While on your quest for the perfect graduate school “match,” you’ll likely want to consider what I refer to as the “queerness quotient.”   This not only refers to the level of gay-friendliness of the campus in question, but also includes whether queer-centered groups, associations, support services, and legislation exist within the school’s infrastructure.

A helpful resource for finding an LGBT-friendly campus is the Campus Climate Index.   It includes a searchable database of 177 campuses in the U.S., ranked by a 5-star scoring system.   A school’s score is determined not by users of the website, but by a research panel that takes into account factors such as LGBT policy inclusion, support and institutional commitment, student and academic life, and other aspects of campus climate.

The service is free and you’re not required to create an account, but it does ask for your name and e-mail address before accessing the search features.   You can sift and sort by a campus’s LGBT-friendliness score, name of the college or university, city/state, size, and locale–even save results of your search into your “bookbag.”   More detailed search options are also available, allowing you to filter by type of institution (liberal arts college, public, private, religious affiliation, etc.) as well as by region in the U.S.   In addition to the search function, be sure to check out the background information on the organization running the site, the FAQ’s, and the Resources sections, which are all wonderfully helpful in doing more intensive “homework” on a campus’s inclusiveness.

The relatively small size of the database is somewhat of a drawback because schools must elect to be reviewed by the research organization that implemented and has been running the Campus Climate Index since about 2001.   And while some of the information is geared mostly toward undergraduates, the Campus Climate Index is on the whole beneficial for gaining a general sense of a campus’s policies on LGBT issues that affect all students, faculty, and staff.

As an added disclaimer from the site’s FAQ page:

“The LGBT-Friendly Campus Climate Index is not a replacement or substitute for campus climate research which examines more holistically campus attitudes/perceptions of LGBT and Ally campus life.   Instead, the index provides a solid foundation to further examine campus climate issues and, most importantly, to improve LGBT-Friendly policies, programs and practices.”

So with that in mind, the Campus Climate Index can be a very useful tool in determining a school’s inclusiveness, and also provide a launching point for more “holistic” research on the queerness quotient of a school.   Conduct your own research as well by getting feedback from current students and LGBT campus organizations via e-mail.   If possible, visit the school (and surrounding attractions) in question.

(And if you’re so inclined, check out the Campus Climate Index profile for the school where I currently study, to see an example!)

Photo credit: stock.xchng.