<p>Why is there so much conversation about Dartmouth and alcohol? It's almost embarrasing to use the two in the same sentence. Is Dartmouth different from any other Ivy League school, or most colleges, when it comes to alcohol?</p>
<p>Trust me, unless you're at BYU, you'll be drinking a lot wherever you go.
At Dartmouth, at least, you're better off because (1) drinking copious quantities of beer is better than drinking copious quantities of liquor (2) drinking in a public space like a fraternity is better than drinking in an enclosed dormroom with a bunch of freshmen who'll be too scared to do anything when you pass out (3) frats > room parties, IMO.
You may drink more frequently, because you can always find stuff to do, but this is totally a personal choice and not a prevalent phenomenon.
Dartmouth gets a bad rap because it's so prominent, and because of the perceived lack of alternatives.</p>
<p>Animal House gave it rep.</p>
<p>One of my friends mentioned that Dartmouth alumni have the highest rate of alcoholism.</p>
<p>It is very easy to get beer and liquor at Dartmouth, and it's usually free. And the frats are pretty much in one place, and they are almost always open to everyone. That said, it's easy to not drink.</p>
<p>Dartmouth also has the Good Sam policy, which probably saves a ton of lives every year.</p>
<p>"ton of lives" lol. A little exaggerated maybe?</p>
<p>A "ton of lives" = ten 200 pound students. Probably not an exaggeration.</p>
<p>Dartmouth College is well known for its "drinking culture" which is perpetuated by the dominance of the fraternities on the campus culture.</p>
<p>Can one go to Dartmouth and not get caught up in the "Drinking Culture"? What other things are available for students to do besides playing beer pong in frats? Is there a lot of drinking in the dorms or is it mostly in frat basements? Does a student need to live in a "healthy living" dorm to find likeminded people or can you find nondrinkers in regular dorms? Thanks for your help.</p>
<p>Dartmouth College is clearly one the best schools in the world, located in a charming town that enjoys varied entertainment due to its location between New York City & Montreal, but the drinking culture dominates to the extent that if a student ignores it, then that student probably did not chose the appropriate college for him/her.
Better to get a response from a current student regarding dorm activities.
Dartmouth College's campus culture is similiar to Colgate University, St. Lawrence University, but not to the same extent as Bucknell.
Two of my male classmates from a very small high school attended all four years of college at Dartmouth, yet one swears that he never once saw the other at Dartmouth College even though both went to school together since kindergarten.</p>
<p>The reason that they never saw one another was due in part to the fact that one was very social & a drinker, while the other did not drink at all and felt uncomfortable around alcohol. I find this hard to believe at a school of 4,000 students in a rural location, but I had to get a yearbook & an alumni student directory to prove to my friend that the other attended Dartmouth during the same four years.</p>
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"ton of lives" lol. A little exaggerated maybe?
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<p>Probably not.</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure a couple people get Good Sam-ed every weekend.</p>
<p>Agreed that it's not the best choice for you if you're totally anti-alcohol and frats. There are a l ot of people who don't drink at all, or only little, and still go out and have fun. Three of my frat brothers were dry, even. But if you hate that stuff, look elsewhere.</p>
<p>HOWEVER
Most accomplished high school students are not drinkers and partiers. Sure, many high school kids will still go to keggers once in a while, but you won't see many kids doing keg stands and bringing snapple bottles full of whisky to school ending up at top schools. However, you'll become one (hopefully not with the snapple bottles tho), probably regardless of wherever you go. If you go to a non-frat school, you'll still have a plethora of house parties and room parties to attend every weekend.
As for the "highest number of alcoholics" thing, I'd probably venture that this won't be the case in 30 years. College admissions, and demographics of Dartmouth, was very different even 10 years ago when I was applying. It wasn't the super driven, hard working kids that necessarily got to go.</p>
<p>Ok, well, this post worries me a little. Am I to think that Dartmouth is a party school and most entertainment on campus is dependent on alcohol and frat parties? Personally, I don't drink b/c I've had some horrible experiences with alcohol in the past, but I'm not anti-alcohol by any means. Obviously, drinking is always going to occur on college campuses, but is Dartmouth's social life really dependent so much on alcohol that one should completely avoid the school if he/she is against the whole frat/drinking culture?</p>
<p>I drink on occasion, but I do not go to a lot of frat parties - I go to the dance parties on big weekends and events my sorority is directly involved in, and that's pretty much it. I came in to Dartmouth not drinking alcohol at all. I am absolutely not sorry at all that I came here - I love it, and I've never found myself with a lack of things to do. I did live on a substance-free floor freshman year, but haven't since then. </p>
<p>Dartmouth has not turned me into an alcoholic, nor has it ever made me feel like my social life is any worse than it would be if I did drink/party more. I would definitely come give it a look before basing your decision on stereotypes.</p>
<p>As a parent I've been surprised when we visit my son on Sunday mornings-no signs of a big drunk in the dorms; things smell OK, no mess-this is a marked contrast to the shape of my dorms when I went to college a million years ago. </p>
<p>If I'm not mistaken the founder of AA was a Dartmouth alum.</p>
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the drinking culture dominates to the extent that if a student ignores it, then that student probably did not chose the appropriate college for him/her.
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<p>I don't think so. If you spend your time here actively hating on the drinking culture, then yeah, you definitely made the wrong choice (so if the OP thinks it's "embarrassing" to mention alcohol and Dartmouth in the same sentence, he/she might not find Dartmouth all that great).</p>
<p>But if you just ignore the frats while not hating on them, you can still have a pretty decent social life. There are things you can do - not a lot, but it's not like people here are so alcohol-obsessed that beer is literally everywhere and drinking the only social option. A good thing about the frats is that to a large extent they keep the worst excesses of raging confined to frat row. And almost everyone, whether they drink or not, does end up going to a frat at some point and enjoying themselves. I know teetotalers who've had a ton of fun at The Tabard's Disco Inferno or Sigma Nu's '80s dance party.</p>