Also, people who may be left or right leaning on headline hot-button issues may not necessarily have the same political alignment on other issues.
There are Students for Life at WashU- a school which also has a large Jewish population. Of course, you would have to investigate how active the group is and whether it is composed of mostly Catholic/Christian students.
My daughter is conservative in demeanor, but kind of apolitical. My daughter’s must haves is a Hillel or Chabad on campus, but she likely won’t share life philosophy with most of them. She’s used to it from her Jewish youth group.
How is being against abortion except in the case of saving the mother’s life (the position of most Chabad affiliated Rabbi’s) against your D’s life philosophy? Seems to me she’d be in perfect synch with their position on Choice/Life… no?
You misunderstood my post. Maybe Chabad will be different, as the more religious Jews tend to me more observant of Jewish values, like an obligation of saving a life, The people in Hillel strike me as mostly Jewish in culture mostly, based on the kids in BBYO in my daughter’s chapter who rebuked her efforts to put the Jewish in youth group who are Hillel at their schools. But maybe those who seek out Hillel when they don’t have their parent;s influence veer to more observant. Girls in her chapter went to our local Women’s March, which is exclusive of pro-life and post Planned Parenthood support on their FB pages. Some of her top choices only have Hillel.
Have your D check out colleges which have a JLI couple (An orthodox Rabbi and his wife) who teach, run activities, etc. specifically to support “traditional” Jewish students on campus (students don’t need to affiliate as Orthodox to get involved in JLI programming, but the programs themselves are geared towards students who are more observant in either lifestyle, philosophy, or both). So a college with a Hillel which employs a JLI couple is for sure going to have a more traditionally minded group of students on campus. And a critical mass of said students.
I think the website of the OU has a list of where the JLI couples are working-- and if not, the national Hillel website might. But it’s not a secret- your D can email the Hillel director of any college she’s interested in, and they can give her a flavor of what Jewish life is like on campus.
I’m not sure your premise that Chabad tends to more religious Jews is correct. While the Chabad rabbi/rebitizen are of course Orthodox, it has been my experience and observation that most of the students who attend their programs are not. One of the ways Chabad sells itself is being accepting of almost anyone that seeks to learn more about Judaism, no matter what their beliefs. We are not orthodox, and my S attends programs at both.
I don’t think Chabad, or Hillel, are going to provide an outlet for someone who is looking to get involved in abortion politics. It’s just not their thing.
But getting back to your original question, are the schools being suggested here in the ballpark for your daughter? It’s nice that people have suggested Harvard, Berkeley, U Chicago, etc, but is your daughter at that level academically? Even if she is, you clearly need to find some schools that aren’t uber-reaches even for top students. Can you give us an idea of GPA/standardized tests?
Regardless of the stated mission of the campus pro-life groups, the majority of the students in these groups will be devout, so it may not be possible to find a group where religious faith doesn’t inform the position of group members. And the vast majority of these will be Catholic or evangelical.
I do not know a single pro-life person who is not religious.
I had another idea after I posted. If your daughter is unable to find a pro life group on her college campus, she may have better luck connecting with a group that provides support to mothers in crisis pregnancy situations off campus. There are many such groups and often they are local, so she would need to look in her specific area once she knows where she will be attending college. There are groups like this everywhere, but again, they are almost always Christian.
Harvard and Berkeley would be a reach, especially with the acceptance rate, but she has no interest. UCs would be a probable.
The point is that I think she would be uncomfortable with continued discussions of prolife in the name of Jesus , but it sounds like that’s not much of a concern. She is not looking to connect with prolife Jews through Chabad nor Hillel.
I think she should make a list of schools that fit her academically, financially, and socially, and then eliminate those that don’t have a Hillel. She should then decide if the prolife group on campus (most will have one) functions in a way that she likes or if there is an off campus group that will work for her.
She will need to decide what she wants to do with the group - raise money, counsel people, march, send out pamphlets, be political or not, be religious or not. At a school that is otherwise religious, I think the prolife group is going to be religious even if it is a separate student group from the Hillel or catholic groups. Same at a school that is otherwise politically liberal and has a lot of activists.
Post # 30 has good points. First look at schools that otherwise are a good fit- academically, financially and socially- then check for this aspect of her life.
Have you looked at Yeshiva University?
I’m trying to imagine a campus pro-life group that isn’t full of Catholic and/or evangelical students. If she can find a pro-life group generally (ie, not a campus group) that is either Jewish or secular/scientific she can always ask them if they have any campus groups. But I’m under the impression that some religious groups are using “science” based arguments to appeal to people who aren’t amenable to the religious argument, so she might want to take a good, hard look at them.
Hillel and Chabad seem to be pretty much everywhere. I suspect that the balance of cultural/liberal Jews vs more Conservadox to Orthodox Jews in both groups has more to do with who the school appeals to more generally. Columbia has a decent size MO population. Wesleyan does not.
If your daughter wants a school with a decent number of fairly observant students in Hillel or Chabad, I’m sure she can find it. If she’d be happy with kids who are genuinely interested in religious learning and practice, but who skew more Reform or Conservative, that makes for an even larger list, although it’s still not all the schools with active Jewish communities.
If she wants a school where Hillel/Chabad gets a minyan every Friday night and Saturday morning AND that has a secular, not largely Christian based, pro-life group I would honestly be shocked if she can find such a thing.
tl:dr - Follow the advice in posts #30 and #31.