<p>How conservative is the student body at Claremont McKenna? Would a progressive Democrat feel out of place among the students and faculty here? Is there political activism on campus?</p>
<p>We visited CMC in Sept for a fall open house day for prospective students. This question came up in a Q&A panel. One of the college viewbooks has a chart showing "Political Attitudes" at CMC: 4% far left, 30% liberal, 38% middle of the road, 25% conservative, and 3% far right. According to the students on the panel, CMC is viewed as a "conservative" school...as shown on the chart, the students' political attitudes actually parallel the US population...but compared to most colleges, that makes CMC look pretty conservative.</p>
<p>lefty, my son is currently a freshman at CMC and I would call him a progressive, liberal, democrat. He reports the school is pretty evenly divided between liberals and conservatives and he feels very comfortable there. In fact he loves the school beyond his wildest dreams.</p>
<p>Wow, that is a real relief that CMC isn't too conservative. It was hard to tell based on descriptions if it is conservative by any standards or just by California standards (i.e. essentially moderate). I don't need to be around people who feel the same way I do about political issues, but since I'm a total political junkie, I really don't want to be looked upon as some sort of radical leftist (like I am at my high school). </p>
<p>annie11- glad to hear your son is liking CMC. On a separate topic, was it your experience that they looked a lot at the personal side of applicants in the admissions process? My GPA is fairly low (3.45UW/3.65W but at an extremely challenging school and with the toughtest courses), but I have a 1410, an 800 on the writing SATII, I have a lot of ECs and volunteer work (200 hrs) and am getting great recs, but I don't know if they'll look past my GPA.</p>
<p>It's split about 50-50 among the students, probably a few more (vocal) liberals than conservatives, but overall quite balanced. The other 4C's associated with CMC are incredibly liberal (witht he partial exception of Harvey Mudd), so if you, as a liberal, feel overwhelmed, you can always wonder accross the street.</p>
<p>The factulty in econ and government is pretty balanced, but definately more conservative than the student body. They're all very fair however, and never let their biases interfere with how they treat students or grade their papers. </p>
<p>Brandon (a conservative)
CMC '08</p>
<p>Leftyleftist: you won't have a problem at CMC in terms of being ostracized by the conservative masses, but you may find that the gov and econ profs don't make the same assumptions you make (eg. you won't hear them say "This discussion of Latina identity politics is informed by..." [I heard that in a Pomona class]). And if you're not coming for the gov and/or econ, you should probably go to Pomona instead.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the Libertarians of the Claremont Colleges is one of the largest on campus.</p>
<p>left..</p>
<p>i come from a very conservative catholic school in new jersey. let's just say that i single-handly represent all things progressive in my government class. like you, i was a little hesitant applying to a "sort of conservative" college, but in the end i decided that i'd rather been in a college with people with strong political views than none at all. so if i get in, and you get in, you can count on a least one person to help you stop world hunger.</p>
<p>well said julia helen!!! don't forget your rebellious anti-pledge-of-allegiance buddy</p>
<p>good point, girlfriend. the pledge ain't got nothing on me. even if my war-loving homeroom teacher thinks it does.</p>
<p>leftyleftist--</p>
<p>i was in a similar situation to you (good grades, but not GREAT, honors classes, lots of ECs, lots of leadership) and I got in ED...so I wouldn't worry if I were you</p>