As a gay guy, I was just wondering if any of you know of any schools that come to mind when you think of LGBT tolerant and friendly in the 3.3-3.5 range
Also, schools that I should avoid that have a more conservative, traditional, anti-progressive mindset?
Thank you.
Do you have a regional preference? What is your budget?
We live in New England, where at least in my experience pretty nearly everyone supports gay marriage (you could probably find someone who doesn’t, but I couldn’t name anyone I know even if I wanted to). One daughter is a student in Canada where gay marriage has been legal for nearly 15 years and where even the Conservative Party of Canada officially supports gay marriage. I would expect that you would be fine anywhere up in this corner of the continent.
New Hampshire used to be considered the most conservative part of New England. However, it has become significantly less conservative recently and quite a few of the New Hampshire conservatives are a sort of strongly independent outdoorsy gun-toting strong supporters of environmental protection who support your right to do pretty much anything that you want to do as long as you don’t bother them. As such I wouldn’t expect you to have any more problems in New Hampshire (such as at UNH) than anywhere else in New England.
Notre Dame, Washington and Lee.
@DadTwoGirls unfortunately, I live in North Carolina, which is probably the 2nd or 3rd worst state for LGBT people. The northeast would be a dream come true, I have heard such good things about it and would love to get away from this awful heat. I would prefer to go out west or to New England. Budget around 40k
For a male, perhaps Sarah Lawrence and Skidmore might be low reaches, given that they tend to skew female. If you are willing to go to the Midwest, you hit the mother lode for liberal, slightlier easier admissions, small liberal arts colleges, like Kalamazoo, Earlham, Beloit, Lawrence, Knox.
The key question for finances is whether your budget matches what schools expect you to pay – if you are eligible for financial aid, and come out to around $40k Expected Family Contribution, then all is good. If you are not eligible for financial aid, but can afford $40k, then you are looking for schools which would award $20-$25k merit scholarship. Depending on the rest of the application package – test scores and ECs – these same midwest schools could possibly come in around $40k, after merit.
If you’re in NC and want to stay in NC, maybe look at Guilford? Warren Wilson is another good option. For instate, you may want to consider UNCA–i’m not super familiar with UNCA specifically, but Asheville is a cool, progressive town. Are you looking to stay in state?
Just saw your reply that you’d prefer east or west–I’ll second the Sarah Lawrence and Earlham suggestions. Evergreen State College, from what I’ve heard, is seeking a more national profile and may be worth a look as well.
UNC Asheville does seem like a good option, anecdotally, we’ve heard Asheville is very friendly to LGBTQ.
UNC Asheville is one of the most liberal colleges in the country, according to college niche. Good size, active social life, fine academics and within your price range.
“I would prefer to go out west or to New England. Budget around 40k”
With a 40k per year budget, and a 3.3 to 3.5 GPA, I would suggest that you run the NPC for UNH, UMass Lowell, and U.Maine Orono. I fear that they all might be just a small amount above 40k per year, although I have no idea whether there could be any financial aid.
Another thing that I am not sure about regarding U.Maine is that I am not sure how you would get there, since it is a bit over two hours from the Portland airport. UNH is only a bit more than an hour from Boston Logan airport and under an hour from the Manchester airport, so getting there should not be a major problem. Lowell of course is not all that far from Boston.
St. Mary’s College of Maryland, this is a public LAC named for the county it’s located in, it is not a religious school. Out of state would be just above your budget.
St Mary’s of MD is a school I love. But… when we visited during D2’s search they were struggling with an incident where a gay student’s room had been trashed and graffitied by other students. It feels like a somewhat Southern school politically (compared to a lot of other choices). Maybe UMBC instead?
Have you seen the resources at campuspride.org ?
What are you interested in studying?
@techmom99 right now I am undecided, but I am between communication and marketing
Good luck. I don’t know the NC schools or those majors. I just think it’s sad that this is something that has to be a real consideration in picking a school. My S attends a SUNY school and his roommate is gay. It’s no big deal there.
@roycroftmom @MerryCSO @Midwestmomofboys I have never looked into UNC Asheville, but after doing some research, it checks all of my box. I do have one concern though: one of my friends said that a large majority of the students are not necessarily tolerant towards the LGBT community.
If you’re up for going far from home to a more liberal region, you might think about some of the smaller public U’s in the Pacific Northwest. Southern Oregon in Ashland (home of the OR Shakespeare Festival) has a strong LGBT community. (A few of my D’s friends are there and love it.) Portland State (very happy friends there too - more urban), Oregon State, Western Washington, Eastern Washington (nice school, but Spokane is more conservative than Western WA)… and if you want a more “alternative,” open-curriculum (ultra-liberal) option, Evergreen State. California could be a nice place to be, too, but the UC system is out of reach financially as well as admissions-wise. But you could look at CSU’s like Humboldt State or Cal State Monterey Bay. Hope that helps - good luck!
Couple other thoughts…Goucher (Baltimore) or Eckerd (St. Petersburg)? Both CTCL schools. Neither should be reaches and both are socially liberal…not sure about availability of specialized majors though, they’re small. Honestly, though, I think LGBT intolerant colleges are the exception rather than the norm…you’ll probably be fine most places.
Although being LBGT is a very important to you now, when you enter college it just isn’t. You’ll find maybe a handful of colleges , almost entirely religious ones, that you might consider unfriendly. The vast majority of ‘incidents’ are fake or otherwise suspect, and committed by activists who want to ‘start a conversation’.
I would concern myself with what matters to most students:
- Quality of education
- Affordability
- Relevance to what you want to study, and flexibility if you want to change areas
- Preparation for life after college, i.e. career placement
- Accessibility and safety