Hey guys, I am currently considering Tufts as one of my top options, but i just want to know how is the atmosphere around tufts?
I am a lift-center person, and I support a lot of things that are considered as liberal( human rights, health care…)
I am also applying Oberlin, Brandeis, NYU, Reed college, which are liberal colleges.
Can anyone tell me how liberal is tufts?
Extremely.
You’ll be right at home. Very left.
You’ll be quite comfortable there, although i like to think that a “Young Republican”-type with a reasonable measure of self-confidence wouldn’t have any problem either.
My liberal son began to feel like a conservative. He has very little patience for a lot of political correctness and did not subscribe to the noisiest views on campus about how we should view the Middle East. But there are plenty of opportunities to listen to people to both sides of the spectrum. He got involved in a group called ALLIES. (The Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services). It’s an undergraduate organization - part of the Global Leadership Institute - dedicated to improving civilian-military relations through joint education, research and training - so he got to know all the ROTC kids. I think Tufts gave him plenty of opportunities to think through what he believes in. In any event you’ll find no shortage of students who believe in universal health care or human rights - and many, many who are actively doing something about it.
It is interesting that the term “liberal” used to mean wide ranging or broad views. I think you will actually find Tufts along with most campuses miss the mark on diversity. Diversity should be measured by thought, not just ethnicity, orientation or geographic make-up. The best way to see how diverse any campus truly is may be to see their school sanctioned clubs, how long they have existed and the attendance in each (might be impossible to get these metrics, but a good thought). It would also be interesting if there was a political leaning of the professors (voter registration); it would be revealing to see if a university ever discloses such information in their marketing information to prospective students, although political issues are probably secondary to surviving engineering, math and science studies for most students at the more challenging schools. Just my two cents or three…
A frat party got shut down last night because (a latino) kid wore a poncho as his Halloween costume and someone called the police because he was appropriating Mexican culture. So.
Please note that ndelkaif is incorrect in the reasoning for that party being shut down. What he said was a rumor that was going around but if I recall correctly it was because the party was being really loud and had spilled out into the street.
Tufts is fairly left but not extremely. If you are conservative or moderate it will feel left leaning. If you are a huge leftist/progressive Tufts won’t feel conservative but it will feel like claims of its liberalness are overstated.