<p>When a Christian student apples to Harvard, to they respect that, Which Ivy League School at least a little bit respects that?</p>
<p>Sorry about the spelling issues, i was in a hurry!</p>
<p>They’re not going to hold it against you, but it’s not like they’ll give you bonus points for it (unless you’re applying to Harvard Divinity School, and probably not even then). They won’t even know your religion unless you purposely include it in your application.</p>
<p>A word of advice: Don’t go preaching the superiority of your religion in the essays. They REALLY don’t like prejudice or bigotry in their applicants. They hold nothing against Christian applicants, but they WILL hold it against you if you act like it’s better than all other religions.</p>
<p>No. Harvard openly persecutes Christians.</p>
<p>“No. Harvard openly persecutes Christians.” </p>
<p>I do hope you say this in jest. For I am convinced some would wholeheartedly say that.</p>
<p>Never ceases to amaze me.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that if you’re Christian and you apply to Harvard they put up your application on the wall and students pay $5 each to walk past and laugh/spit at it.</p>
<p>trufax.</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, I am an international student, and I happen to be atheist. I always assumed most people in the US were Christian. Isn’t this also the case at Harvard?
When you talk about Christian here, do you guys mean really devoted Christians? Or just basically anyone who is religious (and into Christianity)? </p>
<p>Otherwise, this is really surprising! So in the unlikely case I get in, it would mean I am not the only heathen! Hahaha.</p>
<p>Harvard wants a diverse student body including students from a variety of spiritual paths.</p>
<p>GuiltyBystander – That’s actually a great question, because “Christian” gets used by different people to mean different things. The broadest meaning is essentially everyone whose background is Catholic, Protestant, Anabaptist, Mormon, or Orthodox (and not, say, Muslim, or Jewish, or Hindu, or something other than Christian), whether or not they actually believe anything or engage in any religious practice. Increasingly, however, it gets used by evangelical and charismatic Christians to mean, essentially, committed, highly observant Protestants (mainly evangelical or charismatic) – excluding Catholics, Orthodox, and Mormons, definitely, and also some old-fashioned mainstream Protestants not deemed zealous enough. </p>
<p>You are right that the vast majority of people in the U.S. are “Christian” in the first sense – I don’t know the exact figure, but it has to be higher than 80%, maybe higher than 90%. “Christians” in the second sense are a large, vocal, and growing minority. In some parts of the country, they may be the majority, especially rural areas and the South. But for various social reasons – region, class, educational background – they are still comparatively rare at elite colleges in the Northeast like Harvard. Not unheard-of or unheard-from, certainly, but not anything like as numerous as in the country as a whole.</p>
<p>When someone asks a question like the OPs, it signals he is using “Christian” in the second sense. It also shows a characteristic mix of paranoia and triumphalism one often sees in this group: a simultaneous belief that society is full of people who hate them and want to oppress them, and that they are morally superior to everyone else and their moral worth should be generally acknowledged.</p>
<p>GuiltyBystander: Harvard has a pretty strong “Godless” population…I know an atheist cum-wanna-be socialist revolutionary-cum-brilliant scholar-type…</p>
<p>Most of the world religions are also pretty well represented. I know a Muslim kid or two, a few friends who are Mormon in my house. My roommates have included two (rather unobservant) Jews and an Irish Catholic. And since it’s Massachusetts, lots of Unitarian Universalists. Which is about as non-Christian/non-religious as you can get while still calling yourself Christian. </p>
<p>In general, most students, even those nominally associated with a religion, are not over-zealous. Some people are devout, but they never get in your face about it, and that’s incredibly refreshing.</p>
<p>Thank you JHS and WindCloudUltra! That is really interesting actually, I really would have imagined most people to be frequent church-goers (Although, indeed, I hadn’t really expected the Bob Jones cross admits to be heavily represented at Harvard ;)). </p>
<p>I guess that I am culturally also Christian, The Netherlands have a Judo-Christian tradition, so globally all Dutch people will be considered Christian (except of course for some religious minorities) to an extent.</p>
<p>The trend of desecularisation in the world is pretty apparent indeed, I already notice a difference here in my own country, and the American right-wing parties seem to have moved from a mostly pro-capitalist right stance to a religious neo-conservatism and then there is of course Muslim extremism, etc. It is funny that not long ago people expected religion to almost become a negligible factor in politics and daily life! </p>
<p>I am actually quite relieved religion isn’t too big a presence on campus, not that I am in any way against any believe system, it is just that it might have been hard to fit in then!</p>
<p>There’s actually a pretty deep divide within the U.S. Republican Party between religious conservatives and traditional free-market/libertarian conservatives. They do a better job of papering it over when they are out of power, but it’s still there. That’s one of the reasons the Obama Administration is suddenly pursuing elimination of the “Don’t Ask / Don’t Tell” rule in the military – it’s a “wedge” issue among Republicans.</p>
<p>At universities like Harvard, you will find a lot of free-market and libertarian conservatives, and very few religious conservatives (although more than there would have been 20 years ago).</p>
<p>@JHS - You’re spot on about the popularity of the fiscally conservative/socially liberal viewpoint at Harvard. I’ve never seen numbers (and I hung out with a pretty pre-Wall Street crowd), but it felt to me like the plurality of students might have that belief.</p>
<p>If you’re religious, there’s a student group for you. If you’re non-religious, no one will be pushing you to be religious. If you’re a passionate atheist (of the Richard Dawkins tradition), there are student groups for you as well.</p>
<p>(And as an aside, I’m amazed that the question that started this thread has led to such thoughtful + interesting responses!)</p>
<p>ya, Harvards pretty cool to the Christians, except the Christian bash at the beginning of freshman year where all the minorities harass and beat the Christian students…</p>
<p>@just<em>forget</em>me: I suspect JHS and you are both correct in that assessment. Some people have the impression that the Ivies are bastions for leftist hippies. My crowd was less of the Wall Street type, but even among the more artsy/humanities/academic people, I know very few who were hard-liner left-wingers, save for one very prominent exception.</p>
<p>There is certainty of diversity of belief at Harvard, in terms of faith, politics, perspective… The only stereotype that is true is that there is no stereotype.</p>
<p>GuiltyBystander, and others interested in secularism or atheism at Harvard- I happen to be involved with the Harvard Secular Society, an organization that serves as a community for humanists, secularists, atheists, and other such beliefs. Among other things, we are responsible for the yearly Cultural Humanism Award, which this year was given to the Mythbusters (who are coming here during the spring to accept it!) Last year Joss Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and Dollhouse, was the recipient.</p>
<p>Anyway, there is certainly a significant atheist presence at Harvard! While I will have graduated should you decide to come here, I hope you find it satisfactory and enjoyable.</p>
<p>Hey, I didn’t mean to suggest that there aren’t plenty of leftist hippies at Harvard, too. There are! Some are even hard-line! (Some may even be Christian, too. Although the one I know best is very Jewish.)</p>
<p>Off the top of my head, I can think of 5 Harvard classmates who became Christian ministers.</p>
<p>The Harvard Divinity School is one of the most prominent in the country, this is the most prominent building on the Harvard campus
<a href=“Historic Buildings of Massachusetts”>Historic Buildings of Massachusetts;
and its minister is the most prominent personality on campus.</p>
<p>The most impressive characteristic I can offer about the Harvard community is its widespread respect for human diversity of all kinds. Christians would certainly be respected for their faith, but not for any tenet of their belief, if there is one, that might tend to demean or oppress others.</p>