Look at the college newspaper. They’re all online these days and tend to include lots of opinion pieces, plus an opportunity for comments. I’m not saying it’s a complete picture, but it’s an interesting window onto current campus culture.
My son just texted his his friend who is at Bates this question for you… his friend replied “there are many who are fiscally conservative here… but if you are against gay rights, a racist or a big anti abortion person, you will be on your own and labeled a ‘jerk’.” wow profound ?? There is a huge population of Somali immigrants in the town and that work for /with the school… I think it would be wise to have empathy for race and immigrant struggles, if your son doesn’t have that, I’d hope his exposure at Bates would help him become more empathetic. There are mosques and halal shops in town, he will be exposed to other cultures.
I’m from VA and can’t understand why, but he doesn’t want to consider any schools down there. I guess it’s too far for him, though his grandparents would certainly visit a lot! (Maybe that’s why, …!)
All the colleges you mentioned are quite liberal. Fiscal conservatives have an easier time in college (and with other liberals) if they are able to back up why they believe what they do, rather than social conservatives who frankly will be judged harshly if they speak their mind about abortion, gay marriage, etc. But I’d say if your son is fiscally conservative, he should be fine at the majority of schools. And plus, he’ll find that once in college everyone is so busy, distracted, and looking to loosen up that politics rarely comes up.
They are all liberal, and yes, anti-gay rights and pro life stances will definitely limit your social life. This election cycle all campuses will probably skew more democrat due to the republican candidate.
I would take a look at Colgate, Hamilton, Trinity as the most “conservative”. Tufts I think is certainly liberal but from what I gather from my Daughter people are pretty open-minded and willing to debate ideas at least. I have also heard that Colby and Bowdoin are a little more center-of-left, and based on the kids I’ve known go there, Bowdoin is not where the liberal activist types go.
Hamilton in particular might be a good one to look at if you are looking for a school with no or minimal distribution requirements and a little more conservative than most. I would be shocked if there is not a republican club.
Outside of NE, take a look at William and Mary and Davidson, two great schools that have a larger share of conservative students.
One of the reasons my son picked Bowdoin over Wesleyan was he didn’t like the political-charged culture at Wes. It wasn’t that he didn’t generally share the predominant views so much as he didn’t want people shoving their views into his face everywhere he went, from class to the cafeteria to the walk between places. So far he hasn’t found Bowdoin to be politically charged at all. Sure like most LAC’s in the Northeast it’s obvious most are left-leaning and many engage in political conversations casually. But there haven’t been any protesters or petitioners, or people getting worked up about trigger words in class so far, all of which he experienced in just a single random day visiting Wes. I’m not dissing Wes, BTW. I really liked it and personally wouldn’t have minded the political culture so much. It’s a personal choice whether that excites or repels you.
@ormdad I’m actually on a train home from visiting Hamilton lol. I’m not sure if they have a Republicans club, but they have a Democrats club. I went to the college Democrats meeting last night and they were talking about holding their own kind of presidential debate (with students representing each candidate and gov’t professors asking questions that most politicians tend to avoid answering for publicity reasons), and they didn’t think it would be too difficult to find students to represent Trump (I’m not sure if they intend to involve the third party candidates). Even during the Democrats meeting one of the prominent members stated that he views himself as a more conservative Democrat, so even though I’d say the campus definitely leans towards liberal, it’s not extremely far left. They also just didn’t seem like the tire-slashing kind of people.
This is why I think that “level of political activism/extremism” should be strongly considered as a fit variable by many applicants.
There are enough economic conservatives at most colleges to make things ok for an economic conservative – economic liberty, low taxes/low spending, etc. mindset. Not every student at Oberlin/Wesleyan and their ilk is a socialist. So on the economic axis of the political spectrum, the vast majority of colleges will have some Repubs.
It’s social and military policy where a US conservative might feel uncomfortable: if you believe in traditional social values and/or military strength and interventionism, it may be difficult to find sympathetic individuals on some of the more liberal campuses.
So: economic conservative + social & military moderate or liberal = probably ok
The level of political activism/energy will tell you how “in your face” the politics are. A thick skin might be necessary for a socially/militarily (hawk) conservative student on a very active, very liberal campus.
Don’t underestimate the potential oppressiveness of some of these small LAC environments which can be dominated by social justice warriors who think they are the arbitrators of what is acceptable speech, expression and thought. Recently at Swarthmore, a student was physically threatened and bullied to the point of withdrawing from the school after she wrote in the student newspaper what can only be described as a very moderate and thoughtful opinion piece noting the hypocrisy of the school’s implementation of its need-blind admissions policy. The terrible story is described here: http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/29183/. It is worth reading the original article as well (http://daily.swarthmore.edu/2016/09/12/37896/) to get a feel for how ridiculous the attacks on Erin were. Moreover, the newspaper didn’t stand by her at all, but instead issued a major apology for their mistake in letting the article slip through their “rigorous editorial process.” In other words, they mistakenly allowed an opinion piece to be published that violated guidelines established by the thought police at the school. Shameful.
