Any Ivies or Peers not overrun with a 'hippie infestation'?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
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<p>My daughter is a HS Jr. and deep in the college selection process and is trying to determine the best fit. While she is not defined by the two parties (well, she hasn’t even voted yet), she does find that many conservative analysts (George Will, etc) are often more insightful and well considered than their liberal counterparts. </p>

<p>This is not to mean that she is conservative politically (quite to the contrary at least on social issues), nor is she a supporter of organized religions (but she is spiritual) simply that she does not use 'republican' or 'conservative' with same negative connotations as those she is told that throw these words around on some liberal campuses. Additionally, she does volunteer work but is still hoping to make a more than comfortable living when she completes her undergrad/grad journey - money, in her view, is not the exclusive domain of evil oil barons’ - and she loves shoes.</p>

<p>Her credentials are nearly perfect (what a kid) so she will likely have her choice of many elite schools but we both hope to locate a campus for her to thrive. So far, anecdotally she has been told that neither Brown nor Dartmouth nor many of the small LAS colleges would be the best fit. She has also been told that Stanford, Northwestern, and Penn are more preprofessional and are often considered less immersed in the liberal establishment. </p>

<p>She has ranked her top 5 initial impressions (from college visits) as Stanford, Northwestern, Yale, Dartmouth (she loved the campus), Harvard. She likes the idea of typical college experience with large competitive sports programs so is why I think Stanford and Northwestern were ranked highest. She did not care for the vibe at Duke, although her experience was with a group of more southern applicants so that may have unduly influenced her. </p>

<p>I attended the great University of Illinois (I tried to convince her as Fiske Guide says "Illinois is a budget Ivy") where liberal leanings are much less pronounced, she is not overly interested.</p>

<p>If you believed Obama was a good speaker but that he was incredibly inexperienced and lacked gravitas - and was not the Second Coming? (My thoughts, not hers, but we are often of similar leanings) would you feel free to confess this openly to your faculty or on the quad?</p>

<p>All thoughts, impressions, and insights into any of her top ten: Stanford, Northwestern, Yale, Dartmouth, Harvard, Cornell, Penn, Vanderbilt, Brown, Duke - or other schools such as Pomona College or U Chicago that may help her with her decision are encouraged.</p>

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<p>She should go where she wants to go. Just take note that even though many high ranking colleges lean towards the liberal side, she is free to voice her political opinions no matter where she goes. Just get into those schools first, then take it from there. I think she would be more of a fit for brown, penn, vanderbilt, and duke.</p>

<p>As a side note, I just want to let you know that not many people that you consider liberals worship Obama. We are free thinking people and we know that some of the things that Obama did are less than ideal. Politics does not have much of a domain over the relationship between a student and his/her peers outside of class anyways unless the student plans on becoming a politician.</p>

<p>Simple words of guidance/warning – nowadays even a perfect record does not guarantee admission into any of these schools anymore. Many factors now play into admission, and grades and SAT are just two of them. She should apply to all of the schools she is interested in, shape up the apps to the best of her ability, and see which ones she gets into. A top student should be able to get into 2+ top schools in his/her choice in RD. If she gets into more, that’s great – just know that the most important thing is to have a lot of choices available when it’s time to decide which college to go to. Always have a safety available.</p>

<p>Edit: as for your topic name, it seems like you are talking about the rumors/stereotypes floating around brown. I do not believe that it is a hippie school – many great students go there and graduate to become successful people in whatever field they do. Surf the colleges’ websites and browse for programs (and do pretty much everything to know more about them), then decide. </p>

<p>Know that ultimately it’s her call on where she wants to spend four years of her life. Guide her but let her decide.</p>

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<p>my opinion, way too early to be “deep” into college selection. you have almost a year for that. again, my opinion, just let her apply wherever she wants, it is that easy. politically, I don’t think there is any huge difference between most schools, they all have kids of different views. it is no big deal, she should just enjoy high school for now.</p>

