<p>Medical school placements data does not impress me as many doctors that I know from school are alcoholics. High functioning alcoholics, but still alcoholics.</p>
<p>Mini, I believe you are using several flawed premises when you claim that all the kids Williams weeded out of pre-med would have gone on to be "fabulous" doctors had they attended a State U.</p>
<p>First of all, the weedout rate at most State U's is substantially higher than at a place like Williams. Ask any pre-med at U Conn, U Mass, Wisconsin, etc. (i.e. not UVA or Berkeley). It is tough even getting into the required courses and fitting them into four years; the curve in courses like Organic Chem is intentionally brutal; kids who are finding it tough going don't get the support they get at Williams or Swarthmore- they're encouraged to look at programs in Allied Health or Pharmacy. Since Williams doesn't offer a degree in Physical Therapy, the likelihood that the med school wannabees are being encouraged to "switch tracks" as juniors is pretty remote. But that's the dynamic at big state schools. Someone's got to fill those seats in Occupational Therapy and Speech/Language, and it's frequently the failed pre-meds.</p>
<p>Second,all of med school education in the US is predicated on the "weedout" factor. Kids who can't hack the undergrad science courses are plucked out of the pool of potential doctors early on. Kids who don't do well on the MCAT's are plucked out slightly further along. Kids who don't get in anywhere get plucked out a year later. etc. Bottom line, medical education is as much an endurance race as it is a process of determining who would develop the clinical or research skills to contribute to medicine- simply put, tenacity and the ability to memorize are the skills required to get into medical school. I may not like it and you may not like it- especially if you're had dealings with Dr's who are so clearly lacking the other skills.... but that's the way the system operates.</p>
<p>Third, your contention that the schools use these statistics in a misleading way is in itself, a misleading statistic. What should they be measuring and publishing- the number of kids who "lust in their heart" to be a Doctor to use Jimmy Carter's phrase???? As far as I'm concerned, if the numerator is the number of kids who get accepted to med school, and the denominator is the number who actually apply in any given year- what other relevant statistic is missing???? The kid who lives next door to me has dreamed about attending Duke for years but his parents won't let him apply out of state. Does he get counted as someone who got rejected from Duke??? Of course not- the fact that he never gets into the applicant pool means he doesn't get counted. If you show up at Williams thinking that maybe sorta kinda if it all works out you could possibly be a doctor, and then you discover that you don't have the chops to make it through the pre-med requirements, why should you get counted as a "Dr. who might have been if only Williams hadn't given him a C in orgo " which he absolutely deserved but resents since it eliminated his shot at med school.</p>
<p>And it would have been a D at U Conn.</p>
<p>Complications,</p>
<p>I haven't read all the posts either but I really understand your concerns. I have a daughter at a great LAC in PA and she said "everybody drinks" but her (probably an exaggeration). She is an athlete and a pretty serious student so she really values her sleep. She said that she is usually ready for bed by the time her hall buddies are ready to go out to parties so she just goes to sleep. She seems to be fine with skipping the whole drunken party scene and still manages to have tons of friends and she is really happy. </p>
<p>To your point about schools adjusting grades... I really believe that must be the case because my daughter is doing really well... 4.0 so far and she NEVER had straight A's in high school. She has always been a hard working student and enjoyed taking the most challenging classes but I believe her high school (top private HS) was more rigorous than college is for her now. I am not sure exactly how I feel about this... paying 50k/year, but for now she is really happy so that's what matters most.</p>
<p>My biggest concern is my younger daughter, who is also an athlete and a very serious hard working student but I do not believe she will be able to remove herself so easily from the dominant social scene. There is tons of drinking at her high school and that bothers her because she doesn't understand the "drink till you passout" mentality but she is also very social so she hates missing out on the parties. Finding the right school for her may be tougher... her college counselor suggested an urban campus where there is more to do than drink but I am not sure that is the answer. Reading some of these posts it appears heavy drinking is on all campuses and I know that my older daughter's school offers tons of social/cultural and athletic activities for the students. Many of these activities are well-attended but they are usually earlier in the evening and the students party afterwards.</p>
<p>Toneranger - I know that my daughter's school has taken all the measures you mentioned in your post to decrease binge drinking with little impact. Maybe parents need to be more involved. </p>
<p>I know that many parents believe that drinking is just part of the college experience. Drinking was part of my college experience but it was much more moderate than what I am hearing about now. As a mom of daughters, the sexually permissiveness of many college coeds is frightening and adds another layer of danger to the drinking scene. </p>
