I understand that you are Anglican, but how about Georgetown?
Match to Reach (In state)
University of Virginia
William and Mary
Reach (some possible with high stats but is faith more important than school?)
Haverford
Rice
Carnegie Mellon
Washington University in St. Louis
Duke
Harvey Mudd
University of Penn
University of Chicago
Random application - if you get in, are you kidding me about whether they are tolerant?
Princeton (6.5%)
MIT (5.5% for a male)
Stanford (4.5%)
Purdue? Not overtly conservative but it’s President, Mitch Daniels, was at one time considered a good candidate for the Republican Party for President of the United States. It seems to be a university that welcomes all opinions. I know George Schulz former Secretary of State under Reagan was a recent speaker there. No protests or shouting down students listened and were respectful. I would deem it a good match and based on what you say your son would be on the upper end of the students applying. It is a very good school for STEM fields.
STEM and business departments tend to be rather apolitical. That is the best you can hope for unless you go the Hillsdale route. Of the schools listed, I would think MIT, Rice, Stanford and Chicago would be the most accommodating of non-liberal view points.
The book people are mentioning is “Choosing the Right College” by John Zmirak. I would highly recommend it for someone in your situation. Also, unless the family is full of Wahoos, Virginia Tech should be his safety, not UVa.
What about Baylor University?
Rule of thumb : No school with acceptance rates below 30% can be considered a safety or a Match regardless of stats.
Rose-Hulman is staunchly “apolitical” which many seem to accept is dog-whistle for “conservative”. The school is highly respected (usually Number 1 engineering undergrad school in the country–USN&WR) and is also very supportive of the students. They used to have maid service for the students and maybe still do. Open-door policy to help form community. Also, they attempt to forge bonds among the students to help each other make it all of the way through to graduation. Your son may really enjoy this school. They also have rolling admissions which can be a relief if you get accepted early. Finally over the summer there’s a sort of try-out program that seems to be popular. Best of luck with your choice.
Baylor has great stem and business programs, great sports and is VERY conservative while being respectful of the tiny liberal slice of students that attend. They also give good merit aid, and have a strong alumni group that takes care of the graduates. The vast majority of the students are Christian, but of the Southern Baptist variety. My child won’t consider it because it is too conservative (we aren’t “religious” - we’re Episcopalian). Texas A&M also fits the bill and it’s cheap, even for OOS. Rice is a better school but also more liberal and a much more diverse campus (lots of international and Asian students).
I looked up your Fire.org reference, and I took it to be a very neutral stance of freedom of speech, i.e. freedom of any expression. I agree that some campuses are leaning too far to the PC side (steer clear of California colleges), and I’m as liberal as they come. College is supposed to be an eyeopening experience in every way, and I’m sure your child is smart enough to be exposed to other ideas and survive intact. He may modify his beliefs somewhat or be more resolved than ever that his ideas are true to his core. I would let him go to the best school he was accepted to that you can afford.
It kind of makes me sad how people are basically attacking OP about an honest question. The question was not about whether these schools are safeties or reaches but whether, IN YOUR OPINION, this would be a school that would be a fit for a conservative child. Wow. UVA and W&M are safety schools for some kids - it is true - they are safeties for my ds as well - his gc has plainly listed them as such and the naviance scatter grams from his school over the last 6 years are witness to the fact.
I would say, @“Virginia Dad 1819” , that one way to know if a school would be a fit would be to find out if there are a variety of organizations that support “things conservative”. I know that exists at UVA and W&M. In terms of tolerance in the classroom - you are never going to find a conservative movement of professors at any university these days except at a conservative christian school and those have a laundry list of their own problems in my opinion. But if your child knows what he believes and can hear different viewpoints and be a critical thinker about the viewpoints that are different from his then he will be fine. If the conservative thing is yours and your child has not bought into that - don’t be surprised if wherever he goes, he adopts much of the rhetoric of the day spouted from liberal educators.
Good luck with it all.
Sewanee (University of the South) if DS is a cradle Episcopalian.
