College Dorms and Politics

Now this is a fascinating study ...

David J. Zimmerman, an economics professor at Williams College, recently looked at the political views of 3,500 students who had shared rooms as freshmen, noting their leanings when they started college and again three years after graduation. Generally, roommates kept the same political persuasion -- except those freshmen whose roommates were on the far left of the political spectrum. No matter what their politics at enrollment, they were more likely than similar students to be conservative as adults.

''It's reactionary in some way,'' says Mr. Zimmerman, who surveyed two colleges.

Weird, isn't it? It's almost as if far left liberals tend to be so vehement in pushing their ideas that they end up coming across as repulsive. Nobody likes a fanatic. Still, there's the following bit of consolation:

The study also found that the higher the SAT score, the more liberal the views.

I did about as well as it was ever possible for one to do on the test before its ceiling was lowered, and I'm no liberal (but then again, I'm no conservative either) - nor were most of the other ultra-high scorers of my acquaintance particularly enamored of either end of the political spectrum; if there's an association between SAT scores and liberalism, either it isn't very strong, or it doesn't hold at the very highest levels.

Comments

[Joseph Hertzlinger]

I've read that liberal critics of the old SAT said that it was useless above 1300. I suspect that's where the percentage of liberals reaches a maximum.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

It probably doesn't hold at the highest levels.