I mean I feel it would be kind of ridiculous not to participate or write about things that interest you or that you feel strongly about because adcoms might disagree with you. If the readers of the school are so intolerant of your views that they literally don’t want you at their school because of them maybe it’s not a school you want to be at…definitely not a school I’d want to be at
Re: #80
It may be luck of the draw as to whether your application is read by a reader following school policy of political neutrality, or one who covertly or even unconsciously applies his/her political opinions against your political opinions that may show, in violation of school policy. Perhaps the former are in the majority, but it is not guaranteed that the latter makes up 0% of admissions readers.
@ucbalumnus but is that really a valid reason not to express your political views in anyway if you’re passionate and educated about them? I guess it’s a question for everyone to answer for themselves including the OP, but for me personally it’s not.
Basically, it is your decision, but you should realize that there is some risk involved. If you are willing to take that risk (particularly if your application would be significantly weaker without mentioning it), then go right ahead.
Maybe it was easier for me because I applied to a lot of catholic schools so they weren’t extremely liberal and had less of that risk involved
Personal preferences and opinions can be tempered, when reviewing on behalf of the college. Same as when any employer states politics and aspects of personal preference or identity are not to intrude on business dealings. The waiter was fired. For all we know, his intent was to hit on the girls. (I haven’t seen any explanation.) Let’s see more before assuming adcoms for a top school equate to this waiter. C’mon.
The question was, will this girl’s involvement affect admissions. Many of us say no. That isn’t contradicted by the number of conservatives who choose to matriculate or not. A few posters suggested GOP involvement, before YAF. They made sense. Any college looking to build a community of mutually engaged kids may be leery of any extreme position, of any sort, liberal or conservative, (and yup, kids do state some unusual things that yield some SMH.)
@ucbalumnus - you’re comparing adcoms to waiters, now?
I posed this question to a friend who is on the admissions committee at one of the very top - and I mean very top - schools in the country. If by conservative, one means conservative in a traditional republican sense, he would love to have more students he could admit, and who would matriculate. If conservative is construed as meaning intolerant, which certainly shouldn’t be the broad brush that is applied to people who back more conservative views, than it is a problem. He says they want students with a broad range of views and beliefs. They just don’t want to bring someone onto campus who is hateful, whether conservative or liberal.
I am a very liberal Californian, and my dormitory neighbor at that same college discussed above was a conservative Texan. We had political arguments and discussions for years, and we were both the better for it.
yes, I’m quite certain adcoms will say such a thing. whether they actually act that way is debated, but I’m sure they understand they are supposed to say that they have no such political biases entering the admission process. So we are left with judging the result-either there is massive self-selection going on such that enormous numbers of conservatives don’t apply or attend, for example, Ivies, despite the outstanding financial aid, connections, and prestige of many programs in those schools, or perhaps something else is occurring. I do wonder, if any other group had such small representation on elite college campuses,would administrators thrown up their hands and say “not our fault”? If there were no left-handed people at Harvard, would Harvard not care, or undertake a campaign to investigate why and encourage applications?
I haven’t read the whole thread. If she wants to start a club, she should. Whatever she calls it should be pretty generic, IMO. Any name like Freedom Club, or MAGA club,etc…is to be avoided. Just call it the Student Republicans club, or similar. There are plenty of conservatives at selective colleges, they aren’t going to hold it against her.
I am not wild about the premise of this thread. It implies that conservatives are bing “persecuted” for their beliefs, and that they should go underground. More conservatives need to be upfront about their values. I am a raving loony liberal, but I dislike this notion that higher education is the preserve of the left. Conservatives should be staking their claims publicly in higher education. They should be encouraging other conservatives to pursue higher education. Especially right now, when it seems that being educated and using knowledge is under attack.
It’s funny: Conservatives really like to accuse liberals, progressives, and leftists of “victim” thinking when demonstrable, real-life problems of inequality, sexism, racism, homophobia, and transphobia are brought up, but here, in the absence of evidence and the presence of lots of counterevidence, there are still some arguing that conservatives are somehow (invisible, unsubstantiated, “but you can’t disprove it”!) victims of the college admissions process. It’s enough to make a fella chuckle in his Laphroaig.
There is plenty of evidence, @marvin100, but perhaps you don’t like it. In the last election, 37% of Americans aged 18-24 voted for Trump; probably a similar or higher percentage of college educated Americans did as well, I didn’t have time to research it. (full disclosure-I didn’t vote for Trump.). Less than 5% of Ivy students did, according to those schools’ own polls. So there is plenty of evidence that those schools are not at all representative of the political spectrum of students’ in that age group; the question is why. I doubt we would accept the “self-selection” argument on behalf of any other group, so why do we accept it on behalf of conservatives? It reeks of the old segregationist arguments that “minorities don’t really like to come to our college; they prefer to stick to their own kind.” It was wrong then, and it is wrong now.
No, 37% of Americans aged 18-24 who voted voted for Trump. And since only ~20% of Americans in that age range even voted (I can’t find clear data for '16, but in '12 it was 19.9%, and that was just eligible voters), you’re now talking about ~7.5% of Americans aged 18-24 who voted for Trump.
As for the rest, links plz
Wait, that’s not even right. 37% of Americans aged 18 - 29 voted for Trump.
If you’re going to base an argument on stats, try to get them right.
Pew Research:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/
and you shouldn’t assume that everyone who stayed home and didn’t vote would have voted against Trump.
I’m not. But you also can’t assume they would. You can only use the data you have. And one piece of data we have is that the Ivies are–with the exception of UPenn–in Blue states, where it’s extremely likely the 18-24 vote was even more asymmetrical than it was nationally. It may also be worth noting that many conservatives opposed Trump, and many Trump voters aren’t self-identified political conservatives.
What we can’t do is take a very complex mass of data (that we’re both cherry-picking and that neither of us has really fully digested or analyzed in satisfactory depth), much of it representing small minorities of people, and extrapolate it into a conspiracy.
more good news for civic participation;nearly half of eligible young voters, actually voted in 2016.
https://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2016/11/14/how-millennials-voted/
Right, for ages 18-29. The most recent data for 18-24, though, is, as I wrote, 19.9% (2012).
@roycroftmom
(and I bet even that is inflated: I’m pretty sure very few Ivy League students are >22)
I never claimed it was a conspiracy. I don’t even think it is even necessarily intentional, or consciously done. But the OP was asking if it was risky to disclose conservative political activities on a college application, and in so considering, it is relevant to mention that there appears to be, statistically, substantial underrepresentation of those voting Republican on certain elite college campuses. He/She can take that for what it’s worth, and decide whether the risk is worth it.