Just 50 miles north of Pittsburgh, one of the country’s most conservative colleges has been ranked the most LGBT-unfriendly in the country by the Princeton Review.
Grove City College was ranked at the top of a list compiled by student’s survey answers and published in the company’s book, “The Best 378 Colleges.”
In the last ten years, the conservative Christian college has been in the top five most unfriendly list seven times and at the very top of the list three times.
David Soto, co-author of the book, says the private school with an enrollment of 2,483, is a “usual suspect” on this particular list, one of 62 determined from survey responses. The ranking is based on one particular question in the survey: “Students treat all persons equally regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity/expression.”
Low scoring responses put Grove City College at the top of the list, ahead of schools like University of Notre Dame at No. 5, Brigham Young University at No. 6 and the Catholic University of America at No. 18.
Mary DelBuono, a spokeswoman for Grove City College, says the college continues to be “baffled” by the low marks in regard to campus attitudes every year. “We don’t feel the ranking is based on reality,” she says. “The reality is one of friendship and non-discrimination.”
The college doesn’t offer any student organizations or resources for LGBT students, only because there are none based on sexual orientation – gay or straight, she says.
Licensed counselors are available, who “deal with all kinds of issues that students deal with, inside the classroom and outside the classroom,” DelBuono says.
The Princeton Review, however, wants readers to use this and other rankings to make informed decisions about each college, Soto says.
“We think the more informed, the better,” he says. “You’re going to be spending four years on this college campus, maybe more.”
About 126,000 students across the country take the surveys every three years when official totals are ranked with an average of about 300 from each school relative to the size of the student population.
“We go directly to the people we consider experts … currently enrolled students,” Soto says.
Grove City College holds students to a code of conduct, says DelBuono, including “embracing everyone with the love of Christ. We’re a Christian community that is very welcoming and accepting of others and we hold all our students, regardless of sexual orientation, to the same code of conduct,” she says.
Oftentimes, when a school appears on an “unfavorable” list, it prompts action or reflection upon a label like “party school” or “LGBT-unfriendly,” Soto says.
In 2011, a lesbian senior at Grove City started an unofficial organization called “Rainbow Bridge” that now seems inactive. The group participated in the Pittsburgh PrideMarch that June.
But the college itself, no stranger to controversy when it comes to defending its conservative values, won’t assess its needs based only on a student survey, DelBuono says.
“We are not going to create programs and initiatives based on a ranking,” she says.
The only other Pennsylvania college to make the 20 ranked on the LGBT-friendly list was Bryn Mawr College in Montgomery County.
LGBT-Unfriendly Colleges in 2014 Edition of Princeton Review’s “The Best 378 Colleges”
- Grove City College Grove City PA
- Hampden-Sydney College Hampden-Sydney VA
- College of the Ozarks Point Lookout MO
- Wheaton College Wheaton IL
- Univ. of Notre Dame South Bend IN
- Brigham Young Univ. Provo UT
- Wake Forest Univ. Winston-Salem NC
- Calvin College Grand Rapids MI
- Univ. of Rhode Island Kingston RI
- Univ. of Dallas Irving TX
- Texas A & M Univ.-College Station College Station TX
- Baylor Univ. Waco TX
- Trinity College (CT) Hartford CT
- Auburn Univ. Auburn AL
- Colgate Univ. Hamilton NY
- Wofford College Spartanburg SC
- Hillsdale College Hillsdale MI
- Catholic Univ. of America Washington DC
- Pepperdine Univ. Malibu CA
- Univ. of Wyoming Laramie WY
LGBT-Friendly Colleges in 2014 Edition of Princeton Review’s “The Best 378 Colleges”
- Emerson College Boston MA
- Warren Wilson College Asheville NC
- New College of Florida Sarasota FL
- Stanford Univ. Stanford CA
- Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison Madison WI
- Oberlin College Oberlin OH
- Franklin W. Olin Col. of Engineering Needham MA
- Smith College Northampton MA
- New York Univ. New York NY
- Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr PA
- Wellesley College (MA) Wellesley MA
- Bennington College Bennington VT
- Univ. of Chicago Chicago IL
- Yale Univ. New Haven CT
- Carleton College Northfield MN
- Sarah Lawrence College Bronxville NY
- Macalester College St. Paul MN
- Pitzer College Claremont CA
- Marlboro College Marlboro VT
- Grinnell College Grinnell IA
