Hi! I’m applying to colleges this year and am looking for colleges that are conservative and irreligious at the same time.
Lots of conservatives are religious, so it’s been difficult for me to find that kind of universities.
They don’t have to be strictly 100% conservative and irreligious, but I’m pretty sure I’ll definitely not love to see a bunch of kids protesting about anything on campus.
I’d appreciate if anybody can list those colleges.
Thank you for your consideration of reading this!
Suggest you pick up a copy of Choosing the Right College. It will have the answers you seek.
https://www.amazon.com/Choosing-Right-College-2014-15-Lesser-Known/dp/1610170776
Now get ready for some snarky comments.
By irreligious, I’m assuming you mean the school isn’t sectarian, not that there aren’t any religious students.
A few suggestions:
Washington & Lee
Vanderbilt
Texas A&M
Hillsdale College
Many schools in the south tend to be politically conservative.
Conservatives with strong opinions may protest things as well (for example, the Duke [url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/08/25/im-a-duke-freshman-heres-why-i-refused-to-read-fun-home/]student[/url] who refused to read a book he considered pornographic, or Thomas Aquinas College [url=http://www.thomasaquinas.edu/catholic-life/faith-works]students[/url] protesting abortion every year).
Realistically, most schools don’t have environments where you would see people protesting all the time. Even when protests exist, they don’t usually have any effect on the vast majority of the students. My school has had some race-related protests in the two years that I’ve been there, but I only know about them from the student newspaper. It’s very much a choice whether you want to be involved or not.
When you said conservative but not religious, I immediately thought of St. John’s College (in Annapolis or Santa Fe) because, while it doesn’t have a religious affiliation, the curriculum consists exclusively of the great books of Western civilization. I don’t know where the students tend to stand as far as current social issues, though.
I second @Zinhead’s recommendation for “Choosing the Right College,” but not his comment about snarky comments (snarky comments tend to surface when posters make comments about colleges trying to “forcibly indoctrinate” or “persecute” conservatives. (Also, if memory serves, one such post received a fair amount of snark because the OP did not take kindly to well-intentioned comments about the need for reaches, matches, and safeties)).
@college_query’s list is good. Here’s a link to a list of schools with conservative values (many of them are religious, though)
http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/best-colleges-conservative-values/2016/02/17/id/714718/
Colgate
Bucknell
Lehigh
Sewanee
St Olaf
Denison
Dickinson
Texas A&M
University of Dallas
Rose-Hulman
Baylor
Hampton-Sydney
Here’s a link to a thread by a someone looking schools for his “Conservative Christian” son (the aforementioned post that had lots of good info, along with some well-deserved snark):
So Colgate is on some list referencing “conservative values”? I am not aware that it’s true or even what this claim may mean. After all, it’s an elite liberal arts college where its core curriculum spanning the 3 academic divisions ensure that all students have plenty of chances to consider their homegrown biases and presumptions and grow through them.
Anyway, and as you would expect from such a secular college, there is no set of values, conservative or otherwise,
to follow. And the faculty and alumni body wouldn’t have it any other way. I am pleased it is not listed in the Newsmax article above.
The best way, applicants, to establish your fit is to visit the campus for an overnight and ask lots of questions, hopefully without your parents hovering like helicopters. Believe it or not, they had a lot more independence when they were searching for colleges that you do now. That’s one way of getting a head start on your maturation. When better to do so than when you make the transition to your college years?
Go 'gate!
I don’t think Dickinson really belongs on that list. My D was a student here in 2008, and the College Democrats organization was huge. She said the College Republicans club was very small (less than 10 people).
@intparent - I wasn’t speaking from experience about Dickinson…those were just schools that come up on the other thread that I linked to and on similar threads.
I had forgotten to mention Claremont McKenna – by most accounts, the least left-leaning of the Claremont colleges.
Colgate is there because it tends to have a more conservative student body that some of the other LACS (e.g., Swarthmore, Oberlin, Grinnell).
Agree that CMC could go on the list. However, it is snuggled up right against Pitzer and Scripps, both of which are going to be on the liberal side. The OP won’t be cocooned from opposing opinions.
I’d look at colleges in the south in general. You will find a larger number of conservative students.
You will definitely have an easier time finding something in the south. Also, other than CMC, I’m noticing that many of the schools listed here also have fairly strong greek communities. So maybe that’s a correlation you could use to find schools that fit.
Miami University (Ohio) has a reputation for having a conservative leaning student body.
@halcyonheather There are plenty of conservative students at SJC now, religious and otherwise. There are also plenty of liberal students. It is an excellent choice for a conservative student who is interested in the Great Books but does not want the religious atmosphere of Thomas Aquinas.
Hillsdale College (Michigan)
Texas A&M
Hampden-Sydney (Virginia)
Campbell University (North Carolina)
Baylor (Texas)
Texas Christian University (Pretty much secular nowadays)
University of Alabama
Auburn University (Alabama)
University of Mississippi
Louisiana State University
Davidson struck me as fairly conservative when I visited with my son.
Very few colleges that have no sectarian affiliation also have an express commitment to a particular political ideology. Hillsdale seems to be an exception.
Wouldn’t include Denison on that list of conservative schools either – while it is not an activist campus, the way Oberlin is, for example, it has strong socio-economic, ethnic and racial diversity and emphasizes inclusion. It tends to be more balanced politically, rather than tilt largely liberal. At least in my mind, that does not make it a “conservative” campus and I would not include it among schools like W & L or Hillsdale.
None of the schools on the “conservative” list are against socio-economic, ethnic and racial diversity, or wish to exclude any of their students.
@zinhead – perhaps I wrote too quickly, what I was trying to express was this: schools such as W&L are more mono-chromatic in terms of the student body, and lean conservative on the political spectrum. While liberal students or students from a more diverse background would find their niche, there will be fewer like-minded or like-experience students on campus. I would include Denison, Dickinson, F&M, Conn Coll as schools that are more centrist, but I wouldn’t call them conservative. Oberlin, Wes etc. lean more liberal and could present the opposite challenge from W&L for students.
Rhodes is religiously-affiliated, but from what I understand it’s one of the mostly-historical and religious affiliations. In Memphis, fairly high Greek, and less left leaning.