H P or S? Advice?

phantasmagoric
Fri, 01 Apr 2011 22:23:32 +0000

I’m gay also and had the same choice, so here’s what I can tell you about the gay communities (from what I learned). Harvard has a strong constituency of LGBT students, but, as two gay students at Harvard had told me, the community is “broken.” Apparently while there are quite a few LGBT students at H, there’s not much interaction, virtually no really awesome LGBT events, etc. Of course take this with a grain of salt, because they may have an unrealistic view of H’s LGBT community (they still said that I could find a community if I tried, but I remember their demeanor seemed kinda bitter and hopeless). I honestly can’t say much about Princeton’s gay community, because I eliminated it pretty fast when I got into HYS. My instinct is that you’ll find the gay community there fine, but the general culture/attitude about being gay might be slightly different–a much larger portion of the student body identifies as conservative at P than at H or S. I’m sure that the gay communities at H and P are fine, and you’d be happy at either. There is no “wrong choice” here, just ones that are better than others. :)

Obv. I can say a lot more about Stanford: it’s not only very very liberal, but I honestly don’t think there’s a college out there that’s more gay-friendly than Stanford–there are definitely ones that are equal, but not more so. Whereas throughout the world having the view that being gay is bad is the most common, at Stanford it’s the opposite: people will judge you if you say you don’t believe in gay rights, etc. in the same way they’d judge you if you said something racist. It’s a big no-no. Even if a student doesn’t support gay rights, they generally have the sense not to say so. Many students have likened having conservative views such as that to being “in the closet”–in other words, the culture at Stanford forces anyone who might be bigoted into the closet. Can’t say I’m sad with that reality. ;)

All this is not unexpected. The campus is in a gay-friendly area, in the very gay-friendly SF Bay Area. San Francisco’s proximity is a huge plus for me. Like most gay guys, I love going to the city, which is rife with all kinds of awesome LGBT events. Seriously, you have not fully “graduated” from the closet until you’ve gone to an SF Pride Parade, the mother of all pride parades*. No joke though, SF pride is amazing, some of the most fun you’ll ever have.

Here are some other concrete things about Stanford’s LGBT community. Not only are there several LGBT organizations (Stanford Students for Queer Liberation, Queer-Straight Alliance, etc.) that are pretty active on campus, but the LGBT center is in the center of campus, right behind Old Union and a short walk from all the west campus dorms. Freshmen who are LGBT or questioning are encouraged to go to the center’s CASA lunches held once a week. The center also does something called Safe and Open Spaces at Stanford (SOSAS), which is basically a panel of queer people who hold discussions/workshops in dorms and houses. Every department has a named “contact” for LGBT students. And of course, there are all kinds of events for LGBT people–voguing this or gender that (look up Stanford’s Genderf.u.k. on youtube, minus the periods). The university nondiscrimination policy is also progressive–it explicitly mentions sexual orientation and gender identity.

There’s even a dorm on campus that’s gay-themed (not official, but everyone knows it is)–Terra, which holds lots of awesome parties for queer students, as well as Terra Happy Hour, which is always fun. Terra’s also a great place to live because it’s a house, not the typical apartment-like dorm, with ~50 students. Every student gets a two-room double (so you get your own room, connected to your roommate’s; rooms in Terra are unique too, in that you have a HUGE set of nice built-in dressers, drawers, and mirrors). Terra also lets you be roommates with someone of the opposite sex.

For what it’s worth, in Princeton Review’s list of the most gay-friendly colleges, Stanford is #2, but neither H nor P makes the top 20. I don’t think that means that H or P are “bad” if you’re gay, but I can say that Stanford deserves that rank. It’s always kinda heart-warming to see even straight students refusing to speak in class/section on National Day of Silence. Or still sporting those distinctive purple “no on prop 8” shirts two years after all the campaigning. :)


others have a larger attendance because they’re in a larger city, but come on, it’s San Francisco. And I can attest that SF lives up to its reputation of having an ultra-liberal-hippie environment where you see gays a lot, not just in the Castro but anywhere.