A positive spin on the Greek system

Parent Cafe
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<p>there is almost certainly alcohol available to underage students (Im not sure why availability of alcohol to of age students would be a big deal) at every campus in the USA, other than a few religious ones. </p>

<p>The questions many of us are concerned with are how widespread the drinking is, how much happens on week nights, how much pressure there is to drink, how central drinking is to social life, and even how likely it is that your child is going to end up with a drunken roommate. Simple anecdotes showing that drinking occurs on a particular campus are not helpful with such questions. </p>

<p>Note, this is NOT a slam at fraternities. Our DD ended up choosing between two campuses - NEITHER was a school known for partying every night, and BOTH have fraternities/sororities. Nonetheless the two have somewhat different reputations for the centrality of both fraternities/sororities, and of drinking culture - and in this instance, those happened to correlate. That became ONE factor among many to weigh in the balance.</p>

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<p>"The college with lowest incidents of hospitalization? McGill in Canada where the age is 18. Food for thought. "</p>

<p>Our DD just spent a year in Israel where the drinking age is 18. She reports that binge drinking, and general low class drunkenness is found among, sorry to say, American kids on gap year programs - but she did not observe it among Israelis, who do not have that kind of “drinking culture” Israelis drink at restaurants, in particular at higher end ones - the dives (in essence) on “crack square” in central Jerusalem - exist to serve american kids. She took a few weeks to assemble her ‘crowd’ of serious intellectual kids who rarely drank.</p>