<p>I would be more concerned about another article in the same publication : “Increasing bug infestations go unreported”. That actually is detrimental to people’s health</p>
<p>Still thinking about this. One other possibility is that highly religious households might have more authoritarian childrearing styles. This might translate into a reticence to challenge others in class, as well as difficulties in making friends with professors or interacting with them in social settings.</p>
<p>I know that when I went to college, I wasn’t really comfortable talking to adults, and was pretty clueless when it came to going to a professor’s office hours and making small talk. In our heavily religious household, there was a lot of “yes sir” and “no ma’am” and I never was encouraged to think of adults as my peers or my equals. That certainly made developing a friendship with a professor challenging. In my parents’ world, one didn’t question the president or his policies, one’s parish priest, etc. In short, there wasn’t a lot of critical thinking either being modelled or taught.</p>
<p>It might be that more freewheeling households with fewer rules and less hierarchy between the parents in the children end up producing different types of kids, namely those with the skills to interact in an environment like Princeton. (On the other hand, I may have gone overboard in the creation of a freewheeling household with few rules and hierarchies – ask me again in a few years how MY kids are doing in college . . )</p>
<p>Next, they’re going to do a study to find out whether rich people have more money than poor people.</p>
<p>I would be interested in knowing what, exactly, they mean by “religious” people.</p>
<p>This is entirely uninteresting on so many levels. Especially when we have absolutely no idea about what was asked (e.g. it appears a ‘barrier’ is assumed when one reports they don’t use a service, for example), nor what kind of analyses (if any) they conducted. Were these all just a bunch of t-tests? Or did they plug multiple predictors into the model to show unique variance of each in predicting use of a service? And of course, it doesn’t look like they made any attempt to explain why. Supposed red heads use the library more than brunettes…so? what do we learn from that?</p>
<p>The only thing that makes this remotely into a thread that people want to respond to is because it has the name Princeton in it. </p>
<p>How about we compare NSSE ratings across lots of schools. THAT would make for a more interesting thread.</p>
<p>Quite frankly, with the exception of the so-called findings of “religious” students vs. “non-religious” (which I don’t buy for a moment because the sample size of one is likely to be tiny), every other finding can easily be related to any top school. Heck, they are also true at your state flagships.</p>
<p>Rural students not as prepared for the Big U? Well duh! Typically smaller schools, with fewer opportunities for AP/IB in comparison to suburban schools. Fewer opportuntiies for math competitions, for Intel tutoring. I bet if they looked at income they’d “find” that low income kids are not as prepared as wealthy kids. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Females feeling “depressed”. Yup, happens at State Uni too. (Heck, it is true even in HS.)</p>
<p>Maybe the religious students surveyed partied less, given the disapproval of alcohol and definitely drunkenness, that pervades a lot of religion. Thus they didn’t miss class because of hangovers, and studied on Thursday and Friday nights rather than going out. This rendered them with a feeling they weren’t in need of office hours and tutoring center help–in the same vein as that new study on people who take vitamins feeling more invincible.</p>
<p>I agree with the critiques of other posters. This report is pretty uninformative.</p>
<p>Religiousness most likely self reported- those who claim membership and attend services fit into a different lifestyle choice than those who reject the family religion or choose not to become involved when at college. Students following a religious organization are less likely to think outside the box and go on their own- the system should work attitude instead of challenging the way things are. I evolved in my sense of religion during college. btw- Catholics are not opposed to drinking and can be regular church goers and rules followers.</p>
<p>I am not surprised to find women have more problems even now- still at least subtle discrimination- attitudes from professors despite any official policies. When I spoke to a woman professor/mentor at a liberal research U in the 1990’s who had been there since the 1960’s she stated there was still discrimination against women in the sciences despite all of the women’s lib stuff that happened since the 1970’s. I suspect it still lingers in this decade.</p>
<p>Rural versus city differences. This is an area where Princeton can choose to supplement those from the non elite HS’s if it chooses. Or it can be the school for a small segment and keep its conservative nature. My son refused to apply there, I can see why.</p>
<p>It would be good to see similar surveys from many other top schools.</p>
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<p>I think that boat may have sailed a few years back when they added Peter Singer to their faculty. I know the conservative alumni were up in arms.</p>
<p>I think it may matter a lot how you define “religious.” Is that people who believe in God, or people who attend worship services regularly, or people who said “yes” when asked, “Are you religious?” Unless you know this, it’s pretty pointless to try to psychoanalyze why they might be less interested in going to office hours.</p>