There are many students who are not Christian, but who would prefer attending a Christian college to a hedonistic anti-religious college. Many would like to be at a college where Faith, worship, prayer, and service play a greater role in the lives of most students than beer, hookups, weed, and other worldly ‘worship’ of the self…
Can you recommend any colleges where religious non-Christians might look to go to college? Especially if a student would be happy to study the Bible and participate in Christian worship, but would not want to hide or deny their own Faith.
BYU and Wheaton (IL) seem particularly attractive for combining faith, development of the mind, and living with others according to God’s teachings. The covenants or codes of conducts at these schools can be quite attractive to many non-Christians. I don’t know how welcome non-Christians would be or feel at these or other schools.
Any advice about these schools or other colleges for non-Christians would be appreciated.
There is a book out called “The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University”. I haven’t read it yet. It is about a student that transfers from Brown to Liberty University, a conservative Baptist school in Lynchburg, VA.
Summary from Amazon:
Liberty is the late Reverend Jerry Falwell’s “Bible Boot Camp” for young evangelicals, his training ground for the next generation of America’s Religious Right. Liberty’s ten thousand undergraduates take courses like Evangelism 101, hear from guest speakers like Sean Hannity and Karl Rove, and follow a forty-six-page code of conduct that regulates every aspect of their social lives. Hoping to connect with his evangelical peers, Roose decides to enroll at Liberty as a new transfer student, leaping across the God Divide and chronicling his adventures in this daring report from the front lines of America’s culture war.
His journey takes him from an evangelical hip-hop concert to choir practice at Falwell’s legendary Thomas Road Baptist Church. He experiments with prayer, participates in a spring break mission trip to Daytona Beach (where he learns to preach the gospel to partying coeds), and pays a visit to Every Man’s Battle, an on-campus support group for chronic masturbators. He meets pastors’ kids, closet doubters, Christian rebels, and conducts what would be the last print interview of Rev. Falwell’s life.
Hilarious and heartwarming, respectful and thought-provoking, THE UNLIKELY DISCIPLE will inspire and entertain believers and nonbelievers alike.
^^^The author of that book was Quaker educated, so he’d had plenty of religious teaching in his past. Quakers from the Northeast tend to be very liberal but are generally tolerant and nonjudgmental. Perhaps the OP would be interested in Quaker colleges like Earlham or Guilford. Quakers tend to be teetotalers too (if that’s an issue), unlike a lot of Jesuits, but I agree the Jesuits run some great schools. Just not sure if that’s the atmosphere the OP is interested in.
Schools like the conservative Wheaton (IL) will require a statement of (Christian) faith.
ETA: I agree that OP should look into St. Olaf. Wonderful school from everything I’ve read and very strong in mathematics.
St. Olaf and Hope are looking good, as well as some formerly Quaker schools like Bryn Mawr and Haverford.
I did not know that Wheaton requires a statement of Christian faith. I also learned that BYU requires students to take 8 religion courses, many specific to Mormonism. I guess both of those are out.
I would prefer schools that have many teetotalers and students who are committed to abstaining from sex outside of marriage. Despite their academic strength and religious connections, the student bodies at some Catholic schools like Notre Dame and Boston College seem more worldly than many secular colleges when it comes to these behaviors or choices.
I don’t think you should rule out BYU because it requires 8 religion classes. That is quite a few (one per semester?), but it
never hurts to learn about other religions and I think it meets all your other criteria. I don’t know about college life there, but I once had a job where the workplace was predominantly Mormon and quite honestly, they were the nicest people I have ever met.
Top academics in STEM fields is also highly desirable for this student who scored a 2400 the first time they took the SAT and who scored 5’s on all 5 APs taken so far.
Also, why not just go to a public state school if you’re not a christian or non religious? At that point, anyways. I’m sure there are fine non denominational private schools.
My S’s friend went to BYU as a non-Mormon. While he appreciated many of aspects of the school he did feel that people were constantly trying to covert him which made him feel uncomfortable at times…
St. Olaf is good, I’m applying there. I’m also applying to Villanova, a Catholic University in Pennsylvania. When I visited they said they were open to welcoming other faiths (they offer majors in Islamic/Arabic studies), but that as a Catholic campus, they won’t support drugs, underage drinking, crime, etc. on campus and expect students to respect that regardless of their faith background.
I strongly doubt that you will find this atmosphere at Bryn Mawr and Haverford.
Since your student is apparent particularly strong, I would suggest that you look at Swarthmore instead: in the same vicinity and consortium, also established by Quakers–whom I believe it is more polite to call “Friends” --and with an even stronger reputation for serious students than the other two.
I don’t believe that anyone has suggested Grove City College, which has a good academic reputation and a Christian focus. I do not know if they require a statement of faith.
The closest you might come to the combination you want may be the elite schools with a reputation for more serious students and less partying than most others. Off the top of my head, Swarthmore, Wellesley (if your student is female), MIT, CalTech, and The University of Chicago come to mind. This doesn’t mean that no one parties at those schools: obviously they do. It does mean that a lot less of the life of the university revolves around tailgating at football games and parties that start on Thursday and last until the wee hours of Sunday morning. At any such school your student is likely to find those interested in a spiritual life.
Friends refer to themselves as Quakers, and their schools are commonly referred to as Quaker.
Quakers on the east coast are quite tolerant of all kinds of lifestyles. If one isn’t comfortable with that, Swarthmore won’t be any more comfortable than Haverford or Bryn Mawr.
Also, while practicing Quakers are teetotalers, very few students attending Quaker schools are actual Quakers.
Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore were all founded as Quaker schools, but none is officially Quaker today.
--and with an even stronger reputation for serious students than the other two.