How liberal is Bates?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Bates College
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So I’ve heard that Bates is the most liberal out of the Maine LACs - Bowdoin, Colby, Bates, but Maine is already not a very liberal place. Like if it was a scale of Wesleyan to Claremont McKenna (or some other really conservative school), where would Bates fall? I’m definitely more of a Wesleyan, Tufts kinda person, so would Bates be a comparable environment? Is it more like Amherst liberal, like liberal with a bit of prep?

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Saying its more liberal than Colby is probably fair. I am not sure if Bates and Bowdoin are that different.

My son is incoming from a Catholic school and he finds the students certainly more liberal than his classmates but nothing like at Columbia.

Bates is certainly more liberal than Colgate and Bucknell and in the time we spent there, seems to be a good mix of kids.

No, it is not as preppy as Amherst not even close but there are preppy elements there.

Bates is very hard to categorize because the school seems to attract a wide variety of students.

The groups eating together at the dining hall were very mixed, suggesting that kids got along well.

I would say a bit left of middle on your scale.

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Thanks, that was really helpful! Also, how preppy is Amherst? I didn’t know it was THAT preppy…

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Amherst is reasonably preppy. Compared to 1980’s preppy, college preppiness now is not nearly as extreme. I don’t recall in a year seeing one kid on 15 campuses wearing a pink Ralph Lauren polo shirt with the collar up.

All these New England colleges are more diverse now so there is a broader spectrum of kids.

You should go investigate and see what you think.

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Thanks! I will :slight_smile:

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I’m an incoming sophmore at Bates and from my time here I would definitely say the campus leans left, at least for social issues. In comparison to the other two Maine LACs we are definitely more left leaning than Bowdoin although probably not too different from Colby, although we’re definitely less preppy. However, if you wanted to compare us to Wesleyan we probably wouldn’t be as left leaning as them. Hope this helped!

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Thanks, that was helpful!