@foosondaughter, interesting article. Thanks for posting that. I don’t read any school newspapers, but I think I might start 
I don’t blame the school for not liking it. Although her LinkedIn page says she was a Writer for “The Daily Gazette”, it looks the article was an op-ed piece.
It makes sense to me that the paper would publish it, assuming they’re independent of the school.
The confusing part is that it seems to have upset some of the low income students at the school.
See this article:
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/29183/
It is a little hard to figure out who she dislikes the most, but I’d say it’s the school, followed by the rich kids at the school, with the least contempt reserved for the less well off hyper liberal kids. I’s pretty hard to tell, because she’s all over the place. The kids from less wealthy families clearly aren’t her main target, because her whole point is that more of them should be attending the school. I guess they don’t like being called resentful and hyper-liberal
Here are some excerpts:
For a school that places so much emphasis on equality, it’s surprising that need-blind admission is practically an absolute myth at Swarthmore.
.
.
We must conclude with holistic honesty that universities and colleges know exactly who can pay and who can’t. In fact, the statistics clearly show it.
.
.
Do I think mixing finances and admissions is fundamentally wrong? Absolutely not. Colleges are, at a basic level, private institutions that need to worry about their long term sustainability. Demonizing wealthy students is not productive because, in the end, they are paying not just for their own education but also for the education of their hyper-liberal classmates who resent the upper class at its core. Is this fair? No. But life isn’t fair. That’s reality. Stop whining and get over it. “Check your privilege” should be replaced with a warm “thank you so, so much for being forced to pay for my opportunity.”
It’s really surprising to me that kids smart enough to get into Swarthmore could completely misinterpret what she was saying. I’ll agree that it was a little confusing, but like I said, it’s pretty clear who her main target was.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t blame the school if they’re not thrilled with her. She was pretty nasty, accusing them of conducting a slimy marketing campaign. Her tone was pretty aggressive. It’s not like she said “I’ve received a great education here at Swarthmore, and I’m hoping that this opportunity will be open to more people of more diverse backgrounds in the future.” It was just a flat out attack on the school. If she was really so offended by the school’s admissions policies, she should have taken her family’s quarter million and headed somewhere more economically diverse.
But back to the low income kids. I think they’re confused. This is Erin quoted in the article I referenced above, talking about the hate that has been directed at her on social media:
“One person posted a status saying I was suggesting ethnic cleansing of minorities. I didn’t even bring up race in the article. I’ve been called a white ■■■■■, privileged ■■■■■■■, white supremacist, proponent of slavery. Someone made up a rumor that I didn’t want to go to school with low-income students,” Jenson said of additional comments directed toward her on social media.
Wanted to point out one more thing about this article. I think the confusion comes from the line “Is this fair?” in the first excerpt I posted above. Is she talking to the low income kids or the wealthy kids in that line? I originally assumed it was the wealthy kids, but now I think it’s the poor kids.
Even if she was talking to the poor kids, I don’t see how that’s so offensive. Maybe she was saying “If you’re poor and you’re upset about Swarthmore’s policies, you shouldn’t be. For you, it’s a gift.” I don’t see why that would upset the low income kids to the point of pushing her out of the school.
To me it just seems like a poorly written article written by a young kid who’s kind of all over the place. The fact that it caused such an uproar is hard to believe.
My son is a conservative and graduated from Case Western. It is a university but it is not overwhelmingly large and it is the midwest, not the northeast. My son says the campus culture is more left than right but he was not a social outcast as a conservative.
@WalknOnEggShells The worst part about that story you posted is that the editors say they regret publishing it. That’s pathetic. They aren’t supposed to personally agree with every op-ed they publish. Many of the early comments on the story were intelligent as well – something you don’t see on most news sites – before they degenerated its the ridiculous ones. This reminds me of what happened at Wesleyan a year ago when everyone freaked out about a op-ed on the BLM movement. Protesters convinced the student government to defund the paper over it, briefly. That’s actually one of the reasons my S had second thoughts about going there. It’s not that he agreed with the op-ed but he didn’t like the oppressive culture that thinks the right response to free speech you don’t agree with is to try and censor it or bully the speakers out of your community.
@citivas, it is a crazy environment at these schools! When did things get so crazy? I wasn’t very politically aware when I was in college, but I don’t remember it being anything like this. I was at a big state university, though.
Colgate, Colby, BC, Trinity, Bucknell, Richmond, Lehigh.
I didn’t know that Colby has a reputation as being a more conservative LAC. The others you listed don’the surprise me, @timetodecide12.
Would you say that there are just as many conservative kids at Colby as there are at the others you mentioned. I know we’re really just guessing here, but just curious what you think.
Unrelated question to anyone who knows. What do you think is the breakdown of conservatives and liberals at the Catholic schools like Villanova, Fordham, Holy Cross, Fairfield? Again, I know it’s just a guess. I’m not necessarily looking for exact numbers. Just an idea of how conservative or liberal some of these schools are.