<p>Back to the original query: Bucknell has always seemed pretty apolitical to me, and it is supposed to be very good in STEM fields. I think the same is true at Lehigh, although I’m aware of a hard-partying Greek element there. Drexel is a no-nonsense sort of school - very career-oriented - but you might not like the urban location. Villanova is pretty quiet, politically. At Stevens, the biggest distraction is likely to be the male-to-female ratio. I think Franklin & Marshall is a pretty apolitical place, too, although I don’t know how strong the intellectual environment is there. Maybe Virginia Tech? William & Mary has never seemed like a hotbed of radicalism, but Jon Stewart went there (he was more into soccer and stand-up comedy as an undergraduate, nevertheless). From everything I’ve inferred, you should probably avoid the colleges with a Quaker tradition in the region (ie. Haverford, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr) since social engagement and commitment are fundamental Quaker values. I think Johns Hopkins, Penn, Barnard/Columbia, Fordham, NYU, Goucher, et al, are probably too urban for your tastes. My hunch is that Bucknell might be a perfect fit, and worth applying to Early Decision.</p>
<p>Jym, I thought my previous answer addressed the confusion sufficiently, but I will try again. </p>
<p>This is what I wrote. </p>
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<p>I quoted parts of your post to address the open-mind issue. You wished for the OP and her kid to be more open minded, and I contrasted that with the obvious lack thereof in this thread by posters. Not you. not the OP. The same people who led the questioning of the OP parental and mental acuity. </p>
<p>Unless you choose to align yourself with that bunch, this should not apply to you. At least, that is the way I see it as I do NOT believe you did. </p>
<p>HTH </p>
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<p>I’m still stuck on the concern about manipulative recruitment by professors and/or older students. Maybe part of the concern is just a question of the lens with which one looks at some situations. If the Young Democrats and Young Republicans have tables set up to recruit during orientation is that a case of older students trying to indoctrinate younger students? Or is it a case of some students who’ve had a positive experience hoping to share their experience with other students?</p>
<p>I can think of one organized activity I believe is set up to be manipulative of college newbies and even worse colleges explicitly help set this up … while the lion’s share of folks who have participated do not see the possible manipulative situation which is so obvious to me. The activity … greek rush week being held for freshman the week before the general orientation for freshman. I totally understand why the sororities and frats prefer this set-up but I find it troubling that the colleges allow, support, and provide facilities for early rushes. So there are very different views of this activity … does one have to be right and one wrong? Or can both viewpoints be valid simultaneously?</p>
<p>“Maybe part of the concern is just a question of the lens with which one looks at some situations. If the Young Democrats and Young Republicans have tables set up to recruit during orientation is that a case of older students trying to indoctrinate younger students?”</p>
<p>This whole thread is so stupid, because the OP is starting out with a misguided assumption. Even at a super-liberal campus where liberal views predominate, no one is “required” to be engaged in politics or political activism. I have one kid who eats up politics and political causes like they are ice cream; I have another who couldn’t care less about any of it, and that one is at the more liberal school of the two. She simply isn’t interested, just like she’s not interested in the theater club or the chess club. </p>
<p>It’s just as stupid as being worried that even on a campus where sports are a big deal, someone would be “required” or “tempted” or “swayed” into playing sports. </p>
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<p>Why would Liberty or Oral Roberts not have political activity?</p>
<p>In any case, political activity (of any political alignment) is probably less at:
- schools with more pre-professionally-oriented students
- less selective schools with fewer students who see themselves as future “movers and shakers”
- schools with more commuter or non-traditional students</p>
<p>Of course, there are plenty of exceptions, and even schools with low levels of political activity may have some political activists who can be much noisier than their actual level of support and participation.</p>
<p>If someone asked for schools that are NOT sports-oriented the thread would not have blown up and the OP would have nicely been given a few options before everyone else lost interest.</p>
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<p>Bucknell may have something similar, since more than half of the students at Bucknell join fraternities and sororities.</p>
<p>If someone said they were looking for schools that were not sports oriented because one of their childhood friends was killed in a soccer riot I think there would be some spirited discussion, though.</p>
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<p>Or worse, did so because they cited the friends was killed by the soccer athletes at such a riot. I can see a lot of soccer parents and sports parents taking great umbrage at that…</p>
<p>OP, I really want to reassure you that this is not something you need to be losing sleep over. We parents all worry when we send our kids off to school, but honestly, this one should be way down on your list.</p>
<p>Your D has been raised with a strong, consistently taught set of beliefs. It is highly unlikely those beliefs will be shaken if they are strongly held by her, no matter where she goes to school. If they’re not strongly held by her, then any college could shake them out of her. The essential thing is her, not where she goes to school. Have some faith in your daughter, and in your 18 years of teaching and influence.</p>
<p>But you are facing what we all face when we send our kids to college. The subject of worrying varies, from partying to academics to safety to emotional adjustment, the list is endless. Regardless of the subject, it scares us half to death that we won’t be able to see them every day, or have any control over where they go and what they do, or be there to guide their decision making. It’s part of letting go. </p>
<p>But they are adults. They are going to make mistakes, make choices we don’t like. Maybe not even destructive choices, but choices that take them in a different direction than we envisioned for them. As someone once said, They have the right to be wrong. It’s how they learn and grow. But I think your D has a good head on her shoulders and a solid grounding in her beliefs. She may indeed wander away for a while, but I bet she will come back. And when she does, her beliefs won’t be inherited from you. They will be her own, because she will have earned them.</p>
