<p>I’m just wondering which colleges have a lot of “free thinkers” or whatever you want to call it ex. liberals, hippies, ect. Just curious, I was thinking Berkeley, Bard, Tufts. Which other ones?</p>
<p>Does ‘free thinkers’ = unconventional or non-traditional thinkers? Reed is famous for its non-traditional thinkers and it certainly fits with the people I know who have attended. Hampshire might be on the list. I don’t think of Tufts as being particularly non-traditional, but perhaps others know better.</p>
<p>Reed<br>
U of chicago
Kalamazoo</p>
<p>These are my first 3</p>
<p>Middlebury, College of the Atlantic (oh, very), Hampshire</p>
<p>Reed
Lewis and Clark
University of Puget Sound
UC Santa Cruz
Whitman?</p>
<p>Sometimes it is difficult to separate those who are legitimate “free thinkers” in that they actually think for themselves from those who are following some fashionable new trend in thought that has been associated with “free thinkers.”</p>
<p>William & Mary is the best in the South. Also look at New College in FLA</p>
<p>Brown (this may sound surprising, but just take a visit there and you’ll see)</p>
<p>“Austin” makes a good point. </p>
<p>What you call “free thinkers”, others may call “politically correct” thinkers.</p>
<p>If you truly want free thinking, you should go to a university where all points of views are considered. I once read an article on Tufts where the writer said that all political views are accepted, unless you are a republican.</p>
<p>Why go to a school where everyone thinks like you?.</p>
<p>And I would give the same advice to someone who says they want to go to a conservative university, or a Christian university.</p>
<p>You might be surprised by this, but your political views may change as you get older.</p>
<p>McGovern used to be a Republican</p>
<p>Reagan was a Democrat.</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton was a “Goldwater Girl”.</p>
<p>Rick Perry was a democrat.</p>
<p>My father was head of the democratic party in my home town for 20 years, but eventually became a Republican (although he still donated money to certain liberal organizations)</p>
<p>I was a democrat until I was about 22 years old.</p>
<p>Anyone who is 17 or 18 years old and has already declared himself to be part of a particular political philosohy is in my view acting very prematurely.</p>
<p>You will not be the same person when you are 30 as you are at age 20.</p>
<p>A co-workers three kids went to Reed, Bard and Hampshire. Warren Wilson, New College.
I have no idea how William and Mary or Tufts would make the list.
I think of Berkeley having a more diverse student body, with plenty of pre-professional folks.
Some would add Oberlin and Wesleyan. I’m not sure if Antioch is still around.</p>
<p>Antioch reopened this year! (although still in a 4 year process to be accredited again -my mom is an alum :)). Earlham, Bard, Pitzer, Evergreen, Humboldt State, Eckerd, Skidmore, Oberlin,Eugene Lang New School.</p>
<p>Reed
U of Chicago
Swarthmore
Berkley
Wesleyan?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think you’re confusing “free-thinking” with “open-mindedness” or “balance.” “Free-thinking” and “free-thinkers” have a very particular historical meaning: those terms identify a strain of secular, humanist thought that emerged in England in the late 1600s and in France in the 1700s, in opposition to church dogma and a literal interpretation of the Bible. The view of the free-thinkers was that humans should be guided by their own reason and experience. They were not necessarily atheists; many formed their own religious societies, but their fundamental belief–their dogma, if you will–was that each person has the capacity to form his own views in all matters, including matters of religious belief. To that extent, it was a radically secular, anti-clerical, anti-organized-church movement. </p>
<p>I took that to be the tenor of the OP’s question. To which the answer is, just about any elite academic institution; I’d say almost without exception they’re dominated, or at least heavily influenced, by secular humanists whose views bear some kinship to those of
the 17th and 18th century free-thinkers.</p>
<p>I do agree with the counter-proposition that it’s intellectually healthy to be confronted with ideas contrary to your own. Maybe you’ll learn something, maybe you’ll change your views, maybe you’ll just more finely hone your arguments in favor of your own positions, but it will be worthwhile. But I think that’s almost bound to happen on any campus with a sufficiently large and diverse student body.</p>
<p>^
I took it as a given that the vast majority of today’s US institutions of higher education operated consistently with a secular humanist philosophy, so I assumed, and I may be mistaken and the OP can clarify, that the OP was curious about the extent to which students at various institutions formed their “own views in all matters.” I just wanted to make the point that there is a difference between forming one’s own views and mimicking others who hold opinions that have been associated with the label of “free thinker.”</p>
<p>I think OP is looking for a looser definition here! So, for a hippie-crunchy-granola-activist vibe, then I’d say not so much Tufts and Middlebury, except in the sense that most liberal arts colleges in the east tend to be left-leaning. But if what you’re looking for is a high tolerance–even fostering–of quirky individuality, then i’d say definitely Hampshire, definitely Bennington, definitely Oberlin, definitely Brown, definitely Wesleyan!</p>
<p>True free thought outside of the liberal orthodoxy will be crushed at many of the colleges named above, and their ilk. Consider what happened to Larry Summers for just trying to address the issue of why there are more men than women in the higher sciences.</p>
<p>Though I did not attend the program, I know several students who went through Boston University’s University Professors program and found an ambiance of real academic freedom there, much more than across the Charles.</p>
<p>Look at Oberlin.</p>
<p>
You’re really going to use that as an example? A college president states females have a “different availability of aptitude at the high end”? Please</p>