<p>hbrad8002, I responded to your parallel post in the 'would I fit in" thread. I’ll post here as well to make sure you see it. </p>
<p>Brandeis is a great school but is not a religious institution like a Georgetown or Notre Dame. It always has been a secular school, although founded in the tradition of Harvard, Princeton etc by a religious-affiliated group. Currently its Jewish population is actually less than 50% and around 25% of the student body is minority and international students. And even the students identifying themselves as Jewish are from diverse backgrounds. So, ultimately the school is quite diverse and continues to strive for increasing diversity. If you’ve heard that brandeis has an intellectual culture that is attributable to its connection to the Jewish community, I couldn’t deny that there is truth to that, but I believe that assertion is more of a feeling based on its commitment to academic excellence rather than something that can be supported by evidence.</p>
<p>Brandeis’ secular culture is not “white bread.” It strives to be accomodating of all cultures and has been very successful at that given its short history. At this stage, its the nature of its student body is very similar to other schools with significant percentages of Jewish students that you might not single out as “Jewish” because of their founding–e.g. Barnard, NYU and Penn. These examples suggest that Brandeis is not unique among top schools in having a significant Jewish population. However, it is unique in providing a truly small and intellectually stimulating liberal arts college environment within a major research university. Here’s a link to a thread where this view and others are discussed: </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brandeis-university/784393-non-jewish-students-brandeis.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brandeis-university/784393-non-jewish-students-brandeis.html</a></p>