<p>WashU: liberal
Brown: very liberal
Vanderbilt: conservative</p>
<p>doctor no one can go to the people’s republic of Ann Arbor and Chapel Hill and with a straight face call those two schools conservative. Haven’t you ever heard the Jesse Helms quote “Why build a zoo when we can just put a fence around Chapel Hill.”</p>
<p>
HA!!! You’re kidding me. Peter Singer, the head of the university’s ethics committee, believes that children should be able to be aborted up the age of two and that animals should be able to sue people and testify in court. So yes, Princeton obviously leans Republican.</p>
<p>In 2007, another CC poster did a Facebook survey on political affinities of the students at Top 20 colleges. The response rate was about 40-50% and below are the results (sorted by those expressing a “moderate” viewpoint). </p>
<p>Lib to Very Lib , Moderate , Cons to Very Cons , No resp , Top 20 College</p>
<p>21% , 22% , 6% , 47% , Rice
22% , 21% , 3% , 48% , Vanderbilt
26% , 20% , 4% , 54% , Cal Tech
22% , 20% , 4% , 50% , Notre Dame
24% , 19% , 3% , 53% , U Chicago
19% , 19% , 3% , 48% , Wash U StL
21% , 19% , 5% , 51% , Emory
21% , 18% , 7% , 60% , MIT
24% , 18% , 4% , 54% , Duke
22% , 17% , 6% , 55% , Cornell
24% , 17% , 3% , 52% , Northwestern
28% , 17% , 5% , 57% , J Hopkins
22% , 16% , 6% , 57% , Princeton
27% , 16% , 4% , 56% , Dartmouth
30% , 16% , 2% , 52% , Brown
20% , 15% , 6% , 55% , Yale
23% , 15% , 8% , 59% , U Penn
25% , 14% , 5% , 61% , Harvard
17% , 14% , 14% , 59% , Stanford
15% , 14% , 15% , 59% , Columbia</p>
<p>Did the Columbia respondents misunderstand the question? They are more liberal (and less conservative) than they responded. </p>
<p>If I’m reading their stats correctly, they are kind of evenly distributed across the board (except for those who didn’t respond). But, that isn’t really true.</p>
<p>No surprise about Brown…they must have understood the question.</p>
<p>willmingtonwave quote: "You, 'tisthetruth, are more ignorant than anyone, because you think that anything not aligned with your liberal beliefs is wrong and backwards. I respect a conservative who believes and understands what he thinks, than a liberal who doesn’t. This is all coming from a registered Democrat too. "</p>
<p>You are exactly right. No one…left or right…is automatically right or wrong…or always right or always wrong. Some on the left and the right can’t explain their positions…they just have knee-jerk responses that are about as deep as a dime. I respect all who can honestly defend their positions. 
</p>
<p>…and, there are just as many open-minded, highly intelligent people on the right as there are on the left. To think not is being “close minded.”</p>
<p>And…who the heck puts Notre Dame in the same category as Bob Jones??? ND is a first class institution!</p>
<p>I just wanted to say that I think the liberal v. conservative idea doesn’t really make sense to me.</p>
<p>The reason I think there is strong correlation to liberalism at top schools because most young, smart people are progressive. I think these people are more likely to see the world and think (perhaps hope) that they can make it a better place. There is a large sense of optimism (in my view) that things can be done better. This naturally leads to some notion of progressivism (even if it’s not aligned with what some would view as a “liberal” ideal. One example is school choice). We all want to blow up the failures we see and try and make things look better.</p>
<p>So this isn’t one, consistent ideology against another or the acceptance of some ideas and principles versus the other as much as it’s a desire to change and improve versus a more complacent group.</p>
<p>That’s been my observation.</p>
<p>But Brown is not among the top 15 schools, so why is modestmelody speaking? =)</p>
<p>Look, a surprise! middsmith putting down other poster’s based on what school they go to as opposed to evaluating their statements!</p>
<p>This all just makes me ill. I have a son…grade accelerated, B/C Calc as a Junior, math team…quite conservative and Christian. Wants to study Business. Frankly, he could outperform most Ivy League kids in analytical courses. He holds his own in humanities - NM scores as a sophomore. He is very uncomfortable around hostile liberals, and on every campus visit we have made to “first rate” schools, he has felt like a fish out of water. Since he will be graduating young, I think it will ultimately be Miami of Ohio where he ends up. Let people make fun of the lack of diversity there. I could say the same about the “first class schools” They are homogeneously leftist. We can’t afford Notre Dame. I’m getting a little tired of the “first class” stigma. These schools are largely hostile to smart conservatives. I think by the time he is a grad student, he’ll be able to manage the hostility. As a 17 year old HS grad, not so much.</p>
<p>mom2college - Bob Jones is actually pretty well thought of academically…Not on the same international level as ND, certainly, but a good school. Really. It has been badly maligned in the media. And the name makes it sound inbred :)</p>
