<p>I think someone who loved Harvey Mudd could easily find “his people” at Georgia Tech.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s a big sports school, but IMHO not like Alabama. I think that someone who goes to Alabama and ignores football is missing out on a central part of what the university has to offer. I think that’s much less true at GaTech, especially since a big part of what it offers is a location in a big, cosmopolitan city.</p>
<p>@pizzagirl - thanks. I have a friend of japanese decent who was visiting her son at a summer program at Colorado College. She said people stared at her on the streets of the town. Growing up in So Cal, this was a bit of a shock for her.</p>
<p>@op - HMC and Olin are great schools. My son was going to apply to HMC, but got into MIT and Caltech early, thus stopping the process. I love the Claremont Colleges. My daughter is applying this year to Scripps, Pomona and Pitzer. </p>
<p>Have you looked at Rose-Hulman? It is supposed to be quite a gem, and it has rolling admissions, which makes it a great safety!</p>
<p>anotherparent, I’ll take another look at Rose-Hulman, but I think the issue there may be money. But it may be worth a try.</p>
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<p>I didn’t pick up on that at all, but then again I’m not Japanese :-). The “downtown” area of Col Springs (that students would be visiting) seemed like any other college-y type area, with cute coffeehouses and bookstores and the like. If anything, one of the things we really liked about CC is that students there kind of took you as you were and that’s cool … not a focus on how you dressed, what toys you had, etc. It struck us as very down-to-earth. To be honest, I think there are a good number of well-to-do kids there, but well-to-do kids who are on the granola / earthy / save the planet side as opposed to well-to-do kids on the snobby / elitist side. Sorry to hijack.</p>
<p>If he likes Mudd and Olin, take a look at CMU. UMD’s engineering is excellent and they get a lot of top-notch kids. School is incredibly diverse and has a large Jewish community.</p>
<p>Will ditto WPI and Rensselaer for smaller engineering schools.</p>
<p>@OP - if you qualify for finaid, then have your son apply broadly, because they all award the finaid differently, and you have better chance of getting the money you need. </p>
<p>The poster above me suggested CMU. My daughter and I were in Pittsburgh for a brief time last year. I always pictured it as an icky, smoky place. Wow, it is a great city - pretty, walkable, not too big, lots of culture. I met a woman who was very left wing. When she moved there from Boston she expected to feel exiled, but really loved the place.</p>
<p>Going way back to an early post which gave the Hillel link. The reason to check out the religious organization is not because of being religious but because the Hillel people will know what campus/city life is like for Jews. Their reply could raise red flags or otherwise give information about what to expect. Sometimes religious people of any faith fit in with those of other equally religiousness, Hillel can probably give you a feeling for how a secular Jew fits with them et al. If you find that most Jews on a campus choose to join and be active in Hillel it may not be the right campus for a secular person unless the rest of the student body has similar secular leanings.</p>
<p>In short- contacting the Hillel center at all campuses of interest will give you insights.</p>
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<p>Well said - I don’t care if my kids affiliate with Hillel or not, but I wouldn’t want it to be such that Hillel would be the only game in town for them and if they didn’t affiliate, they’d otherwise feel left out / uncomfortable. </p>
<p>My D looked at a small southern women’s school where it was evident she would have been one of truly a handful of Jewish students (as in, maybe 3 others). The interviewer / reps could not have been nicer, but D just wants being Jewish to be no big deal, not the Mark of The Other or a curiosity piece.</p>
<p>The example of the strongly Christian parents allowing their child to attend a secular campus. Bravo! If you can’t trust your child to retain the beliefs you inculcated them with then those beliefs don’t deserve to be kept. I guess the case for home schooling is to not expose children to other beliefs before they thoroughly incorporate parental beliefs that could be easily challenged by exposure to others.</p>
<p>OP- UW-Madison would be a great campus for your son. However, the finances could be a problem. There are enough liberal schools with good engineering that you don’t have to sacrifice lifestyle wishes for academics. Public schools tend to be more liberal than the people of their state but will reflect the hometown values the majority of students bring with them. That said- different campuses attract different students within a state. UW-Madison gets those who want to leave their conservative home town environment, whereas some choose other schools to aviod the liberal atmosphere of Madison.</p>
<p>I don’t think the issue is trusting your child to retain your beliefs. It is naive to think that any kid can show up at any campus and somehow make it work. There are campuses which in my opinion would be extremely challenging for the OP’s kid to feel at home or even not feel like Exhibit A.</p>
<p>I have lived and worked in places where I’ve been the only Jewish person and it’s been fine. I’ve lived and worked in places where my “lifestyle” is considered a personal choice and not been questioned. I’ve also worked in places where I’ve had colleagues who wanted me to join them for prayer at lunch, who worried that my children weren’t baptized, who exulted when scuds started to fall on Tel Aviv because to them it was proof that the Messiah was coming imminently. The fact that I had young cousins who were sealed up in safe rooms wearing gas masks was seen as a miraculous sign-- and I was asked if I wanted to “testify”. My beliefs were really irrelevant-- it was about them and their need to validate their own religious experience through the terrifying experiences of my family members.</p>
<p>Sorry, not interested.</p>
<p>I live in a pretty liberal community and I know that even here, it is hard for kids growing up in non-hetero type families. Cannot imagine what it’s like in a place with strong religious fundamentalism.</p>
<p>OP- there are so many great engineering schools!!! Your S sounds like a fantastic kid but does he really want to be explaining his life and family 24/7?</p>
<p>congrats on your son’s achievements! I have twin boy future engineers that are also NMSF and we have done the tours–loved Harvey Mudd, but figure the odds 
The reality is that if your son is going into engineering, he will probably fly under the radar of all the political/religious/lifestyle differences. We are definitely on the more conservative side, but my boys have spent 13 years in catholic schools and learned to hold their own without being offensive–we are NOT catholic. We live in fly over territory, but diversity is everywhere, and I have noticed the brightest and best of our youth are more in danger of being condescending towards those who can’t keep up with them intellectually! They tend to enjoy discourse with those who have different backgrounds, so friendly curiosity about the differences would probably occur. Would that be a problem for your son? Also, has he considered some 2nd tier schools if he doesn’t get into first choices? You have to make ALOT of money to not qualify for financial aid at alot of these schools. Use the college confidential financial aid calculater to get an idea of what you would get. You might discover that he will get much more under needs based vs merit based. Good luck!</p>
<p>chaieverymorning (not sure if this the tea or Hebrew word for life, but great name!)
