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Will we ever stop sending out kids to the Ivy League?

Posted on 11/21/2002 8:25:07 AM PST by Joe Republc

Seeing the latest news about Harvard inviting a rabid anti-Israel speaker, it just occurred to me..... when do we decide to simply stop sending our kids to Harvard and other Ivy League schools?

There is little doubt in my mind that the prestige universities do their best to preach relativism, atheism, victimism, socialism. And they denigrate the United States and capitalism as best they can. Unfortunately, they usually succeed in their indoctrination of college students. Many people, myself included, lost their faith and more because of complete immersion in this environment.

When do we say enough is enough, and say 'no' to these schools?

Best regards,

-- Joe

P.S. Thank God my faith has come back, and stronger than ever before.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: colleges; education; liberalism

1 posted on 11/21/2002 8:25:07 AM PST by Joe Republc
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To: Joe Republc
When do we say enough is enough, and say 'no' to these schools?

When businesses stop paying the big bucks for graduates...

2 posted on 11/21/2002 8:29:16 AM PST by 2banana
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To: Joe Republc
I wouldn't send my kid to one of these institutions. If you noticed Harvard business school has dropped in the ratings to about number seven - too much grade inflation I guess.

I hear that conservative whites are a very small minority at these schools and the few conservatives that do go there are not very happy.
3 posted on 11/21/2002 8:33:23 AM PST by Eva
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To: Joe Republc
I have degrees from two Ivy League schools, yet whenever a friend or relative discusses college choices for themselves or their children, I urge them NOT to attend one of these liberal elite institutions, but to find a college that will offer diversity of thought and will challenge their assumptions.

Sadly, not one of these folks has taken up my suggestion. They continue to apply, or send their kids, to the same dreary group of "prestigious" institutions.
4 posted on 11/21/2002 8:33:24 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
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To: All
It would be a shame to retreat fully and grant these institutions to the Cultural Left. Afterall, they were once bastions of conservative thought (many were seminaries too). Why not move to recapture them? In the meantime, there are true elite schools outside of the Northeast that are not quite so Bolshevik.
5 posted on 11/21/2002 8:35:39 AM PST by rogerthedodger
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To: 2banana
When businesses stop paying the big bucks for graduates...

Sorry, it'll happen long before business catches on. It'll happen when the average Christian father makes up his mind that the spiritual well-being of his children is his responsibility and his alone, and that having children with a solid Christian worldview is more important than 10,000 degrees from the best Ivy League school. He will pull his gradeschool and high school age children out of the government school system and either teach them at home or place them in private Christian schools where it'll be more likely that children will continue their education at Christian universities rather than the spriritual cesspools currently in vogue. When the money starts flowing away from the Harvards and Princetons, businesses will surely follow.

6 posted on 11/21/2002 8:51:58 AM PST by Sangamon Kid
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To: Sangamon Kid
wishful thinking my friend.
7 posted on 11/21/2002 8:57:13 AM PST by ItisaReligionofPeace
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To: ItisaReligionofPeace
wishful thinking my friend.

Only to those that don't care or don't have a vision.

The battle for the hearts and minds of our children begins long before college. The rising numbers of homeschooling families across the nation is evidence enough that people are beginning to reject the status quo in education. It may take time to make a difference, but I've got some time on my hands. How about you? Do you want to make a difference, or are you content in your capitulation to the socialists of the day?

8 posted on 11/21/2002 9:06:00 AM PST by Sangamon Kid
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To: Sangamon Kid
One other note on this.... I went to a top-notch Catholic high school that prided itself highly on how many of the graduates went to top universitities. Although a religious institution, there was never, ever, any consideration about how the college would affect my faith or my moral outlook.

So the high schools, especially the religious ones, need to take a hard look at their own priorities. If my old high school seriously wants to place faith, not money and prestige as its top priority, it needs to be willing to stop recommending students to the Ivy League.

