community on campus?
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Right, I have pointed that out from the beginning of my comments.
I do not think there will be a lack of debate and disagreement over many issues at Smith.
I do think if you are looking for a significant-sized community of active, modern-US-style “conservatives”, Smith could be a bad choice.
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Two things:
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OP didn’t say they are seeking a “thriving conservative community on campus.” She said she wanted to ensure diversity of thought. There is tons of diversity of thought within the group of self-described liberals…
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…in part because, especially among younger people, “conservative” has become a pretty poisoned descriptor. So I’m guessing a lot of self-described liberal students are actually much more moderate/right-of-center when you scratch the surface and discuss issues.
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Reminder that this is not the political forum and debate is not allowed. Make your point and counter just once. If you want to continue to discuss please move to PM.
Yes, one thing that is very clear in various studies is these labels take on a life of their own, and people will have adverse reactions to certain labels causing them to avoid them as self-descriptions even if at least one some definitions one some aspect of their worldviews they might fit.
Diversity of thought within a bubble, is not really diversity of thought. Where is Orwell when you need him?
Before this thread possibly sees it’s demise, OP please answer this
Is compliance optional? Can we simply chat amongst ourselves instead of answering the OP? Asking for a friend 
I wonder how this thread would differ if the school in question was Hillsdale vs Smith?
It was already compared to Liberty.
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From my perspective we were still discussing the OP’s premise below, which I would hope was of potential interest to the OP:
That said, I would agree we have reached the point where we have pretty much fleshed out the possible views on diversity of thought and debate at Smith, and to actually advance it farther we would need to do something like take a field trip to Smith to see if in fact there is debate happening in classes and conversations and so on.
Which we are not going to do as a forum, presumably, but it is precisely the kind of thing the OP’s kid could do.
college is about expanding your ideas. yes, she’s likely to befriend people with similar ideas but I would hope that she would hear, and be receptive, to other ideas that aren’t part of the nomenclature. I wouldn’t want her to subconsciously feel cowed towards certain ideas and self-censor herself. It’s not healthy for people to live in bubbles- that’s why my wife and I chose to send out children to a city public school.
I don’t know if this helps, but Smith students come from all over the country, and like 1 out of 9 of enrolled students is not even from the United States. They have the option to study abroad, often in programs with kids from other US and non-US colleges. They have the option to take classes at the other colleges in the Five Colleges consortium, and there are also various academic programs and organized activities which are specifically consortium-based and not college-specific.
Again, I acknowledge the one thing they will largely lack is a large community of modern-US-style conservatives in their actual college.
But otherwise, to me, at least, the idea Smith students are in a “bubble” is a little strange, because there are so many ways in which Smith is actually serving to connect these kids to a much bigger world of people and experiences than most of them have encountered before college.
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