@circuitrider: My understanding is that OP’s daughter wants to avoid an atmosphere of constant “in your face” political activism–especially those with little respect for opposing viewpoints.
Claremont McKenna College is a great school with motivated, high-achievers focused more on careers than on political activism.
In short, despite your well stated view, we will just have to agree to disagree with respect to CMC.
P.S. In the Fiske Guide To Colleges 2020, a CMC senior was quoted and describes CMC students as “career-oriented, ambitious, and serious about their classes.”
In these respects, CMC is similar to the Univ. of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University, and Georgetown University.
I simply do not see CMC as a school where political activism is a dominant aspect of the school culture.
Perhaps consider Santa Clara – not an LAC but a small uni.
U of San Diego
Agnes Scott for a women’s college that’s more middle of the road, also prob Simmons U in Boston. Womens’ colleges tend to produce women leaders across fields disproportionately. They also tend to produce more women in STEM fields, if any of that interests her
Wheaton in Massachusetts perhaps
Washington College in Maryland
Recently I’ve looked at the public Us in places like Montana or Wyoming. They are beautiful and small and the tuition isn’t as high as other publics for OOS. So this idea would be if your daughter says: “I really like UVM but it’s too liberal” she could find a centrist campus in U of Montana. They have the same outdoorsy feel, good academics, a cute college town, scenery. Another similar school is U of Maine at Orono, which also has matching tuition. It’s a bargain UVM IMHO.
On the far right end of the spectrum and so prob should be avoided by your daughter, Hope, Wheaton in Illinois
Princeton Review’s list of least politically active students–liberal or conservative–include
Elon
U of Nebraska Lincoln
Brigham Young
U of New England
Washington State at Pullman
Carnegie Mellon
Moravian College
St. John’s Uni in Queens NY
Rochester Institute of Tech
NJ Institute of Tech
Elmira College
Manhattan College
Worcester Polytech
U of Louisiana at Lafayette
Most Politically Active
Pitzer
Furman
Columbia U
Reed
American U
Hollins
Syracuse
Grinnel
Williams
Brown
Sarah Lawrence
Hillsdale
emerson
Hampden-Sydney
Texas Christian
UNC Ashville
Tulane
U of Redlands
U of L Tuscaloosa
Scripps
@circuitrider: Again, regarding your post #42 above, we just have to agree to disagree.
Lots of variety among LACs with respect to campus culture.
As noted above in post #41 by @Dustyfeathers, Pitzer & Scripps–members of the Claremont schools consortium as is CMC-- are among the most politically active schools according to Princeton Review surveys. Pitzer students are quite different than the students at CMC.
@Publisher How are you defining “active?” I definite is as being active in politics, which they absolutely are. It’s most of what they talked about on the tour, political internships, debate, all that good stuff. I don’t think it would be a good fit if discussing politics isn’t something OP’s child wants. I don’t have a kid there but I have one (left leaning) who had a long conversation with an AO (likely right leaning, or playing devils advocate) about the discourse on campus. Their party line is that different viewpoints are encouraged, in class and out of class. Her essay was about her activism and interest in politics and law. Accepted.
If by “centrist” she means “not interested in discussing politics,” that’s one thing. Bad fit. If she means “interested but neither right nor left leaning,” then she should check it out.
@PetraMC : “Politically active” is Princeton Review’s term.
My understanding is that OP’s daughter does not want to attend school at a highly charged, in your face, no room for dissenting opinion, social justice warrior type campus.
Political apathy does not seem to be a part of OP’s daughter’s concerns.
I think that OP’s daughter is looking for an environment in which freedom of expression of diverse views is accepted and respected.
