<p>I don't quite understand about this and hope CCers would be able to help me.</p>
<p>I've heard a lot about student body of some particular schools are liberal/conservative. But what actually mean by that? What do they do to be considered as liberal/conservative? Which is the good one?</p>
<p>Neither of them are good or bad. Usually when someone says liberal or conservative in America, they are referring to two political terms. It would be hard to explain this to anyone who isn’t from America since those terms vary from place to place (both within the US and outside the world) but “conservative” tends to be more religious, more strict with regards to social behavior, less supportive of government’s role in welfare and social programs, and more supportive of lowering taxes. “Liberal” tends to be less religious / more secular, more tolerant of different avenues of social behavior, more interested in government contributing to social programs, and less averse to taxes. </p>
<p>Neither one is really better than another in terms of colleges; sometimes people are concerned but only because they want to make sure that they aree surrounded by people who have the same values and norms. You won’t get a better education at a “liberal” school or a “conservative” school; you can’t even get two people to agree on which schools are “liberal” or “conservative” since those terms are relative and people rely heavily on stereotypes when making those pronouncements. If I were you, this would be one of the least important parts of my college selection unless you need or want to go to a school that is specifically affiliated with one particular type of religious belief.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your answer!</p>
<p>btw, this actually has nothing to do with my college selection. I applied ED to one school and got in there so I will go there for sure. The thing is I just heard that my school is liberal so I just concern if it would fit me (since I myself don’t even know if I am liberal or conservative).</p>
<p>No problem. Don’t worry, generally if a school brags about being “liberal” they usually just mean “open-minded and welcoming to different cultures”. It’s never a bad thing really for a school to be either one, so that just means you’ll fit in very well! :D</p>
<p>Liberal and conservative are political ideologies. There are a lot of differences between liberals and conservatives (big government v. small; free-market v. regulated economy). What people are usually referring to when they say a school is liberal or conservative is the political leanings of the student body, as well as the institutional spirit of a school.</p>
<p>Conservative campuses tend to be more straight-laced (students may dress up nicely to go to class or sports games), and often have some of that Old South mentality–it’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t lived in the US. XD The more extreme conservative campuses–say Bob Jones or Patrick Henry–are Christian schools that ban things such as drinking or premarital sex. I believe Bob Jones also bans dancing, several genres of music including contemporary Christian, and movies above a G rating…but again, it’s very extreme. A good example of a more mainstream conservative campus is Washington and Lee, in Virginia.</p>
<p>Conservatives tend to have an idea about what kind of lifestyle is appropriate, and disapprove of people who don’t follow that lifestyle.</p>
<p>Liberals are more easy-going and tolerant–according to some people, excessively so. You will find a lot of people who lead “alternative lifestyles”: they may smoke pot; have tattoos, piercings, or dyed hair; subscribe to different religions or philosophies–Wicca comes to mind as a liberal hippie religion. They are also freer about sex and out-of-the-mainstream sexual practices, and tend to be more accepting of LBGT folk. Most campuses tilt liberal at the very least, but stereotypically liberal schools (as opposed to just having liberal people around) include Brown, Oberlin, and Reed.</p>
<p>Neither is good or bad, but people tend to prefer to go to a school whose political leanings match up with theirs.</p>
<p>ETA: I see I have been rendered obsolete. Alas.</p>
<p>Gardna, I got it! Thank you so much! :)</p>
<p>I think I understand a lot more!</p>
<p>If it’s like what you’ve mentioned, haavain, I would say liberal school might match me. I’m in a highschool that is somewhat like “conservative” you mentioned and I have to say I hate it. It’s a relief that the college I’m going is liberal :)</p>
