<p>I come from a conservative, Christian home, and one of the schools that my parents have encouraged me to look at is Liberty University. I initially dismissed it, since it doesn't meet my academic standards, plus it seems super Christian. My parents will only help pay for school if I go somewhere Christian, so right now we've compromised in Grove City College, which has strong academics, as well as less-Christian rules.
My main problem? Finances.
If I went to a secular college, I would end up pretty far in debt. Even if I went to Grove City, I'd end up having a chunk of money to repay after I graduated, since they don't offer much financial aid.
At Liberty, I'd be debt-free. Because of achievements so far in high school (I'm a semi-finalist in NMSC), I can get full tuition, and -if I become a Finalist, which I'm 99% sure I will- I can get full tuition, room, and board. I could get into the Honors program, which means that the academics would be more at my level.
Buuuuuuut, I'm personally an agnostic atheist. I keep my mouth shut when I'm around Christians, since I don't like to cause conflict, but I don't know if it would be possible for me to survive 4 years in a super Christian school. I don't want to be a black sheep, and I definitely don't want people to constantly try to convert me or talk about religion.</p>
<p>I'm looking for input from current or recent Liberty University students. Do you think it would be possible for a non-Christian student to be happy there? Would it be possible for me to find other non-Christian friends? If people found out that I wasn't personally religious, would they look down on me or try to convert me? </p>
<p>Liberty offers really generous financial aid, so I'm tempted to apply... I just don't want to be miserable for 4 years.</p>
<p>Why don’t you post your stats on the more general thread and see if people can help you identify scholarships that will allow you to go to a secular college and get the education that you really want. Do you have the stats to potentially get a full ride to the University of Pittsburgh Honors Program? University of Alabama? University of Kentucky? University of Texas at Dallas? Check these out. </p>
<p>I agree with the others. With your stats, I’d be trying Pitt at least.</p>
<p>What would YOU like in a school?</p>
<p>I suspect you’d be happier at Grove City than Liberty, but there are potentially other places you could go and not need financial assistance from your parents since you have decent stats.</p>
<p>I don’t know how much Grove City has changed in 40 years but I have a buddy when went there is not to be confused with a conservative Christian. One idea could be to go to a community college for a couple years then transfer. This keeps you out of Liberty and will leave you with less debt.</p>
<p>We happened to stop at a Chipotle near Liberty University on a road trip last year. All the other parties in the restaurant included at least one person wearing Liberty gear. We wound up being seated at a long common table and could not help overhearing the parties on either side of us. In both cases, the conversation was all religion. Our sense was that they take it very seriously.</p>
<p>Many LU students do take religion seriously but not in some Jihadist sort of way. They discuss it in an calm and intellectual way. Others were just sent there by their parents and could not care less. One pretty uniform type is that they are nice polite kids. So if serious religious discussions make you uncomfortable to be around it could be a problem but there is no use of force. As far as academics go LU is improving rapidly in both facilities and faculty quality. They have overnight visits for prospects and maybe that would be a good way to see how it works for you or not.</p>
<p>Liberty would be very tough for a non Christian and while it’s “improving”, it’s still not quite academically rigorous on the level of the well-known evangelical/conservative colleges. It sounds like it’d be a very poor fit for you based on what you want.
Grove City is quite conservative and Christian; it has better academics than LU.
However, what about Wheaton (IL!), Hope, Calvin, Gordon, Pepperdine, Point Loma, Messiah, Berry? All of these are strong academically, Christian, and conservative - and some may offer very good scholarships. Would your parents approve?
I’m also thinking Hillsdale - conservative but open to non religious students, excellent merit money.
I agree that you should also use your stats to earn a full ride or full tuition scholarship. At a large flagship, while the majority of students will be non-religious, there WILL be Christian students and Christian clubs if you wish.
It sounds like you’d like to attend a non Christian school though, and would thus need a full ride since your parents wouldn’t support you - from Howard to UMontana to Washington&Lee to Hendrix to Pitt … there are LOTS of schools with full rides, either automatic for stats or competitive, for students with high stats and strong ECs. Apply widely.