<p>Please relax. I have a feeling your D is going to be just fine, no matter where she goes. So forget about the political activism issue, and send her to the very best school she can get into.</p>
<p>I think the difference is that many of us don’t view big time college sports as an integral part of the intellectual development that takes place at college. But we do think that exposure to different political viewpoints and social issues is an important part of the educational experience. A kid whose parent asks for a sports-free college is probably a kid who is uninterested in sports and prefers not to be immersed in sports talk all the time. But the OP started this thread with “I want my kid to be focused on learning; not on protesting or spending her time on whatever global issue a charismatic professor thinks is the most important thing in the world instead of preparing for a career.” She did not say, “My kid isn’t at all interested in politics or social activism”. 26 pages later, the OP still hasn’t answered the question of whether her daughter simply has no interest in politics and society and finds such discussions so boring that she would seek to avoid a school where they are more popular. It gives the impression of a parent trying to restrict her adult child’s educational opportunity.</p>
<p>Considering that the OP will be looking for scholarships, she may not be in a position to be too choosy. I would suggest making a list of colleges where a scholarship is likely and then presenting it here to remove any clear political activism outliers. </p>
<p>Thanks for clarifying, xig.</p>
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And if someone had a bad experience with someone of some ethnic group and wanted their child to avoid a school where they might be exposed to people of that ethnic group, a similar spirited discussion would likely ensue.</p>
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Was just arbitrarily picking schools, ucb, where there might be a greater likelihood of like-minded students. But this is interesting about a book by a professor at Oral Roberts law school:<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/us/politics/bachmanns-years-at-oral-roberts-university.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0[quote]…,John”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/us/politics/bachmanns-years-at-oral-roberts-university.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
[quote]
…,John</a> Eidsmoe on his 1987 book, “Christianity and the Constitution: The Faith of Our Founding Fathers,” … argues that “religion and politics cannot be totally separated” and that “America was and to a large extent still is a Christian nation…</p>
<p>the legal education … at Oral Roberts University… {taught}. ideas — God is the source of law; the Constitution is akin to a biblical covenant, binding on future generations; the founders did not intend for a strict separation of church and state <a href=“deletions%20to%20remove%20references%20to%20%20politicians”>/quote</a>.</p>
<p>Bringing up schools like Oral Roberts and Liberty is interesting. I would imagine the political activity that happens there would not seem “activist” to the types of students who find those schools appealing in the first place. They would view it as a normal extension of the brand of “Christian” education that is taught there.</p>
<p>Likewise, I think the reason many of us find the concern over activism at more mainstream (and more desirable) schools overblown is that we are comfortable with our kids being exposed to a lot of different ideas and having the opportunity to develop their thinking on issues that might someday matter to them.</p>
<p>It is ironic that people who would disparage certain kinds of activism as a “silly circus” still aspire to having their kids attend the very schools where they might be subjected to it.</p>
<p>“Bringing up schools like Oral Roberts and Liberty is interesting. I would imagine the political activity that happens there would not seem “activist” to the types of students who find those schools appealing in the first place. They would view it as a normal extension of the brand of “Christian” education that is taught there.”</p>
<p>No, that’s where the thread went off the rails with some posters assuming that if OP thinks much mainstream political activism is a “silly circus” her goal must be to lock her kid in closet and stifle all independent thought. Plus, she never said she wanted a religious school. </p>
<p>Has anyone else seen the movie “Volunteers”? Remember John Candy as Tom Tuttle from Tacoma? Very funny movie. I recommend it.</p>
<p>Honestly, scholarme, the likelihood of a contemporary kid at a US university or LAC being recruited to join the Shining Path or some similar organization is nil. In the 60s, one could say that there was some faint possibility that a student could be recruited to join the Weathermen, but that was in reality a tiny, tiny group, and the people who went that way came from all kinds of schools, some of which were known for political activism at that time, and some of which were not. Some were “red diaper” babies, others came from a background of Republicanism and privilege. They were radicalized in different ways. But NOT by professors.</p>
<p>If a student were going to be “brainwashed” anywhere, I would think it would be MORE likely to happen at one of the Christian schools where the entire faculty and student body has to sign on to a single standard of belief, and that belief is the basis of the way all subjects are taught. That is simply not the case elsewhere.</p>
<p>Because I think this is a completely unrealistic fear, I find it hard to take it seriously.</p>
<p>Well, flossy, then the thread must have derailed back at the OP’s post # 46:
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<p>Maybe jym, it derailed pretty early. And yes, the online schools and Christian school suggestions were part of it. There are obviously some schools with less political activism on campus than others but she ended up scolded for days for asking the question. It’s interesting.</p>
<p>There are thread titles and OPs that set off a firestorm by their very wording. I recall one many years ago going off the deep end because the OP called her son a “slacker”. IMO this thread’s title and the OP (post, not poster) set the tone for a similar firestorm. Having gone back and read many of the posts before I stumbled across this thread seems to support that. This was a “pop some popcorn and pull up a chair” thread from the get go.</p>
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<p>Obviously, the example student at Oral Roberts became a well known politician, so it goes against the idea of Oral Roberts being a non-political place.</p>
<p>Ummm… yup, ucb. Thats the point. Even selecting a school where one might think there would be less political activity doesn’t prevent exposure to such. That said, the OP seems concerned about her dau being pulled into the vortex of extreme political activism, which is a more dramatic, and less likely issue. And the law school (where that politician attended, not undergrad) is likely to breed politicians. </p>
<p>And, as consolation pointed out ,
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