<p>I went to MIT as a very politically conservative Christian, and I never felt “hostility” from others around me who held different political viewpoints. There were a lot of intense debates between me and my friends, for sure, but no one had a problem with me being conservative.</p>
<p>I’m in a program on urban education policy which would clearly attract people who are generally liberal since we talk all day about how to close the access and achievement gap in this country and provide a functional education system for all students.</p>
<p>There are conservatives in my program who are completely comfortable saying they’re conservative and it hasn’t been a problem. As an advocate for core curriculum, school choice, and increased use of charters along with large skepticism toward community involvement and full-service community schools, many would paint me as an education conservative and I far from stand alone or feel like the environment his hostile at all.</p>
<p>So dbrockman, I’d rethink where the interpretation of hostility is coming from and also whether these ideologies are so cut and dry. Christian groups are some of the most well attended student groups on Brown’s campus as I am sure they are elsewhere. If I can say all this about my experience at Brown, often considered by the layperson to be the mecca of liberalism, I’m just not sure that this intense hostility is so universal.</p>
<p>I also think that not distinguishing between liberalism and activism is a huge mistake. I’d imagine it would be more uncomfortable at schools where liberalism is less prevalent, but the liberalism that exists is more directly translated into activism than at a school that is more “passively” liberal. The same can be said in reverse.</p>
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<p>How did this become so apparent on a campus visit? Did he go on overnight visits and talk politics continuously in the dorms and dining halls?</p>
<p>I ask because, on all the college tours I’ve attended, I do not recall political subjects ever being raised. Prospective students and their families ask how many books are in the library, or about the food. They don’t ask the tour guide to explain his or her position on the flat tax. Or are we talking more about fashion, taste in music, etc.?</p>
<p>I’ve heard statements like the above made often enough to think they must have some basis, but I’m not sure whether the basis is really liberal hostility, or not. It may well be true that many liberals display a certain smug certainty about the correctness of their views, and are sometimes unjustifiably condescending. But another possibility is that it’s you who are itching to do battle. If you display an aggressive, in-your-face attitude on controversial issues, you are bound to provoke a similar attitude among those who disagree with you.</p>
<p>Now maybe that does not describe your son. If not, I’m wondering in what kind of situations politics became so discomforting?</p>
<p>As a University of Pennsylvania student, I know we vote liberal and are socially liberal however, the presence of Wharton definitely lends to a sentiment of economic conservatism around the campus.</p>
<p>yea claremont mckenna is considered conservative, though I understand its like 50/50 liberal to conservative</p>
<p>It’s not that the best and the brightest professors are liberal, it’s not that liberals are any more intelligent than conservatives, it’s more that the world of academia has a tendancy to attract liberals. Also, most colleges are going to be liberal, because most college age students are liberal, the switch to conservatism occurs later in life, often after one enters the “real world”.</p>
<p>An excellent conservative college is, of course, Hillsdale. EVERY student is required to take The American Heritage and The U.S. Constitution: an Introductory Course (non-revisionist). Also Grove City College in PA, Christendom College in VA, College of the Ozarks in MO, Indiana Wesleyan University in IN, Harding University in AR, St. Vincent College in PA, Thomas Aquinas College in CA, Franciscan University in OH, Liberty University in VA, Patrick Henry College in VA. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>CITATION X wrote:</p>
<h2>“The top colleges are liberal (among other things) partly because most of the (e.g male) tenured professors live in a socialist-style academic bubble…”</h2>
<p>I never thought of it that way, but this is correct. And not just limited to professors, but including university administrators. But that’s the knock on all non-commercial-sector workers… they have no clue how the rank and file navigate the waters of financial insecurity in the private sector.</p>
<p>Williams is not liberal. It has a fairly large Christian coaltion and appeals to a lot of Conservative New England and Mid-Atlantic families. It’s the other “W” LAC–Wesleyan–which is liberal.</p>
<p>And what of Tufts; is it chopped liver? Top university and tres liberal.</p>
<p>Princeton–Conservative. Just reference the presence of eating clubs, which exclude of lot of “groups.”</p>