<p>I've got a whopping 43 colleges to go through and see which fit me best -- but I see a question surfacing multiple times that may need to be answered; what colleges should an atheist avoid? A lot of these are religiously affiliated and I don't wanna choose one that forces a religion upon their students. Any help is appreciated.</p>
<p>Find out how religious the school is. Talk to current students, search college confidential about the religiosity of the particular institution, look on other review sites, etc. </p>
<p>Many (most?) “religiously affiliated” schools are only that in name. For example, my college is technically a Methodist institution, but according to the Hillel website, it’s almost 30% Jewish</p>
<p>It depends on the strength of the religion at the school. This is coming from an Atheist at a "Baptist " affiliated university. </p>
<p>Sent from my DROID X2 using CC</p>
<p>It might be easier to post some names of schools on your list and see what people think.
Here’s one: BYU! I would imagine some of the Christian Colleges such as Messiah would be uncomfortable for an atheist.
My son refused to even look at Catholic affiliated schools such as Villanova, though I didn’t really agree with him.</p>
<p>The majority of Jesuit and Marianist schools require you to take a religion class but that can be religions of the world or philosophy. Other schools like Bob Jones are much more specific about religious expectations.</p>
<p>As others have said, I would just check the website of the school. See what programs are offered at the college and if they’re primarily religious or secular.</p>
<p>I agree that you have to look at each school individually. Many schools have religious affiliations which are historical and very loose with no impact on current student life (like Muhlenberg, Lafayette and many others). Another group of schools (such as the Jesuit schools) have strong religious ties --although they are welcoming to all students and do not try to force religion on anyone, you can expect to take religion/theology as part of the curriculum and you will see crucifixes etc. on campus. Then there are schools in which religion is an integral part of student life (ex. BYU, Grove City) and you would likely not be a good fit for those schools. It really depends what you are comfortable with. </p>
<p>Research the schools and you can even post questions on the boards of the schools you are looking at to try to get an idea of how important the religious affiliation might be.</p>