<p>Common things keep recurring when Colgate is mentioned: Uggs, J. Crew, Vera Bradley, yachts, law school, etc.</p>
<p>Is it a completely different world from a college like Oberlin or Grinnell?</p>
<p>Colgate sounds exactly like my high school, and I'm not entirely sure I want a repeat of that.</p>
<p>It is quite a big school. There are different crowds with different interests. You will find a group with similar interests as you.</p>
<p>The reason these threads reflect “high school” themes such as fashion, shopping, preppiness etc is that it is high school boys and girls who use it to frame their concerns and expectations. But when you go university you become a man or a woman and your interests should radically change for several reasons: you are paying for (and I trust receiving) a different experience entirely. High school is over! The step should be transformative; teachers are replaced by doctorate-level professors, schoolwork becomes coursework at a new level of intensity and sophistication, your peers interact at a 9 or 10:1 ratio with those professors etc. Expectations are far higher and you are the driver. Not your parents or other relatives. It’s your time!</p>
<p>Now, and about conservative politics, I don’t believe that Colgate is another world in the politicized sense although you can expect strong discourse at times about global issues. After all, a liberal arts education demands focus and there are all views represented inside and outside the classroom through opportunities to engage such as the lecture series, the institutes, alumni events on and off campus, study groups (more than 2/3 of Colgate students go on them) and clubs. And yes, there is a heavy emphasis, again driven by students’ own expectations about careers and post-graduate education (especially law, medical and business school), with lots of student exposure all 4 years to the Career Planning Center and your academic advisor. You should expect nothing less from your 4 years at Colgate.</p>
<p>Good luck with your search!</p>
<p>You may be oversimplifying this a bit. My daugher is a junior, radically liberal, and wears Uggs. She might go to law school to become a radical lawyer. She also loves clothing brands, but she travels around the world on her own every year, speaks French, plays rugby, majors in Poli Sci, and . . . . Well, you get the point. She’s not blonde, clueless, or intolerant. Three of her high school classmates are at Colgate, one a Mexican-American, one black, one blonde, all from Los Angeles. I don’t think they wear Uggs. But you never know. </p>
<p>A list of store brands is, to be perfectly frank with you, somewhat shallow as a determinent of where anyone would want to go to college. If you require a college where your favorite brands and attitudes are on display, I have no answer for you on that. If you require a college where people don’t like nice clothes or never go sailing or don’t belong to a country club, I’m at a loss how you do that, as wewll. You can stereotype some colleges, but I don’t think Colgate really works that way. </p>
<p>Colgate has a pretty broad style from jazz artists to athletes and from intellectuals to smalltown rural farm kids. This is not freaky Bard or little woodsy Middlebury, urban NYU with horns honking all night, or intensely studious Harvey Mudd or Reed. It’s a college which mixes up lots of different kinds of people and attitudes. If you can generalize about Oberlin being “liberal” or Swarthmore being “initellectual” or Dartmouth being “athletes and frat boys,” I’d wonder if such schools were open to a wider variety of students – or, more likely, whether they really were like that at all. Most of these steretypes are based on half rumor and half on quick visits where someone overgeneralized based on limited knowledge from a few hours or a single day. </p>
<p>Colgate has a good number of conservatives, but perhaps more liberals and quite a few others who are artistic, intellectual, athletic and have other outlooks but who aren’t really all that political. There is not major conservative movement that colors the daily life of the school. It’s not Liberty University or Pepperdine. I would never call Colgate conservative like some other schools which attract conservatives like BYU, Washington & Lee, Hillsdale Collge or some of the religious schools. And I would not call it aggressively liberal or counter-cultural, either, like Hampshire, Bard, Bennington, Sarah Lawrence or other schools which tend to cultivate that style. Why people only want to be with people just like themselves leaves me confused. </p>
<p>Many Colgate graduates do go to law school or into medicine or business, but that doesn’t make them conservative, and just as many go into journalism or the media or teaching or other professions. I went to Colgate, I’m a teacher, and among my friends were an archaeologist, three doctors, one surgeon, a federal public defender, two lawyers, a bookstore owner, one artist, a philosophy professor, a minister, two businessmen, and a screenwriter. See a trend there? Neither do I. </p>
<p>Find the people you like but don’t expect just one type of people at a college with 2800+ very bright students.</p>
<p>LOVE your post ColgateDad!!! I have been visiting this forum often as my S is applying this year. He hasn’t visited and won’t be able to before he applies. One of the reasons he is drawn to Colgate is his perceived idea that Colgate is a college of active doers that have a wide variety of interests and beliefs. He has NO desire to surround himself with kids who are all the same. My S is an Eagle Scout who is an Aetheist and a libertarian, a competitive rock climber that has designed his own line of computer bags made out of recycled materials, is a first reponder and a rescue diver who has climbed all of the highest peaks in CA. He is planning to hike the Pacific Crest Trail by himself this summer…etc… in other words there would be no way to pigeon hole him… I have my feeling that Colgate is full of kids like this… as are most of the top LAC’s that are sometimes categorized into a certain idea that is spread around but not always true. He likes Reed and Dartmouth and I feel he would be happy at either. If he is accepted he will visit and see for himself but I am sure he could find himself at home at Colgate.</p>
<p>When I went to Colgate back in the 80s we wore jeans or cords, Frye boots and yoked sweaters. Most students were not spoiled and even those from wealthy backgrounds were down to earth, and not very materialistic. Of course times have changed and perhaps now many students have UGGs, iphones and ipads. It was known as more socially liberal, but not a radical school. However I still suspect that a bright, down to earth, and physically active student of any political party would thrive at Colgate.</p>