<p>Hi Everyone. After reading another post on a specific LAC talking about how preppy the student body is I started thinking about my daughter's list and how that might affect her decision. Another thing she might consider is just how liberal the school is. So, for fun, and obviously its each persons' opinion, rate the schools below for their preppiness and liberalism, #5 being the highest, #1 the lowest. For example: Amherst, preppy 3, liberal 5...not sure if that is true though lol.</p>
<p>Amherst
Middlebury
Wesleyan</p>
<p>Vassar
Colby
Wellesley
Skidmore
Smith
Mt. Holyoke</p>
<p>I won’t even attempt to address the preppy question because I think it’s a strange category that some students are hung up about, but as far a politics go, in no particular order, Wesleyan, Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, and Clark are all somewhat leftist/activist monocultures on campus, or at least those who aren’t are known to keep quiet about it. There are some strange debates at Wellesley and there was an ugly incident at Smith recently that was written up today. Those are probably your top two candidates for the most liberal/left-wing/PC.</p>
<p>The others seem to have a more diverse political culture, though none are conservative by any means.</p>
<p>^^You’re pretty much spot on in my opinion. Except for Amherst. I think that is really liberal (competes with Wesleyan for “top” spot lol). Also, Midd is up there.</p>
<p>^^ Yeah, I think they are all pretty liberal; I was trying to put some sort of gradation within the liberalness of all these schools. It’s probably counterproductive. </p>
<p>Its fun to read everyone’s take. I hadn’t considered that most of the LAC in the NE are very liberal. Preppy sure, I pretty much figured most of them were. Although the very first thing I noticed at Vassar (so bad lol) is that no one was dressed or looked preppy in any way…in fact I commented to my daughter that I didn’t know leggings were back in haha. No one looked dressed to impress and we liked that. They all looked comfortable and down to earth. On the other hand, we found Amherst incredibly preppy so much so that I’m not sure I can afford to dress her to fit in.</p>
<p>I find it interesting that staceyneil gives so many schools only a “3” for liberal and its unanimous that Colby is the least liberal…I’m a bit concerned that I’ll send my daughter off to school and she’ll drink the kool-aid. Just kidding everyone LOL but we are a conservative family so it’ll be interesting to see how she assimilates and how her views might change as she matures and becomes her own political sound piece.</p>
<p>D is predominantly apolitical/libertarian and has absolutely no problem at Hamilton. Other NE LACs/small universities she looked at and though she’d be comfortable politically were Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Tufts, Colgate, and even Haverford. Middlebury, Amherst, and Williams were out for other reasons (mainly that she couldn’t get in) but were fine from a political perspective. She wouldn’t touch Smith, Wellesley, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, or Vassar with a ten foot pole because of their 24/7 activism and/or hostility to her views. Barnard seemed okay but wasn’t her cup of tea, same with Bryn Mawr. The tour guide at Connecticut was so annoying she crossed it off her list, it isn’t as bad as some. No idea about schools like Union or Trinity.</p>
<p>Just looked at that other thread and one of the first posts rates Swarthmore as middle-of-the road. Really? I don’t think so, if you’ve ready anything about what’s going on there lately.</p>
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