Thanks for bringing up such an interesting question.
And, I would like to turn this question around:
How would YOU feel if your son adopted the “majority culture” of the school where he attended? What if he came home in an orange car with tiger paw prints, extolling the escapades of his fraternity, spending more energy on the four hour tailgate party and game than his classes, thinking it “uncool” to have an intellectual discussion, and, worst case scenario, denying students of certain ethnic groups the opportunity to join his fraternity, denying his own heritage or the orientation of his parents?
I am not saying that your son would do these things. I am not saying that all of the colleges on your list have a culture as I described. But, we all need to be aware that a task of development for adolescents is to fit in with a peer group. Not all college students are done being adolescents and many feel the need to try and conform (even the “nonconformists” who conform to their group.) That is why so many of us are trying to find places for our students where there is enough support for the values that we have tried to instill. Many of us are not looking for a monolithic community, but just enough of a culture to allow our students to continue to be the human beings that we have brought them up to be.
Add to that the Jewish drive for “l’dor v’dor” (that means from generation to generation) - we haven’t survived 5771 years to throw it all away on assimilation - and even if you and your son are “secular” you are likely to have a worldview that is very much shaped by your Jewish identity - PM me if you want about this - and there is all the more reason to think very seriously before you throw him into an environment where there would be peer pressure to go in such a different direction.
I think that you would be best off finding a school with a lot of diversity, a lot of viewpoints, but enough support for his traditions and family.</p>
<p>Many college students meet their future spouse in school. A couple of years ago when my son was looking at schools, I had to confront my own, “I wouldn’t want my son to marry one of those” prejudices. Most of us have these feelings hidden inside, although most don’t verbalize them. My prejudice was against the very conservative Christian schools…and that is because I was raised in one of those religions and understand them pretty well. </p>
<p>I didn’t ever talk to my son about this and he decided not to apply to the religious schools because mandatory daily chapel and an 11 pm curfew didn’t appeal to him.</p>
<p>If your student has a strong preference for dating/marrying within his own religion or political inclinations or whatever, it would be nice if his school had some other students of the same persuasion.</p>
<p>levirm – Chai is the Hindi word for tea, so I’m guessing our OP likes a cup of spiced Indian tea in the morning!</p>
<p>The average age of a man getting married is now statistically past college age. Yes, I met my man in college, but that was a LONG time ago. FYI, your conservative, get married. roots are showing.</p>
<p>^^ I thought the handle was a clever way of expressing both tea and life every morning! </p>
<p>Someone help me out here. Middle-aged brain glitch on the word/phrase to describe that. “Double entendre” usually conveys the idea the less obvious meaning is sorta improper or risque??!</p>
<p>I think this is a fascinating discussion.</p>
<p>I am wowed by the families and kids who successfully navigate a very different environment.</p>
<p>It obviously takes a person with qualities I don’t posses. We adults finally threw in the towel on a very homogeneous environment and moved the family to the most diverse city in our area. I’m glad our kids have had the opportunity to experience both. It has made that aspect of their college search so much easier. </p>
<p>Good luck to your son, OP. He obviously has a lot going for him! I hope he finds just the right cultural environment, whether similar or different.</p>
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<p>But the “right after college” marriage rule still applies at many of these schools, which is one of the problems. One year I knew two young women who graduated from fundamentalist colleges. One got married three weeks after graduation and the other got married six weeks after graduation.</p>
<p>“the “right after college” marriage rule still applies at many of these schools”</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say it’s a “rule” at either Clemson or Alabama, and certainly not at GaTech. Marrying right out of school is a lot more common there than it is at, say, Brown, but I don’t think you’d be a weirdo for being an un-engaged senior unless you joined a particularly traditional Greek group.</p>
<p>I also think that early-marriage culture is a bigger issue for women than for men (like the OP’s son). Even at Christian campuses far more devout than Clemson or Bama, it’s generally OK for a man to delay marriage until after grad school or later, while a woman might encounter pity.</p>
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<p>I think Missypie is probably right about more fundamentalist schools (i.e. Lee, Harding, Liberty) but I don’t think any state school can be categorized as “fundamentalist.” And I don’t think it’s so much about “pity” but about the fact that if you go there & follow their tenets, you’re not supposed to be engaging in sexual activity until you’re married.</p>