<p>Hi, I'm a high school junior looking for colleges with a quirky, unique culture of students. I like the culture at places like Reed and Swarthmore, where students talk about intellectual topics over dinner. The only thing is, these types of colleges are usually liberal (in religion, lifestyle -- drinking, etc.) as well. Although I'm most definitely not against liberal thinking, I don't want to go to a college where I have to debate and argue for my more conservative ideas all the time.</p>
<p>Other quirky schools that I have considered are Oberlin, Wesleyan, Brown, and University of Chicago. However, I want to go to school on the West Coast, preferably in CA. Plus, the college has to have good undergraduate majors in Biology and English and a strong music program.</p>
<p>Do you know of any colleges that could fit me? Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>The Claremont colleges are all reputed to be excellent, and should cover all your academic bases. </p>
<p>What an interesting set of requirements you have! I first thought of Sewanee or the Santa Fe St. John’s as being quirky without being liberal but they are definitely not west coast.</p>
<p>c’mon guys, he’s just asking for a little help. just to clarify, claremont mckenna is one of the more conservative lacs and has a pretty politically active student body. econ and govt. are the two most popular majors there.</p>
<p>If you really want a conservative one, I’m not sure… maybe Wheaton College in Illinois.</p>
<p>I can understand not wanting to feel attacked for your views, but debating and arguing views/isssues/values is one of he greatest aspects of college. If you are willing to engage, I think Carleton, Chicago, Grinnell, Haverford, Pomona, Swarthmore are great quirky schools (yes, liberal, for sure), but where conservatives still feel welcome and full members of the community.</p>
<p>CMC may not be quirky, but Pitzer and (to a lesser extent) Pomona are. You get the look of a quirky student body, and have a cadre of conservatives to chat with.</p>
<p>I can’t help but think Chicago is quirky every time one of their mailings arrives. Love their sense of humor.</p>
<p>St. John’s College, though not nearly as Catholic as it sounds, is well-known for being a philosophically open community with a balance of liberals and conservatives. It is also well-known for being a relatively sober school and a place where intellectual ideas are exchanged like candy. </p>
<p>"Although I’m most definitely not against liberal thinking, I don’t want to go to a college where I have to debate and argue for my more conservative ideas all the time.</p>
<p>At any good liberal arts school you will have to debate and argue for your ideas all the time, whether they are conservative, liberal, or vegan.</p>
<p>St. John’s is a great suggestion, though it might not meet the OP’s desire for a strong Biology department and music program.</p>
<p>Pepperdine is conservative but not quirky. </p>
<p>OP, if you’d be willing to consider large universities, you’ll have an easier time finding a group of people who are interested in intellectual discussion with a conservative. Just that it won’t be the entire school that’s intellectual.</p>
<p>I’m going to third the suggestion of Whitman. Quirky, kids like to talk about intellectual topics over dinner and not oppressively liberal. It got a yellow light on that website that ranked college politics: red light–too liberal; yellow–in the middle; and green, comfortable for conservatives. [CollegeGuide.org</a> - Home](<a href=“http://www.collegeguide.org/]CollegeGuide.org”>http://www.collegeguide.org/)</p>
<p>This school is fairly new (it was an independant university before becoming part of the UT system) and extremely overlooked, not just from outside of the state, but from outside of DALLAS! Luckily, there are a lot of large, well-funded, and very competitive high schools in the Dallas area that help this small university’s reputation grow.</p>
<p>It’s quirky. It seems everyone who goes from Dallas to UT Austin knows someone going to UT Dallas on a chess scholarship. That person usually is doing computer science as well, which is one of the larger majors from what I understand. It’s not a LAC, so there are professional majors like CS, but it is small. There’s no football team, the dorms are nice little apartments, the surrounding area is very safe, and it might actually be what you’re looking for.</p>
<p>You can have an intellectual conversation about conservative ideas without being stoned to death by funky cigarettes. It might seem obvious that a Texas university would be like this, but I swear UT Austin would be completely uninhabitable for non-liberals if it weren’t for it’s size. It’s no UC Berkeley by any means, but Austin is definitely the San Francisco of Texas.</p>
<p>Students at St. John’s are open to all ideas, but could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered conservative. For better or worse, the pedagogy of the school encourages philosophical skepticism. This means that students might be less prone to political activism (insofar as political commitment requires a certain amount of dogmatic certainty), but it also means that students are generally irreligious. I can think of very few overtly religious students or committed republicans that I know at SJC. That said, students are very open to ideas that are philosophically sophisticated. If you’re a heideggerian right-winger, you’ll be received well. If you’re an advocate of the shallow political pornography propagated by the likes of Glenn Beck, students might be less receptive.</p>