In terms of state vs St Louis city (its own county) and St Louis County: they’re two very, very different things. The analogy I make with friends elsewhere is that the city and the county (especially the portions that would have any appeal to a college student) are West Berlin pre-unification. The rest is similar to East Germany. Rural Missouri is not any different than rural areas in most of the Lower Midwest, but city/county vs the vast majority of the state are extremely different. There are anti discrimination statutes on both the city and county books providing protection based on both sexual orientation and gender identity. We’ve never had an issue related to either. My daughter also has two biologically female friends who identify as male and a teacher who is transitioning. Again, no issues.
The city and county (until you get to areas a college student wouldn’t have reason go) are quite liberal/progressive. 80-95% of the voters are Dem/left of Dem. most student life will be centered on school, Clayton, U City, other Mid County suburbs, the city’s central corridor and some city neighborhoods in the historic areas of South City. The “liberal bubble” extends much further than these areas, but that is basically the spine of that area.
In terms of campus culture, homosexuality was not an issue when I attended (90s) and I had roommates (and close friends) in a 6-person sophomore suite who were gay. It’s more liberal than that now. Campusprideindex (not sure how reputable) rated them 4.5 stars. There are more T20 private peer institutions rated below them than above. That would be consistent with my experience and understanding of the campus culture today. They do include things like HRT in campus insurance. I am not sure about gender identity housing policies.
In terms of political orientation, I think the school is as liberal to more liberal than the typical T20 private university. It will not be as liberal as the most liberal LACs (like an Oberlin) because it’s larger and lacks the same specificity on “branding”, so there will be a bit more diversity of opinion, but it’s still probably 85-90% liberal. There will be a small minority of that 10-15% who will be problematic as there will be anywhere. Just my opinion, but as a very liberal person, if anything, I would welcome more conservative voices to campus.
Culture: friendly vibes. There is a Greek scene, but it is not as central to the campus life as it is at Duke, Vandy, NU, etc. they have very good athletics for a D3 school, but no one really goes to games.
WashU has more of a pre-professional orientation than most peers, but there’s ample academic diversity on campus. If I had to pick similar institutions, I’d probably go with Rice and Brown. Tufts might be a bit nerdier/liberal. Penn and Emory are also a bit more pre-professional in orientation like WashU and NU is kinda similar too.
Regarding Covid and protections: my spouse is an ICU doc treating these patients, so i definitely pay attention to this more than at least 99% of the public. Campus has a vaccine mandate and a mask requirement in public indoor settings. The mandate is strict, so only maybe 1 in 200 have an exemption. Students are generally as good as college students are going to be. They had regular testing last year. Actually they had a patent on rapid test tech that was commercialized by someone else. So the school had its very own early roll out proprietary random rapid testing program in place for all students and faculty at regular intervals. Everyone became very familiar with the infamous “Wash U spit funnels”. Don’t know if they’re still doing the surveillance testing.
Regarding the broader community and Covid: the city and county rates stayed surprisingly low considering the proximity of hotspots. Our infection rate right now is actually lower than NYC. I attribute that to two things:
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people don’t trust the outlying areas, so as a community we tend to be more vigilant. People tend to take an attitude of, “We can’t let this mess get in here.” We had mask mandates in public indoor settings and compliance is decent considering the level of pandemic fatigue. To be fair, the rates currently aren’t high elsewhere in MO. But I observed the city/county rates as MO hotspots flared. We increased but what was interesting is that we kept things under some level of control and as things continued to advance south and east, metros like Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Louisville, Nashville, fared much worse then we did. We created more of a safe haven than they did out of an abundance of caution and seeing reports of what was going on in areas like Branson and Lake of the Ozarks.
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we have really good data transparency and leadership. The person in charge of our regional task force (10 or so counties in MO) is Dr Alex Garza. He was the chief medical officer for DHS appointed by Obama and his primary area of interest was infectious disease prevention and monitoring among undocumented residents. He is currently in assignment in the Middle East (Army), but they provide a wealth of data and information at regular intervals. You can find that data, recorded briefings and PSAs on the St Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force Facebook page and also in places like the city’s own site here:
And an article on the rapid test saliva tech they developed:
I tried to cover everything fairly and objectively. Let me know if you have follow ups.