<p>As a general rule, engineers tend to be apolitical or libertarian, but they do seem to have a proclivity for beer on the weekends. There are many engineering heavy campuses that are hard studying places Sun-Thurs, but Friday and Saturday are dedicated to keeping the local brewery in business. The lack of women doesn’t help.</p>
<p>The conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute rates colleges.
It posts lists of “Top Ten Exceptional Schools” and “Top Ten Train Wreck Schools”.
<a href=“http://www.collegeguide.org/itemdetail.aspx?item=486fb85a-5d15-4d1f-a8f5-5ce2804c3129&page=3”>http://www.collegeguide.org/itemdetail.aspx?item=486fb85a-5d15-4d1f-a8f5-5ce2804c3129&page=3</a></p>
<p>The “exceptional” schools are not necessarily politically conservative. You would encounter many liberal/ left-leaning students at the top 2 “exceptional” schools (Princeton and Chicago). </p>
<p>Other US News top 30 National Universities that get the ISI green light (besides Princeton and Chicago) include MIT, Caltech, Washington University in St. Louis, Carnegie Mellon, UVA, Wake Forest, Michigan, and UNC-CH. </p>
<p>Top 30 LACs that get the ISI green light include Haverford, Davidson, and Washington & Lee. </p>
<p>Methodology:
<a href=“http://www.collegeguide.org/itemdetail.aspx?item=486fb85a-5d15-4d1f-a8f5-5ce2804c3129&page=2”>http://www.collegeguide.org/itemdetail.aspx?item=486fb85a-5d15-4d1f-a8f5-5ce2804c3129&page=2</a></p>
<p>I ran into a young woman that grew up VERY conservative & religious. She mentioned that she had just graduated from Columbia. She applied ED, & absolutely loved it! I was surprised by this but she said that she learned so much about herself, her family & her life by going. </p>
<p>lol, Holy Cross which was recommended upstream is on the ‘train wreck schools’ list. Not even Brown is on it. Even Brown has conservative students some of whom run a newspaper and apolitical students. Being known as a liberal or conservative institution can be a self fulfilling prophesy but conservative students do thrive at Brown. A smart cookie might leverage diversity into an admissions hook. It seems a shame for students to limit themselves in this way.
<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/16/brown#sthash.yrxW2JDw.dpbs”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/16/brown#sthash.yrxW2JDw.dpbs</a></p>
<p>And yes it is pretty hilarious that people think Berkeley is overrun with 1960s era hippies.</p>
<p>Surprised no one has mentioned Texas A & M yet. Holy smokes, extremely conservative. I am related to two alumni and have been to the campus many times. Solid academics, too.</p>
<p>I’ve never paid for the College Guide reviews, but I can tell they have a few axes to grind, so I would personally discount them. They’re still mad at Hamilton over the whole Alexander Hamilton Institute fiasco from a few years ago and obviously do not approve of Hamilton having no core requirements. Yet they give Haverford, which just forced it’s commencement speaker to withdraw, a green light because of it’s supposed honor code. And my daughter looked at both extensively last year, and I can tell you that Haverford is much more liberal in campus atmosphere/politics than Hamilton, but a more socially conservative person could find either to be a good place to go, as both have organizations dedicated to more sober forms of fun on the weekends. </p>
<p>College Guide, on it’s surface, appear to be a little like the conservative study that knocked Bowdoin around, but didn’t really account for the fact that “not required” does not mean “not available”. What could have been useful instead turns into a score-settling device. </p>
<p>
Colleges with a good-sized student body generally have a notable number of conservative students on campus and related organizations, including ones with a reputation for being liberal. Many conservative students could find their “tribe” and be quite content at a college that has reputation for being liberal. For example, Stanford probably as a whole is more liberal than most of the ivies and tends to report stories with a politically correct perspective in their school paper. In reaction to this, a student formed the Stanford Review, as an alternative school newspaper, with news reporting and editorials from a more conservative & libertarian viewpoint Many conservative students on campus have been involved in the organization since then. The guy who founded the paper went on to found Paypal after graduating and became a billionaire. Many of his colleagues at the Review and future members of the paper were able to join Paypal at its early stages because of their conservative/libertarian connections at a college with a reputation for being liberal… </p>
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<p>No doubt the ISI has some axes to grind. However, you have to read their methodology description to understand how they review colleges. They aren’t trying to identify the predominant left-right-center viewpoints of students and faculty. They are looking at:
- general education (core) requirements
- coverage of the “fundamentals” of each discipline (rather than “trendy, ideologically charged topics”)
- highly qualified professors who teach undergraduates
- class sizes
- tolerance for a variety of viewpoints
- a “wholesome, safe, and tranquil” campus environment
- good financial aid </p>
<p>Their Top Ten lists do look a little odd to me, but their reviews are well-written. If you share their outlook, think the factors listed above are important, and are willing to pay for the reviews, you might find them helpful. </p>
