Between Yale, Brown, Williams, Amherst, and Dartmouth, where would a relatively conservative student feel most/least welcome/comfortable? Assume for sake of discussion the student is a bit like Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties, but more humble and less outspoken. I am fully aware that all of these schools are going to be strongly tilted progressive. I’m just trying to figure out which would be less hostile and judgmental, and which would be most open to civil discourse.
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I’d guess Dartmouth would be the most conservative friendly among that group. They’ve turned out some notable conservative thinkers over the years.
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Of those, I think Dartmouth.
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So if you are a fiscal conservative then I think really any of those colleges will be fine. A majority of people may disagree with you but it just won’t come up often. And you will likely be able to find like-minded people.
If you are a social conservative, then it really is a matter of your comfort level with the behaviors and expressed sentiments of others. And I don’t mean to suggest that is a trivial issue. You are obviously going to see a lot of people behaving in socially liberal ways. You will hear a lot of people expressing socially liberal views. You will hear some people being harshly critical of socially conservative views, and sometimes of anyone with socially conservative views. That last group may not represent a majority, but they may be relatively vocal.
I think to some extent this is something to consider with any of those colleges. But if it is important to you to have a significant community of like-minded students (a minority percentage, but still a decent number in total), I think your best bets are Yale and Dartmouth.
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Prepare your child to self-censor.
It is the opposite of what college should be. But this is where we are at.
Some of the survey data and student quotes from this website are horrifying.
I hope that the pendulum will swing back and things like Free Speech and Tolerance become trendy again.
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If your student is looking for an elite name, both U. of Virginia and U. of Chicago were given green labels for free speech on the Free Speech Rankings linked above.
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That’s probably good advice for a lot of adults, too.
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Why are you limiting yourself to the Northeast?
Agreed.
Understanding your audience and your own tolerance for negative feedback is such a critical life skill.
I work at a university where this issue of “self-censorship” comes up a lot, particularly among parents. The details generally involve their student being upset that they shared a perspective that someone else reacted to negatively or that they used a word that someone else found offensive and told them so. I don’t find this troubling at all; every day we all navigate these situations in our lives—figuring out how to tailor our comments for our audience, how much we want to push a friend or colleague or family member whose views are different, how openly we can disagree with our bosses.
And after the last year, it’s worth stepping back and considering the actual censorship we are witnessing at universities that claim to support free speech. A university asking police to arrest peacefully protesting students is censorship. Being told by peers that they vehemently disagree with your perspectives or that they find the language you use offensive is not.
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Auburn ranked #2 for freedom of speech should be referenced in the “Why is Auburn so popular now?” thread…
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Discourse is more civil and productive when both sides of an argument are present and feel comfortable expressing themselves.
Imagine that?
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Auburn was also just named #1 in the country for happiest students by the Princeton Review. Perhaps there is a correlation? You should absolutely post in the Auburn thread. As wonderful as I think Auburn is (I sent one of my children there, his roommate turned down Yale for financial reasons), the OP is asking about a very specific subset of elite universities. I highly doubt Auburn is of any interest to them.
I agree with others that Dartmouth would most likely be the most conservative friendly. Also agree with @NiceUnparticularMan about Yale, which although very left leaning has a long history of producing notable conservatives
going back to William F Buckley. I am attaching a fairly recent National Review article by a conservative Yale student that may be of interest to @DKProf.
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Also, not just behaving, sometimes just being (e.g. sometimes transgender, racial/ethnic appearance).
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Yeah, as that article is suggesting, Yale has the structures in place to make it easy for like-minded conservatives to find each other. Obviously it is also considerably larger than the LACs on the OPs list, and actually than Dartmouth too. So even if the percentage of conservatives was around the same, there would be more in total, and again structures in place for them to find each other. But Dartmouth has those structures too, so I don’t really think it is a notably worse choice than Yale.
And then Brown–well, it has a certain branding and I think it affects who chooses Brown among its peers. I don’t think that means there are literally no conservatives at Brown, but I do think Yale and Dartmouth are better bets for a conservative student looking for the most substantial community possible of like-minded students.
As a final observation, I think that article gets into a deep issue about how conservatives persisting at ANY of these institutions must have a somewhat nuanced understanding of the role these institutions can play in the education of a conservative person. As the author eventually acknowledges, some conservative families are simply opting out entirely. The author argues that is a “rational, but fatal, decision,” and present an argument as to why the “contemporary conservative movement” still needs to be sending kids to these institutions. But I know not all contemporary movement conservatives necessarily agree.
In any event, my point is just that some conservatives might simply conclude the right answer is none of the above. If that is not your answer, then some of these colleges may be easier paths than others, but none are necessarily going to be entirely free from frustrations and conflicts.
Although as other posters have mentioned, that is likely a preview of much more of the same to come in most professions, so there is a case to be made for starting to work out how to navigate all that in college. Unless you think opting out of those professions is also a good idea, or at least limiting the parts of those professions you are willing to consider, which again is something some conservatives in fact do.
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Yes, although as we sort of touched on in the diversity discussion, I think often it is the community reaction (or in some cases lack of reaction) to those people that is the biggest concern for some socially conservative students and families. But in any event, for sure that is all part of what a socially conservative students is going to have to be prepared to experience at all of these colleges.
I think the OP is concerned about how one would be perceived and treated for being a conservative, as opposed to how they feel about the atmosphere at those schools. I’m sure they already have a good comfort level with liberalism.
As noted by @NiceUnparticularMan , it depends on what kind of conservative. Fiscal / economic issues are more likely to result in civil discussion than arguing that (for example) LGBTQ people should have fewer rights or that the presence of students of racial/ethnic/religious minorities at the school is undesirable.
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@Collegequestions5 this is an excellent comment and perspective. Thank you
According to the free speech ratings cited in another post in this thread. Williams College might be the best option among your listed schools.
Despite its reputation as the most conservative Ivy League school (along with Princeton), Dartmouth College received a rating of “poor” from the free speech organization shared above by another poster.
According to a student at Dartmouth & her parents, there is a lot going on at the school that has not made the press. Supposedly, one of the faculty/staff/administrators left under a settlement that included a very long gag order.
Based on your concern, your student might want to consider Wash & Lee, Wake Forest, Claremont McKenna, SMU, USC, Duke, Furman, or many schools in the South.
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Another elite school where civil discourse is encouraged is the University of Chicago. That might be worth looking at. There are also some schools where the student bodies, although left leaning, aren’t particularly activist - although I don’t know what elite schools might fit into that category.
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