<p>If you had to rank the ivies in terms of most liberal to most conservative (on the political spectrum), how would your list look like?</p>
<p>More-over, where would Harvard fall?</p>
<p>Most liberal: Brown, Columbia, Yale, Penn, Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton. Just speculating based on reputation.</p>
<p>All Ivies are pretty liberal. I've heard that Princeton is the most conservative.</p>
<p>The community surrounding Princeton is conservative, and historically Princeton has gone after private school students, so I'm assuming Princeton is actually closer to the conservative than the liberal end of the spectrum.</p>
<p>I would agree with PorSK, you are not going to find a real conservative school in the Ivy league but Princeton is the most conservative that I have found. I actually have a very conservative friend who is going there next year.</p>
<p>I would say Cornell is toward the more liberal end of the spectrum. Ithaca is infamous (among conservatives) for its liberal tilt and has been nicknamed "The City of Evil" among political junkies.</p>
<p>Beyond that I agree with the posters who have pegged Princeton as a more conservative Ivy.</p>
<p>Dartmouth is VERY liberal.</p>
<p>All of the Ivies are generally liberal. The idea that Princeton is conservative is only partially true. While it has a particularly strong/articulate conservative student base, Princeton is still predominantly liberal, as the vast majority liberal arts colleges are. It is relatively conservative compared to schools like Brown and Columbia, but by no means a bastion of conservatism as is often believed. For example, 73% of Princeton students recently voted in favor of sexuality not being an issue in marriage. I believe the president of the senior class is also gay.</p>
<p>I believe you, but I bet the surrounding town was apalled by that vote. :p Man, I can just see those rich townies reading the papers and going, "They voted WHAT?!"</p>
<p>I say Harvard is the most liberal because it's in Massachusetts.</p>
<p>Since we're doing the rankings:
1. Brown
2. Yale
3. Penn
4. Columbia
5. Harvard
6. Dartmouth
7. Cornell
8. Princeton</p>
<p>But, they're all quite liberal. Priceton is the only notably conservative one. I put Brown first because, c'mon, it's definitely #1. Yale is said to have be the "gay ivy" which earns it spot #2. Penn is very responsive to it's students and generally progressive. It also has one of the first LGBT Centers at any college. Columbia is in NYC and, when asked about political leanings, our tour guide didn't even hide the fact that they were liberal by saying "all opinions are represented" or anything like most schools. Harvard seems to be quite liberal, as well. They have actively progressive students. Dartmouth used to be a conservative school, but it is now pretty liberal, though I think it is less liberal than some of the other Ivies. I know nothing about Cornell, so I just gave it that spot. Princeton is known to be more conservative for the reasons people have listed above.</p>
<p>"I believe the president of the senior class is also gay."</p>
<p>That may be true, but the number of students who self identify as LGBT is extremely low at P in comparison to other Ivies. A friend told me that gay princeton students have to go to Newark or New York to meet other gay people.</p>
<p>As a Princeton student, I can say that, while Princeton is probably conservative for an Ivy, it is at most moderate. Coming from a fairly liberal town in NJ, I can say that it is conservative compared to my high school, but conservatives here feel that it is a bastion of liberalism. As candalize says, it probably wouldn't be the best school for a gay student just because of the small LGBT community, but people are still fairly accepting.</p>
<p>As someone mentioned earlier, the fact that 73 % voted in favor of gay marriage means that, in terms of the rest of the country, at least, Princeton is still fairly liberal.</p>
<p>FreshElephant, you have to keep the state separate from the students in your mind. Massachusetts is a liberal state and Cambridge is a liberal city, but while Harvard students make up a large liberal majority, so do most liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>That is surely the most liberal use of the word "liberal" ever in liberally-constructed reply in a liberal discussion regarding the liberal status of the liberal arts-related universities in several liberal states.</p>
<p>Elephant, you also need to remember that MA isn't this strange super liberal state. The governor is a Republican, and the state is basically a 60/40 split.</p>
<p>It's gotta be more than 60/40. Remember, "Don't blame me, I'm from Massachusetts."</p>
<p>C'mon, we're not the Kremlin on the Charles for nothing, here.<br>
In the 2004 presidential election, Mass. as a whole was 63/37, which, when you consider that presidential victories are usually won by margins of around 5% or less, is a pretty big tilt. But the People's Republic of Cambridge itself is more like 90/10.</p>
<p>Oh right, forgot about those rich suburban and rural communities. Joy and rapture.</p>
<p>Yeah, Cambridge is definitely liberal, as is MA, but MA has always been pretty much 60/40, I believe. The slightly higher 63/37 makes a lot of sense when you take into account that one of the men running (guess who? lol) called Massachusetts his home state. The state is certainly liberal, but not to any absurd degree.</p>