<p>I think the OP and others should define who and what they indentify as “conservative.” If they are simply economic conservatives or libertarians, they will probably be outnumbered, but not isolated, at most prestigious colleges. On the other hand, someone who insists that the Earth is only 6000 years old, or that women must submit to their husbands, can expect to encounter a great deal of hostility anywhere outside of a fundamentalist campus. I once read that Science professors, as a group, are the most liberal. I suspect this is because most colleges feel obliged to include diverse opinions in Political Science or Economics departments, but nobody has ever paid attention to a Physics professor’s political leanings. Southern colleges are likelier to have more conservative student bodies than Northern ones, but the student population is likely to be more liberal than the aggregate adult population in the area. When we visited Davidson, our guide was a young Hispanic woman from Chicago, who had never met a Republican in her life. She said her freshman roommate, from South Carolina, was astonished by how liberal most students there were. I think Claremont-McKenna is similar. Compared to the other colleges in its consortium, and to the youth population in Los Angeles County, the college seems conservative. It is not the Young Republicans’ Club that it was in the '60s and '70s, though, because Southern California is much more liberal now. It still attracts a lot more libertarian and conservative students than other small, liberal arts colleges. </p>
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<p>This does look good … and this book has been referenced frequently on CC. So once a couple years back I got the book from the library and read it. It the start I liked it quite a bit … but then the agenda comes through pretty strong and biases in the “grades”. That said, similar to USN rankings where the rankings have issues the data behind them is pretty interesting and helpful … in this case a lot of the grades come out odd to me but the data about the schools could be VERY helpful if one reads with a critical eye.</p>
<p>The book favors schools with heavy requirements in classic liberal arts education … .essentially a heavy does of the classic “dead white men” education. So the pretty much love Chicago and Columbia’s core … and are not fan of the open curriculum at Amherst or Brown … fair enough. I actually like the part where they got into tolerance for free speech and opposing viewpoints. </p>
<p>Here’s an example of where I think the book goes off the rails a bit. The book criticizes schools for hiring profs and having departments with agenda’s like women’s studies and African American studies … not a fan of this one but given the conservative leaning OK. At the same time in a few cases schools were given special mention and credit for only hiring professors who follow the Christian beliefs of the school. Whoa … what happened to free speech and not hiring folks with an agenda? </p>
<p>The book has no issue at with schools that have an agenda as long as it’s their agenda. It’s too bad … because if it had been a little more neutral I think it would a very good and very useful book (and it still can be very useful)</p>
<p>I would say the following colleges are conservative or nuetral but definitely not liberal. It is hard to characterize what conservative means so here are some colleges that aren’t liberal. Southwestern University, Austin College, Baylor University, TCU, SMU, Furman, Richmond, Tulane, Rice, Lehigh, UT-Austin and all Catholic colleges (ND, Holy Cross, Villa, Boston College, etc.). </p>
<p>I have found the following book very helpful: Choosing the Right College. <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Choosing-Right-College-2014-15-Lesser-Known/dp/1610170776/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400686437&sr=8-1&keywords=choosing+the+right+college”>http://www.amazon.com/Choosing-Right-College-2014-15-Lesser-Known/dp/1610170776/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400686437&sr=8-1&keywords=choosing+the+right+college</a> . This book tells you whether the college is green (conservative), yellow (nuetral) or liberal (red). For example, Vassar is red - liberal. It also gives examples as to why they feel they are that way. </p>
<p>I know of two students that got accepted to Brown and Haverford and they were planning on attending too. However, they both attended the schools during admittance weekend and disliked the schools because they found them way too liberal for them. One was able to switch to John Hopkins by May 1st. The other one doesn’t have any other choices to choose from so he is already looking to transfer out. In my opinion, they visited the schools too late and didn’t do their research. So it pays to visit and research the type of school you are applying to. Afterall it was a waste of time for these two students to apply to those schools. </p>
<p>UT-Austin is pretty liberal… Texas A&M is the conservative Texas school.</p>
<p>Choosing the Right College says UT Austin is neutral (yellow) or centered (not predominantly conservative or liberal). I would agree with that. </p>
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<p>Note that this is likely the same as what <a href=“http://www.collegeguide.org/”>http://www.collegeguide.org/</a> (discussed in previous posts) has.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>UT-Austin may be neutral in the grand scheme of things but its about the most liberal college that you will find in Texas, FWIW.</p>
<p>Really. I would think the most liberal college in Texas is Rice! :)</p>
<p>^ No, UT-Austin is the most liberal college in Texas. I am very familiar with UT and somewhat familiar with Rice, and I don’t think it is even close. By the way, I am a UT grad (UG and law school) and my S is headed to Rice in the fall.</p>
<p>I’m very surprised. I would have thought UT wasn’t because almost almost all of the students are from Texas, which is a conservative state and Rice only has around 45% from Texas. </p>
<p>My husband also attended UT and he agrees with you that the UT is liberal for Texas but definitely not compared to a school like Brown. </p>
<p>UT is in Austin which, aside from the Capitol building, is very liberal. The motto of the city is “Keep Austin Weird,” which about sums it up.</p>
<p>For contrast, a popular shirt on the A&M campus says “Keep College Station Normal.” So there’s that.</p>