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<p>^Actually the ‘hippie infestation’ in my title was intended to be a humourous homage to Cartmen (I was not addressing Brown, I was unfamiliar with any rumours).</p>

<p>Thank you for your thoughts. I have read extensively on the admissions process and I am of course aware of the amorphic nature of admissions at all of the elite schools. The purpose of this post is help narrow down her dream schools, and I believe having a dream school or two is important to the process, beyond just applying to all and just waiting to see where you get in as your method of school selection.</p>

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<p>Cornell’s definitely overwhelmingly liberal, but so are most of the schools a top student would be looking at. There are a lot of different viewpoints on campus and you’ll find a lot of conservatives here, too. I’ve heard a lot of people suggest that there are more conservatives (most of whom I would describe exactly how you described your daughter in terms of beliefs) on our campus than most of our peers because of the engineering college and I can attest that, in my circle, the engineers that are political at all do tend to be more conservative. That said, I’m a conservative in the ILR School, not exactly the first place you’d think would be a bastion of conservatism, and there are plenty of us here, too. Overall, save for a few exceptions, everyone here is very open-minded (even some of the most notoriously liberal faculty).

Sometimes I’ve thought to myself that Cartman should have driven his big hippie drill right through the Ithaca Commons!</p>

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<p>I highly recommend against Cornell, it has a whole college founded by the labor unions. It has high representation of New York state residents, New York is among the most liberal states. There are many,many liberal students there, and the City of Ithaca is among the most liberal towns around, anywhere. I don’t know enough about other schools to recommend, but I can say your daughter’s preferences will not be ideally met at Cornell.</p>

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There are many, many, many more students coming out of ILR going into the business side than there are going into the labor movement. Yes, it’s a liberal place, but nearly as liberal as you seem to think it is these days.</p>

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<p>OP, as I said above, way too early for you or your daughter to think “deep” about colleges. Let her enjoy H.S. and apply to schools next fall that she thinks are good for her. The whole conservative v liberal issue in college atmosphere is basically the same most anywhere you go. While the traditions are still talked about, Berkeley v. others, these days each school has its fair share and representation of all views, even if there is more of one group. I don’t think you or your daughter should focus on politics in choosing a college. Just my opinion.</p>

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<p>i would think that stanford would be pretty liberal. i’m pretty sure there are a lot of californians there, as pretty much any smart person at my school (in CA) applies, and my school is definitely not conservative nor is really too much of california i don’t think.</p>

<p>perfect credentials? there will be a bunch of people applying to top schools with a 4.0 gpa (like me). unless you’re talking about like a 2400 sat, she will not stand out much academically. </p>

<p>from what i’ve heard, ALL of the ivies are pretty liberal, with princeton being the least, so maybe apply to princeton. ithaca is a very liberal/hippy city from what i’ve heard.</p>

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<p>wuchu, good point, but these days a 4.0 and 2400 and great ecs at Stanford is not really anything special. Without a super strong hook, Stanford has become extremely difficult, maybe the most difficult in the country when you factor in that they accept so many big time athletes because of their top ranked sports programs. At Stanford, better to be a 1750 sat and 3.0 gpa and ranked basketball or other major sport player than an applicant with perfect stats. Princeton is probably thought of as the most conservative, but it is probably no different than the others.</p>

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<p>I would say UPenn is pretty conservative, or at least thats my impression, because my dad went there. He was very involved in republican organizations, and theres a strong conservative voice on campus. I think it would be a great fit.</p>

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<p>This is not way too early to be into the college process. Junior year is the most important year. It is the year when most juniors will take all standarized test, which in turn would determine which schools are viable. Junior year is also the most important year when it comes to grades. It is usually the hardest year for most high schoolers. I know my younger daughter is narrowing down her college list, and we are scheduling her visits for her potential EA/ED school this April. I think D2 has pretty good stats, but she still needs her SAT scores and second semester grades before we could finalize her college list. I wouldn’t be too quick to say how “perfect” my kid’s stats are yet.</p>

