Be prepared for anything-admitting to being a Republican CAN be risky. Even if a particular college does not have anti conservative leaning or policies, the adcom looking at your application may. Don’t hide who you are, but be aware and be low key. Sad times we live.
Does anyone have actual PROOF that adcoms discriminate against conservatives in admissions decisions or is this all conjecture and paranoia?
Republicans come in a range of varieties. No one is going to lump your old school fiscal conservative in with your white supremacists, for example.
One never knows what will trip a particular adcom’s trigger, but . . . there seem to be a hell of a lot of well-educated Republicans about, and they didn’t all go to Bob Jones University.
There’s very little proof of anything in the admissions process. You only get actual proof when a university is forced to release info due to lawsuits or federal investigations:
To resolve the issue of this thread, you’d need to see AO notes like those exposed in the link. Ain’t going to happen.
That analogy is a stretch but thanks for agreeing there is zero proof.
This is getting silly. There are plenty of Republicans in all kinds of top universities and it’s ridiculous to suggest they are discriminated against. A radically right wing Repbulican isn’t going to apply to a college like Reed, are they? Just like a radically left wing Democrat isn’t going to apply to Liberty. (Though I believe a student attended Liberty “undercover” for a year to write an article.)
A fervent Trump supporter declaring so in an essay is probably not going to go down so well, but that is probably true even of some colleges in Republican states. It is safe to assume that any controversial topic is not a good topic for a college essay though, and like it or not, the president is controversial.
Ha, I see their notes. No, I’m not a decision maker. And a great kid is a great kid, don’t some of you get that?
The problem is that even top performers don’t know how to present themselves. All they usually know is what their high schools value. They don’t dig further. It’s more than stats or some usual titles or claiming some passion. So they can end up writing something not germane to admissions decisions, not presenting a good Why Us (whether or not that’s specifically asked,) or, as in this OP’s case, getting scared by forum folks into diluting his EC descriptions.
A fervent Trump supporter who declares that in an essay has an issue, too. NOT because it’s T. But because it’s not what the college app essay is meant to show. So he’d end up missing the chance to provide the right look and leave adcoms wondering what he thought the purpose is.
Advantage goes to kids who get it.
You might want to look at the whole application and accomplishments before making such a knee jerk comment, @jzducol. College decisions are made on the complete package.
As others have said, plenty of conservative students attend the most elite institutions in this country.
Even if we assume the rest of the application was completely stellar, the equivalent of leaving the essay totally blank should have been enough to sink the application, unless essays matter far less than lookingforward wants us to believe.
You’re talking about one or two oddball essays/year out of how many thousands of apps?
I know zip about the kid who repeated a phase, what came through in the rest of the app and supp, plus LoRs, (what balanced that foolishness. Frankly, I’m not amused.) Yes, a nutso, cutesie or downright SMH essay can be trouble-- because what the kid chooses to write is an indication of the level of thinking. And analysis. Or not.
Look, I try not to say it because it hits a nerve, but many, many kids can’t produce a good whole app despite being high school darlings and/or top stats. Why do you think I keep telling kids to learn more about their targets, what they value and look for, from the schools, themselves?
And then, certain folks come through an insist, No. They heard something somewhere…
Don’t jump to conclusions based on one or two kids. And really, enough flinging down a gauntlet. The task is to do one’s best through hs and on the app/supp. The wise kids get that. And, they’re open to some direction.
If one is curious to know more about the applicant, read up here - or elsewhere. This isn’t your average smart kid. He’s done quite a lot in his short life. I can easily see why her garnered so many coveted acceptances. The kid is a leader and a go-getter, whether you agree with his politics or not.
Looks like he is indeed a self-promoting, hard charging go-getter. I think the society would be better served by a muslin activist who can engage in dispassionate reasoning rather than shouting slogans like repeating BLM over and over. That just shows you how left leaning adcoms are, as long as you shout right slogans you are in.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
The plural of anecdote is not data. Feel free to give your opinion on the OP’s question, and then move on; this is not a debate society and nobody’s opinions will change.
@doschicos You are entitled to your personal views, but resorting to personal attacks on fellow members is not what I understand this forum should be.
To answer OP’s question I believe that given the anecdotal evidence there seems to be a boost being a left/Democratic political activist. If there is a Ted Cruz kid going to Princeton somewhere I haven’t heard of it, at least they are not revealing themselves before college.
I don’t know if some here are taking all this too seriously or not seriously enough.
OP seems to be a nicely active kid. He isn’t sitting there spouting off about “passions” or how he founded some nothing, he’s apparently walking the walk. That’s good. Set aside all the speculation that he’s going to be a victim of the big bad adcom wolves and…
…give him some freaking credit.
You act like adcoms are a bunch of Abbie Hoffmans, SMFH. They’re normal folks. I kinda doubt any of you can actually point to examples of them as radical leftists.
So, OP, dig into your possible targets, know as much as you can about them, how you match, and the right presentation. My advice is not to hold back.
Don’t let anyone dilute you or mislead. You can learn more this way, than taking others’ opinions as fact.
I would be concerned about unconscious bias working against you, especially if you write essays about your political views. I suspect the admissions officers are all very likely liberal. While I really doubt they would consciously discriminate against your beliefs (unless they are intolerant or ignorant) while considering your admission, unconscious bias is a real psychological phenomenon. Obviously I don’t have any kind of studies of the college admission process to back up my answer, but it’s something I would be concerned about.
Just be yourself. Don’t filter who you are just because you think colleges might dislike it. However, on the other hand, don’t force your essay to revolve around politics unless the prompt asks for it
Don’t know whether being politically illiberal is a liability or not.
However, I cannot fathom a thread titled “would being a Democrat hurt my chances” getting any traction at all.
Unfortunately, that gives at least a partial answer.
Excellent point, @50N40W . The country is very evenly divided, but there is only one side whose political beliefs are suspected to possibly affect admissions at highly-selective universities. Flip things around and it becomes nonsensical.
There are lots of recommendations in this thread to not mention Trump in the college application. Hard to imagine that it would have been a problem to mention Obama favorably in a college application, while he was president. Lots of people don’t like Trump. True. But lots of other people didn’t like Obama, either.
Omg, please just stop. The point is, don’t write an essay about controversial stuff. Obama wasn’t personally controversial, was he @whatisyourquest ? And if no one posts a thread about being a democrat, @50N40W it’s because maybe people realize the current political climate is due in large part to a president who is a republican. Go on, find a thread with a title like this before the current president was in office.