Agree with the other poster who suggested Bowdoin. It doesn’t tend to be full of “in-your-face” activism, but it’s built into the history of the college. Of the 3 Maine LACs (Bowdoin, Bates, and Colby), it’s the most balanced by far. Unlike Bates and Colby who just recently made the effort, they are known for having some of the first LAC African American graduates (first was Russwurm in 1826), and they have been test optional since 1969–well before it was the “in” thing to do. Among the SLACs, they are known for their decades-long commitment to first gen, low SES, and underrepresented minorities. They have been doing it much longer and better than most others. On the other hand, they also have a strong white, prep school, “old money” contingent. Along with that, there’s a solid conservative contingent on campus. No Greek life though. Due to this mix, there seems to be a happy balance at the college. There is a place for everyone, whether you are liberal or conservative, overtly political or not. (And before anyone asks, D20 attends a different SLAC. so this is not me being biased ;))
Of course, their acceptance rate is consistently in the single digits…
The OP could do worse than Bowdoin. I applaud its decades long efforts to overcome its geographic location, but within NESCAC, only Bates, Colby and Conn have whiter student bodies. That’s according to a website called, College Factual which you can probably google.
Yes, but the OP didn’t mention racial or ethnic diversity. The concern is political atmosphere. Unless posters specify, most are not concerned about the “whiteness” of student bodies. After all, it’s clear which colleges and universities dominate discussions here. (I can’t remember the last time HBCUs received any major attention on CC, outside of the usual AfAM threads.) With the exception of a few “affinity” threads, this site overwhelming lacks racial and ethnic diversity. I was mentioning Bowdoin’s overall political atmosphere among LACs because those are the schools the OP mentioned. Their track record in certain areas points to a more open political atmosphere.
So, unless someone mentions it, I assume (correctly or not), they are okay with PWIs. If they are not, they should not consider most LACs at all.
ETA: Among top LACS, Bowdoin ranks only behind Amherst and Wesleyan in the percentage of Black and Latinx students enrolled on the campus. That has been the case for years, particularly in regards to Black student population.
^Not sure I understood all of that, but my inner Dalton Trumbo is telling me I should move on. So, another suggestion might be to look at LACs that offer a lot of merit aid. The biggest consumers of merit aid are middle-class families who don’t qualify for much need-based aid at the Claremonts and NESCACs and my hunch is that there is a strong correlation between schools that rely on them to fill out their rosters and political equipoise:
Lawrence University in Appleton, WI. My son is a senior there this year. I agree with another poster in this thread that some of the midwestern LACs may offer more or what you’re looking for. That said, I see LU as less of a pressure cooker politically than some of its neighbors in the Midwest (Macalester, earlham, Beloit).
Yes. The top Jesuit schools here on the west coast fit quite nicely into that middle of the road niche, with a healthy mix of both liberal and conservative students. They generally don’t call themselves liberal arts colleges because they usually have business schools, engineering schools, nursing programs and so forth. But aside from the professional schools, they largely operate like liberal arts colleges for undergrads
Schools like: Gonzaga, Santa Clara, Loyola Marymount, etc.
I think the bottom line is that most secular liberal arts colleges are going to tilt liberal by their very nature. It’s kind of self-selecting because traditional liberal arts degrees and majors tend to attract more liberal students than professional degrees like business or engineering.
Most conservative-leaning schools are either going to be religiously affiliated (Baylor, BYU, Liberty) or are going to be business/professional oriented like Bentley University in Boston where most students major in non-liberal arts fields like accounting, marketing, finance, and business.
For a student who is afraid that his/her views will be disrespected or denigrated, the answer isn’t to find a school that most perfectly aligns with one’s political beliefs. It is finding a place with diversity and tolerance, and where there are enough like-minded students to form a critical mass. For example, CMC according to the statistics above has 35% students who are moderate and 15% who are conservative. Essentially half the student body doesn’t identify as liberal. I have a hard time believing that a centrist student is going to feel overwhelmed by universal doctrinaire liberalism at a place like that.
But honestly, any mainstream university in a less liberal part of the country is probably going to be just fine.
For example, in Texas there is TCU, SMU, Rice, Trinity, Baylor and Southwestern. All reputable schools and none are liberal bastions. You’ll find plenty of like-minded moderate or conservative students at any of those schools, and also plenty of liberals too.
Love this thread. I think many people assume that because someone is silent they consent to the conversation. That isn’t the case in this climate. I, for one, like seeing a list of schools that seem to support an open discussion, less strife and more ideas. I also thought some made great points about SES, Frats, religion and geography. All interesting perspective which can impact a college.
I think many students at would love to have a happy medium as OP states where all ideas are equally supported. Definitely marking this thread for a repeat visit.