I know that Troy has full rides for good stats and while it’s a public school, it has a (controversial!) Christian dorm that may reassure your parents. </p>
<p>The televangelist days are long over at LU. The focus now is growing the campus with quality. You do know JF Sr dies about 5 years ago, right. His sons are very different. </p>
<p>I live in the real world and my LU degree has been a huge asset. I have just secured a tentative offer for a GS11 position due in part to the degree. I work in the private sector right now and it’s served me well there too. Moving into the federal sector has been a long term goal of mine. If you want to work on Wall Street or some other niche field that recruits from well known schools LU is not a good choice. </p>
<p>It is always interesting to see people voice their opinions on Liberty. Many have no direct experience with the school at all. For every potential employer who might be turned off by a Liberty graduate, there is someone else waiting to hire him/her. Liberty is on a huge upswing. My daughter is a likely NMF with the stats to go almost anywhere. She is choosing to attend Liberty next fall and will participate in the honors program with students with similar stats. We could not be more proud of her.</p>
<p>Apply to a wide variety of schools, see who accepts you, then see what type of financial aid/scholarships you are offered. If you have to get a job and go to school part time, initially, then do that. Find a school whose reputation, philosophy and whose treatment of students fits your personality and your needs.</p>
<p>Or, if you truly prefer to have your parents pay your way, then you will have to either convince them that another school is acceptable, or, you will have to accept the terms of their financial support. </p>
<p>As NMF you will have many automatic full-ride scholarships available to choose from, not just Liberty. Scholarships that pay rm/bd and sometimes books and even occasionally additional stipend for expenses on top of tuition. Often an IPad or other goodies like research money thrown in. Look at the list posted by allyphoe. Your parents cannot prevent you from attending. However in most cases you will need a part-time job to pay for expenses like toiletries, books and supplies,travel, medical, etc. if your parents won’t help with that. And if the choice of school causes a rift with parents, then you may need to choose a school in a sizeable city where you can live and work to pay for rent and such during summers.</p>
<p>Many of these schools are located in regions of the country known for having sizable conservative religious populations and some fair proportion of their student body is so aligned. Though most have a quite diverse student body representing all religions and also the non-religiious so that there would be many students sharing your world view, and the education itself would of course be non-religious and free of religious overtones, so long as you don’t major in religious studies. In promoting these schools to your parents, you might emphasize the comfortingly religious nature of surrounding communities and deemphasize the diverse open nature of modern universities. They all certainly have religious clubs and churches on or near campus you can point to as evidence of religion’s prominence in students’ lives. </p>
<p>The highest ranking U (by USNews), that offers true full ride for NMF these days is UTulsa(Oral Roberts right down the street!), though it isn’t automatic. Only top 40 or so of NMSF applicants get it. The rest get almost full tuition. The highest ranking automatic full-ride is UKentucky. </p>
<p>Note that some of these NMF scholarship schools will waive application fees for NMSf if you ask. If you didn’t opt out of mail when you tested, you may even be getting the free app offers in the mail or by e-mail now. Also, some of them take applications from and award the scholarships to NMSF quite late in application cycle, though not all.</p>
<p>There are many other schools where you might get full ride for stats and other aspects of profile, but that is always iffy. Often have scholarship competiition weekends and interviews in addition to the involved scholarship application with a large pool of exceptionally talented and accomplished applicants. Getting into that ring opens up many more potential schools, but need to hurry and do research to get scholarship apps in before deadlines.</p>
<p>Edited to add: I have no knowledge or comment on academics at Liberty. Just trying to give OP options as his non-religious outlook is likely to lead to unhappiness at a place like Liberty. Not a good fit, as people say.</p>
<p>I don’t see where the essay actually requires you to say that. You could just say I am not Christian and here’s why–blah blah blah. Don’t know if you would get in but who knows. They certainly allow non-Christian featured speakers.</p>
<p>The LU regular app asks the applicant to indicate religion from a list that includes jew, muslim, hindu, none and just about any other possibility. Non-Christians are just instructed that they will have to participate in Christian centered activities.</p>
<p>That’s interesting, barrons. There doesn’t seem to be a disclaimer like that on the domestic application, unless I missed it. It does make it clear that a non-Christian might not be comfortable at Liberty, considering the requirement to attend religious services, etc. (I just note, in passing, that Glenn Beck, as a Mormon, would consider himself to be a Christian.)</p>
<p>The OP does not want to go to LU. I’m sure he would be uncomfortable there. We know a recent Grove City grad. Graduated three years ago. Already married to a pastor of a conservative megachurch here in Ohio. </p>