<p>I have read that statistically people with higher education levels tend to be more liberal. If those more highly educated liberals are raising well-educated students, wouldn’t those students likely reflect their parents’ political inclination? Professional incomes that can pay for top schools are also often concentrated on the more liberal coasts, as well. I wonder if the liberal-heavy environment of many top colleges isn’t due to a higher concentration of liberal students being drawn to appy and to be accepted.</p>
<p>I don’t know, but expect that colleges in more conservative parts of the country might well be at least <em>more</em> conservative, even if there is a liberal majority student body.</p>
<p>I live in a pretty liberal community, but the few self-proclaimed conservative kids I know pretty well who are academic high-achievers, are looking at military academies, private religious schools, or state U’s in Texas. I think these choices are based on a kind of cultural identification with those options, just as my liberal kids were conversely not interested in them. There is probably an element of self-selection in all this, combined with a demographic tendency of educational and professional backgrounds.</p>
<p>I do know one proud conservative student who went to UCBerkeley, but I hear now that he really doesn’t like it because it’s just too big and impersonal.</p>
<p>It would be absurd, imo, to ask students to declare a political position as part of applying to school. It would just be another silly game trying to figure what will help you get an edge. If a student has been politically active for a conservative cause as an EC, I think that actually may play to their favor where schools are looking for diverse points of view.</p>