<p>Do remember that Thai and American politics are going to be different, so “liberal” and “conservative” will have different meanings. Either way, the political views of the students shouldn’t dissuade anyone from going to a certain college. What could have more influence in deciding would be what’s considered socially acceptable among students, and that can often be hard to describe using the umbrella terms “conservative” and “liberal”.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Haavain, are you just having fun with Jellyya or are you high on something??? Roughly half the American population consider themselves “left” of center politically - considerably more than 50% did in the last presidential election. And since liberals tend to be less dogmatic and more open to broad political and values perspectives (broad being the meaning of liberal), the process of higher education tends in general to have a liberalizing impact on graduates, and accordingly, you’ll find more higher ed professionals who characterize themselves as liberal than characterize themselves as conservative. That includes me - a college administrator in my mid-50s. That includes most of my peers and about half of the American professional class and more than half of Congress. How many of us smoke pot; have tattoos, piercings, or dyed hair; practice Wicca or out-of-the-mainstream sexual practices? Maybe less than a tenth of one percent? (Well, probably much higher than that for members of Congress and their sexual practices. :))</p>
<p>Semi Off Topic: Maybe I am way out of line here, but many posters above have said that neither liberal nor conservative means “good”… and these same people have gone on to say that liberalism is associated with tolerance whereas conservatism is not (at least not as much)… idk where you all live, but up here in the crazy, frozen north… tolerance>>>>>>>>intolerance</p>
<p>gada, maybe Haavain has a different definition of liberal than you do. For example you said that
,so you would view Obama as liberal, but many think of him as middle of the road leader, or center-left, its all subjective.</p>
<p>Liberal: over-the-top empathy for everybody on earth except white American males, who are the root of all evil. All efforts to help the downtrodden should be followed to the most absurd extremes, UNLESS they infringe even slightly on the liberals’ own lives.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Where I live in the frozen north (but less frozen than in Toronto), I have met plenty of intolerant liberals and conservatives.</p>
<p>lol. Sorry. I was going less for “this is what liberals are like” and more for “these are some (more visible) things that might distinguish a stereotypically liberal campus.” (I don’t think of Harvard as a liberal school in the same way I do Wesleyan, although both certainly tilt liberal politically.) Perhaps I should have been less blanket. But yes, calling a school “liberal” doesn’t necessarily mean anything except that the students and faculty tend to subscribe to liberal views.</p>
<p>And I do think Obama is liberal, but he’s a pragmatist before that. Alas.</p>
<p>@@ Oh Schmaltz, the Andy Rooney attempts get tiring. I’m liberal, and I’m the daughter of a white male, married a white male, and even gave birth to a white male. Go figure.</p>
<p>Liberalism and tolerance don’t always go together. At some schools (such as my own, UNC), the most intolerant people on campus are the radical liberals. In moderation, a school’s political leaning really won’t impact you too much.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, lemme guess, you weren’t captain of the debate team in college.</p>
<p>disclaimer: I’m a crazy lib</p>
<p>From what I hear and see and know, liberals tend to be intolerant of intolerance itself… and intolerant of ignorance… which, I think, is completely fine.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There is nothing inherently “liberal” about being tolerant as the words are used in the modern context.</p>
<p>So your statement is vacuous because you’re essentially defining liberal as tolerant, but also arbitrarily defining it as a proscribed set of beliefs (thereby falsely associating tolerance with a particular set of beliefs on specific issues).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The problem is, the crazies think that everything that they disagree with is “intolerant” and not worthy of being heard by anyone. It isn’t up to the crazy libs to decide what is right and what is wrong; people should have a right to hear and to be heard.</p>
<p>"The problem is, the crazies think that everything that they disagree with is “intolerant” and not worthy of being heard by anyone. It isn’t up to the crazy libs to decide what is right and what is wrong; people should have a right to hear and to be heard. "</p>
<p>This is true…when you see people not wanting anyone to even be able to speak somewhere, it’s almost always liberals not wanting a conservative to speak…happens all the time at colleges. Whereas when it comes to the opposite situation, (Obama at Notre Dame is one of the few examples where such a situation was protested vociferiously), far more people were upset over the honorary degree than were upset over the speaking. Liberals being known as the “tolerant” group is quite a propaganda coup.</p>