BTW, I can't excuse my actions because of my high school. Like everyone, I set my own priorities. And, like many of us, I've found how shallow those priorities can be without the Lord, my family, and my country at the forefront.
9 posted on 11/21/2002 9:19:00 AM PST by Joe Republc
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To: Joe Republc
While I agree with your outrage over the pervasive liberal bias at some of our 'top' Universities, I disagree with the notion that we should urge young conservatives to avoid those schools. Fact is, those schools will exist with or without young conservatives. It would seem like a better strategy to continue to infiltrate those schools, and affect change, however incrementally, through those few brave students.

God tests us all the time. One of the biggest tests I had was growing up in a small mid-western town, being Christian, and then attending an Ivy-League institution. I feel better for having gotten through that test. In addition, I happen to be one of the few conservatives in my circle of alumni friends. I look at that as an opportunity. It's a chance to show these guys the alternative to their way of thinking.

BTW, I would feel comfortable sending my kids to my alma mater. This is an interesting dabate, I think.
10 posted on 11/21/2002 9:27:24 AM PST by WI Conservative 4 Bush
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To: Joe Republc
BTW, I can't excuse my actions because of my high school. Like everyone, I set my own priorities.

Joe, this is a great start. It's fulfills the first of 3 steps in the process of turning things around.

1. Taking responsibility for your past.
2. Taking responsibility for your present.
3. Taking responsibility for your future.

May the Lord richly bless you on your grand adventure!

11 posted on 11/21/2002 9:35:09 AM PST by Sangamon Kid
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To: ItisaReligionofPeace
Ronald Reagan once said, "All great change in America begins at the dinner table."

This is the kind of change that will be required to win this war.

12 posted on 11/21/2002 9:39:46 AM PST by Sangamon Kid
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To: WI Conservative 4 Bush
I believe that these institutions are beyond repair in the life time of your children. The overall view is that the communists have won. Refer to the Naked Communist & make your own judgement. I personlly view my children above those institutions of lower learning. This may sound crazy but if your child is really motivated & knows what he wants to do if he/she would take a job at a company of choice & work at low pay but request to work in each dept. After a 4 yr education this person is about to start his own business & not owe any money.
13 posted on 11/21/2002 9:39:52 AM PST by Digger
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To: 2banana
It's not so much bidnizz. Where d'ya think gubmint culls it's sleepless minions?
14 posted on 11/21/2002 9:57:29 AM PST by banjo joe
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To: Joe Republc
I became a convert to Catholicism while I was a Harvard undergraduate, so anything is possible. Harvard certainly had other ideas about how they wanted to shape their students, even back then. At that time, their basic position, as announced to us en masse by the Dean of Freshman, was: "Question everything, doubt everything, believe nothing." But I took a wonderful medieval history course with Henry Osborn Taylor, and a core humanities course called "Ideas of Good and Evil in Western Literature" that included some great biblical and classical philosophical readings. Both courses included ideas that proved useful to my religious development. The latter course even taught me (involuntarily) that such philosophes as Descartes and Hegel twisted and trivialized the great foundations laid by Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas.

Maybe it's possible to shield your kids from every decadent influence in our society, coming from Hollywood as well as from their teachers, but it may be better to try to prepare them to think and choose for themselves. Whichever way you choose to raise them, shielding them from or preparing them for dangers, the kids will ultimately have to make their own choices, in a world full of very scuzzy influences on every side. You can't protect them beyond the age of eighteen, or in many cases earlier than that.
15 posted on 11/21/2002 10:08:07 AM PST by Cicero
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To: Cicero
One reason why people send their kids to elite schools is because there they meet other bright and interesting kids. Do you make many friends? Has this been helpful in your career?
16 posted on 11/21/2002 10:18:49 AM PST by RobbyS
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To: Sangamon Kid
All I am telling you is that most of the people who attend these schools aren't from Conservative Christian families to begin with. That's all.
17 posted on 11/21/2002 8:44:24 PM PST by ItisaReligionofPeace
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To: Joe Republc
Send your kids there to argue with and educate their professors.
18 posted on 11/21/2002 8:48:58 PM PST by dead
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