<p>Every school will have liberals and conservatives, some schools have more of one than other. A school as large as Cornell, one could find more like minds easier. That being said, I don’t think most college students sit around debating about politics (maybe they should). I certainly don’t believe they would exclude anyone because of political differences.</p>

<p>Your daughter doesn’t need to go to a school full of conservatives to hold on her political view, unless that’s what you are afraid it might happen. She may even find it refreshing to be around people who have different believes/view when it comes to politics or religion. I think my older daughter may be able to give her a run for her money.</p>

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I had to chuckle at that.</p>

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<p>i agree with everything you just said. and i hate to say that. my asian friend got a 36 act, 2370 sat, perfect 4.0 gpa, 790 chem sat 2, 800 bio, 800 math 2, on the academic team 4 years, debate team, tutoring for many hours, internship. guess what? flat out denied. this other asian at my school was like ranked #4 in the country at debate and he had i would think similar stats. guess what? flat out denied.</p>

<p>my white friend’s brother got a 2170 but was the captain of his hockey team and got accepted to stanford a few years ago. he chose notre dame over stanford though cause he’s catholic. </p>

<p>oh hey, maybe you should have your daughter apply to ND. i would think ND is pretty conservative.</p>

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<p>oldfort - I think monydad was just trying to be helpful.
but I disagree that Junior year is time to get so caught up in this. most respectfully, maybe you should just chill out and let your child take care of this and don’t worry so much. don’t worry so much about your child’s scores in picking college. at the end of the day, without a strong hook such as described above, many kids applying to top schools have similar numbers and ecs, with not many standouts. don’t stress your kid out with numbers and such… let her enjoy H.S. don’t worry if your kid has “perfect” stats. instead of narrowing down the college list, maybe it would make more sense to spend time narrowing down the fun things she wants to do with her friends and such.
sometimes I think parents get way too involved in this whole college thing, that is just my opinion.
anyway, There really is no such thing as a major University “full of conservatives” or “full of liberals” maybe that was the case back in the 60s.
This is my personal opinion and I am respectful of yours.</p>

<p>wuchu - Stanford is probably the hardest right now to get in. They love their athletes - and it makes sense, they put the school on national TV a few times a week. Tons of smart kids out there, but not a lot of great athletes.</p>

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<p>I believe these schools have a more conservative student body:</p>

<p>Notre Dame
Fordham
Boston College
Claremont McKenna
USC (University of Southern California)
Villanova
George Washington University
Syracuse
Boston University
U of Miami
Northwestern
Carnegie Mellon
Case Western Reserve
Davidson
Williams?
Duke?
William & Mary
Johns Hopkins
Tufts?
Vanderbilt
Washington & Lee</p>

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<p>I had always heard that Yale was one of the few very conservative schools, so I was surprised to not see it mentioned in this thread. I did a little Googling and I’m now reading that it is liberal? Is this something new or did the widely accepted idea at my high school that Yale is conservative come out of nowhere?</p>

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<p>Yale is very liberal, from my understanding. I live in CT, and that has always been our view anyways. It’s students seem liberal.</p>

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<p>I am finding the diaglog compelling and appreciate everyones thoughts and welcome more. I just want to clarify though - she is not looking for a conservative school, just a school with a generous tolerance for non-liberal thinking - which i have come to fear is rarer than many suspect at many of the ‘elite’ schools (starting from the faculty down).</p>

<p>Also I am facinated how the thread becomes diverted into discussing test scores and GPA’s - almost a little obsessively? I didnt post her specific stats just to avoid such a discussion. Anyway, we are very proud of her and we have met with an admissions counselor or two for those of you worried that we may not be aware of the challenges ahead.</p>

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<p>there’s usually a healthy mix of leftist and rightist opinions on most elite college campuses.</p>

<p>if your daughter simply can’t stand liberals though (which would actually be very conservative of her ;)), there’s always BYU and Bob Jones University. and yeah, they both suck</p>

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<p>I would guess a place like Notre Dame would have many people across the spectrum, as such would have the desired generous tolerance. It sounds perfect. But I don’t really know.</p>