<p>I want this thread to exist for future Conservative students who want to know what are good choices. What top 50 universities and top 30 LACs are best and worst for right-leaning students?</p>
<p>I found this to be an important part of my search, and I think this should exit for future students. </p>
<p>TOP 50 UNIVERSITIES
Best fits for conservative students - University of Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Lehigh, Darmouth, University of Virginia
Worst fits for conservative students - Most of the Ivies (especially Columbia), Northwestern, most of the UC schools, Brandeis, University of Miami, Northeastern</p>
<p>TOP 30 LACs
Best fits for conservative students - Washington and Lee (by far), University of Richmond, Davidson, College of the Holy Cross
Worst fits for conservative students - Vassar, Swarthmore, Macalester, Grinnell, Claremont colleges</p>
<p>However, I don’t think that selecting one’s university simply off of rankings or which is most conservative is a great strategy; there are far more important factors to consider ahead of these, such as cost, location, etc. Plus, at most universities a student would be able to find a group of similarly-conservative students because colleges are so diverse - even if many lean towards the left. </p>
<p>I’m going to have to argue with the point on the claremont colleges. Claremont Mckenna I would recommend for conservative students</p>
<p>Brown, Reed, Mount Holyoke, Hampshire, and Warren Wilson.</p>
<p><a href=“Center to Right leaning school but not necessarily Christian - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>Center to Right leaning school but not necessarily Christian - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums;
<p>Davidson, Holy Cross.</p>
<p>It depends on which angle of “conservative” you mean. Fiscal and economic conservatism is more common among college students than social and religious conservatism, for example.</p>
<p>The most popular elite schools with conservatives are Vanderbilt, University of Virginia, Notre Dame, Boston College, and Lehigh. Out of the Ivies, most conservatives prefer Princeton, Dartmouth, and UPenn. Schools that tend to have D-1 sports and school spirit also tend to have tolerant student bodies even if they lean left like Duke, Stanford, Georgetown, Michigan, Northwestern, Wisconsin, USC, UT-Austin, and UNC. Highly technical schools like MIT & Georgia Tech don’t tend to be as political. Schools with a religious affiliation such as Pepperdine, or schools in the south such as Tulane, SMU, and TCU. LACs that tend to be more pre-professional tend to be more tolerant of conservatives like Williams, Washington & Lee, Colgate, Bowdoin, Davidson, Claremont McKenna, Holy Cross, Bucknell, Richmond, and Trinity-CT.</p>
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<p>The level of religiosity varies among schools with a religious affiliation. Also, the more religious schools may not be all that compatible with conservative students of other religions.</p>
<p>There are a huge number of conservatives at even the most reportedly liberal public flagships. My farthest right high school friend is now a happy student at UC Berkeley, and I know many conservatives at UCLA, UCI, UCSD, etc. I’m sure most other non self selecting publics (eg, Evergreen State, NCF, Humboldt State, etc) are the same way. </p>
<p>I also had a number of socially and/or economically conservative friends at Emory, many of whom are majoring in subjects long considered liberal dominated. </p>
<p>Would you share your definition of “Conservative?” Do you mean politically? And what liberal attitudes and types of students are you hoping to avoid? I mean the question to be sincere. Thanks.</p>
<p>@planner03 </p>
<p>This is for future students who wish to avoid places where people will consider them backwards for far-right views. I thought about this in my search, and I am going to Vanderbilt next year. </p>
<p>Schools to avoid - Brown, Columbia, Swarthmore, and Oberlin.</p>
<p>The academies.</p>
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<p>In a fiscal/economic sense, or a social/religious sense?</p>
<p>I’m fascinated by Columbia’s left-wing reputation. Academically, it is ultra-traditional. Its “Core Curriculum” is a “Great Books” program, focusing on the Classics. Its Economics and Business departments have always had prominent conservatives, despite some prominent liberals on the faculty. I think that people still see it as a hotbed of radicalism, after more than forty years. The broader community on the Upper West Side of Manhattan is unabashedly liberal, admittedly, but Wall Street is as influential as Occupy Wall Street. There has always been a strong Orthodox Jewish presence on campus, also, and they are quite conservative on most issues. </p>
<p>Apart from Christian colleges, and some outliers like Hillsdale, most colleges will skew somewhat to the left of center. Younger people are more liberal, overall, than older people. College faculty members are, overall, more liberal than the adult population at large. A disproportionate number of elite colleges and universities are located in “Blue” states. Those that aren’t are often in liberal oases like Austin. Young women tend to be more liberal than young men (many of whom are libertarian, rather than socially conservative), and so liberal arts colleges with high female-to-male ratios will probably be further to the left than campuses with active Greek life and strong business and engineering departments. If you are a serious social conservative, you would probably be happiest at a religious-affiliated college, but even some of the most left-leaning universities have on-campus ministries and student organizations where you can seek out like-minded individuals.</p>
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Me too!
Is it a remnant from the 60’s and 70’s (40 to 50 years ago?)
Today I think of Columbia of being more “traditional” than many ivies, its core curriculum is rather conservative in outlook, and the whole student body would certainly not seem “radical” to me, rather, a good place for a conservative who’s comfortable being in a liberal city, surrounded by students who run the gamut in terms of views.</p>
<p>I was thinking the same thing about UC-Berkeley. 1965 was nearly 50 years ago and things have changed a lot. UCSB seems far worse lately than UCB.</p>
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<p>Fraternity/sorority life and associated alcohol use may not be what some personally conservative students who prefer a substance-free lifestyle are looking for.</p>
<p>Engineering students are not necessarily conservative, though they appear to be less political overall than other students.</p>