I want to echo @crazym0m, that the OP doesn’t say anywhere that his son doesn’t want to be around people of differing opinions. I understood the question to be whether a conservative christian kid would be accepted at these particular schools.
But I stand by what I said in my previous comment, because the OP probably has to do his own homework here in terms of finding out whether these schools meet their family’s comfort level by checking out the culture at those schools.
@crazym0m it’s what we do here. Those of us whose kids are done with the college search stick around to help others who aren’t as experienced. I haven’t seen anyone “attacking” OP but instead pointing out – some more directly than others – that a broader list is needed. We want OP’s ds to have a successful admissions process.
None of the universities named are bereft of conservatives. I don’t put a lot of credence in the FIRE warnings, so I’m always a little baffled when these questions arise regarding institutions with thousands upon thousands of students to choose from. LACs, OTOH, don’t have the pre-professional draw - the engineering, business, and communications majors who clearly define a lot of the bigger universities both socially and politically (not to mention, the lack of D1 sports) and additionally, tend to have long traditions of social activism. Therefore, I would replace Haverford with either Washington and Lee or Claremont McKenna and with the proviso that regarding CMC, the surrounding amniotic fluid of 5,000 Consortium kids will be overwhelmingly left of center.
I think you should spit out exactly what you mean by “aggressively pushing things PC” that your son is going to have a problem with. Don’t dance around the issue if you want honest answers.
Gender neutral floors: even St. Olaf is piloting that in the near future
Gay/ Lesbian/Trans-Gender open and accepted: Pretty much everywhere except overtly Evangelical colleges
Drugs, drinking, pre marital sex: ditto (and likely at Evan. campuses as well)
As for diversity courses, every college our DD looked at promoted diversity awareness programs. I’m not sure what you mean by “diversity” courses.
As for thefire.org, that stuff reads like conspiracy theory stuff!
I think he’ll be ok at any of those.
Learning about other view points and taking part in respectful debate is a good thing. People are going to disagree with him throughout his life – better for him to use this time to prepare himself for the real world than to hide among people who are exactly like him. That isn’t a good idea for anyone of any religious or political persuasion. There is friction in life; college can (should) help to prepare him for that.
Conservatives and liberals both have their ideals and those in between mix and match or hold them to lesser degrees. There’s room for everyone at any school that respects the free exchange of ideas.
As for your list of schools, it is reach-heavy. You’ll want to perhaps pare down the reaches and add a few match schools and at least one safety that he wouldn’t mind attending.
Before applying, research the schools for fit: social vibe, academics, cost to attend (run the NPC for each school), weather, culture, environment/surrounding city or town, and dorm/food quality. Once you know more about the schools and how they fit your son based on those criteria, you’ll have a good idea of which ones deserve an application.
I think the bigger question is how tolerant is your son to environments that aren’t overtly conservative or Christian.
If it’s alarming to him knowing that he’s surrounded by people who aren’t openly Christian or conservative – or in fact, are liberal, atheist, or not-very-religious-at-all – then you shouldn’t pick any of the schools you listed.
Focus on small schools such as Pepperdine, which are overtly religious, schools with a religious history, such as Georgetown (if you’re amenable to Jesuits) or large public schools in more conservative parts of the country, such as University of Mississippi or Texas A & M.
Don’t recall the thread, but we saw a highly qualified (very high scores & grades, solid ECs) VA student wfor did not get into UVA this year. I would call it a match, not a safety.
I don’t know about conservative, but I got the impression that the S of @sbjdorlo is a devout christian, and is about to graduate from MIT. You could ask for her perspective on that particular school.
My 20-year-old son is a 6’-1" tall white kid with blue eyes. He’s taking a required gender studies class in our local university. He is making good grades in it and taking it seriously. The other day, though, when he made a thoughtful comment, the teacher sarcastically referred to his “privileged white status.” He was really offended - she knows NOTHING about what he has been through, and that he intends to work permanently in the Middle East, helping refugees. He knew enough to keep his mouth shut and not cause waves. 
^ It is so cool that the teachers know everything right.