<p>I'm socially liberal and completely non-religious. Would this be a problem at Tulane? what is the general atmosphere like?</p>
<p>New Orleans’ itself is a mostly Catholic city. Tulane has a large Jewish population though. I would say the school however, is fairly accepting. I personally do not believe in religion and Tulane is my first choice. I love the city of NOLA. When I visited it was incredibly accepting. I stayed in a Catholic mission and despite my lack of religion everyone was so welcoming. New Orleans is chalk full of all sorts of interesting people. You’ll be able to find your niche there whether you’re from an old southern family or a complete hipster.</p>
<p>Cheer sums it up pretty well. New Orleans is a melting pot on par with San Francisco and New York. Tulane itself is fairly typical of any college campus. It leans a bit to the left, but has representation of all points of view. Given the heavy emphasis on community service and the general tendency of 18-22 year olds, I would suspect there is a lot of empathy for the socially liberal point of view.</p>
<p>You will find all types in NOLA – Newt Gingrich is a Tulane grad after all. </p>
<p>But the city of New Orleans is a blue dot within the red state of LA. Plenty of Catholics, gays, blacks and Democrats.</p>
<p>Tulane has 10-15% of its students coming from LA. The next biggest states are all blue – NY, CA, IL and NJ. With quarter or so of the students being Jewish.</p>
<p>So totally not a concern at Tulane.</p>
<p>you’ll fit in just fine–no problems at all–as a liberal who is non-religious.</p>
<p>we have our religious groups but they keep to themselves. Tulane is full of liberal students.</p>
<p>new orleans is very “catholic” but no one is very dogmatic these days–and I say this as a native new orleanian</p>
<p>Agree that you will be absolutely fine. It will be interesting as an election year, but agree that you will find a nice mixed bag of views, with a modest lean to the left.</p>
<p>And Gingrich was a grad student at Tulane, not undergrad, fwiw.</p>
<p>You will definitely have no problem at all. Coming from a small town in the South, I was really shocked at how different Tulane is from the rest of the South.</p>
<p>i am completely non-religious and very liberal. i was absolutely fine. you will be fine.</p>
<p>Hi there, current student (rising junior, CC alumni from my HS days under a different moniker) in much the same boat. And not to be too much a chorus member, but I’ve had absolutely no difficulties. The vast majority of my friends (self-selected, admittedly, but still) are socially liberal. This may just be a result of them all being open minded and intellectually rigorous in their worldviews, but honestly, it’s my one or two slightly more socially conservative friends who I think feel somewhat out of place. When it comes to both women’s rights and LGBT equality, Tulane has a aggressively accepting atmosphere, and I think you’d be in a minority out if you had an issue with either of those things. </p>
<p>Tulane’s conservatism, from what I can see, stems from a few things:
- Its historic legacy as an “old money” school. Not saying it is necessarily that now, but just that it has a reputation for being a conglomeration of rich kids from fiscally conservative families, and people just conservative generally, because they’re doing pretty well for themselves and see no real reason for change. </p>
<p>While it does social entrepreneurship work, I think Tulane still has a ways to go in terms of attracting socially minded students, as there is a decent degree of political apathy compared to somewhere more hippie/liberal like Loyola, but it’s not unbearably staid either.</p>