<p>I know that many schools are focusing on educating their students on the negatives of binge drinking and substance abuse but maybe they should be focusing on the family. By making parents aware of the dangers of binge drinking and providing education to the parents on how the parents can stay connected with their student and continue to promote the values of the family. I realize this is a time for these students to spread their wings but they also need to stay healthy and safe and hopefully get as much out of their education as possible.</p>
<p>Kaleigh - Drinking was just as bad when we were in college as now. The difference is you are sitting in a different seat. You just mentioned your older daughter decided not to participate even though she goes to a party school. I went to Colgate many years ago. It was suppose to be one of the biggest party school and dominated by Greek life. Most of us drank at parties, there were some passing outs, but majority of us worked very hard to maintain our GPAs. Some of us made good choices, and some didn't. </p>
<p>A very good friend of mine lived abroad very early in her life, I think since she was 10 with a housekeeper. I asked her what stopped her from going wild and turned out so well. She said, "Whenever I thought about doing something bad, my mother's face always flashed across my head, and that's scarier than anything."</p>
<p>I think I must sound like a broken record at this point. No matter what school you kid should decide to go to, and it doesn't matter what reputation a school has, there will always be hard core partiers, non participants, and with majority in-betweeners. It is up to your kid to choose and behave like mature young adult. That's where parenting and upbringing come in. If you never taught your kid to do what's right, it wouldn't matter where he is, he will still misbehave.</p>
<p>I am not implying my daughter is a model college kid because I am not that naive. But I do think with her course load (two majors, math and econ), work, ballet and volunteer work at school, it's leaving her with very little time to party. I think that's the case with most kids. I am not sure if all the parents with kids going off to college need to be that freaked out about college drinking. Moderation is the key here.</p>
<p>I'm not sure what schools can do to reduce the binge drinking. The schools are required to report crime statistics to the Feds and I've checked them. Very interesting. Many LACs report no arrests for drinking. I think most of it is ignored.</p>
<p>I don't have answers. I just have concerns.</p>
<p>"Reading some of these posts it appears heavy drinking is on all campuses"</p>
<p>It exists on all campuses, or nearly all. But the culture is not the same on every campus. Compare Columbia and Chicago to Dartmouth and W&L. There's a real difference in the acceptability of getting wasted all the time, and the size and diversity of the social arena that doesn't revolve around alcohol.</p>
<p>^^^ Is it a general rule that rural campuses (eg Dartmouth, Kenyon, Williams, W&L) tend to be more into excessive drinking than urban ones (eg Chicago, Columbia)?</p>
<p>Urban schools just have more places to go out in the off campus world. No need to have a house party when you can go out to great clubs all over town.</p>
<p>^^ So if you are a prospective student who doesn't drink too much and does not want to endure house parties and drinking on campus, wouldn't it make more sense to prefer an urban campus?</p>
<p>Just when I thought nothing more could shock and surprise me, I read all these posts....it is so sad</p>
<p>Kaleigh - my D is just like yours...she went off for a Sunday overnight to her top choice (top 10 LAC) school in September.....a very different girl came back the following evening, and although she is still applying to the school, it is no longer her top choice. While I am glad she got an opportunity to observe what she did now instead of after she matriculated, it is too bad that she did not have an opportunity to experience alternative social options during her visit, and that her host was not respectful of her values....again, a SUNDAY night, the dorm fridge was stocked, and the party was on...at 2AM my daughter finally said hey, I need to go sit in on an 8AM class, visit Admissions and visit a coach tomorrow, I need to get some sleep!!! Quite an experience for the time (and monetary) investment....</p>
<p>Agree, Rachacha, it is sad. And scary, thinking of son going off next year...</p>
<p>Although, the thought re: urban schools having more to offer (non-drinking-wise) is certainly something to think about....</p>
<p>oldfort stated:</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think I must sound like a broken record at this point. No matter what school you kid should decide to go to, and it doesn't matter what reputation a school has, there will always be hard core partiers, non participants, and with majority in-betweeners. It is up to your kid to choose and behave like mature young adult.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Does anyone seriously DISAGREE with this statement? </p>
<p>Some poster asked if there really is anything the college can do. Well, the literature seems to suggest YES to a point. </p>
<p>Read: What We Have Learned From the Harvard Schoolof Public Health College Alcohol Study: Focusing Attention on College Student Alcohol Consumption andthe Environmental Conditions That Promote It
About.com:</a> <a href="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas%5B/url%5D">http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
Campus, local, and state alcohol control policies are associated
with less drinking and binge drinking among college
students. Students attending colleges that ban alcohol
were less likely to binge drink and more likely to abstain
from alcohol (Wechsler et al., 2001a). However, students
who drank at these colleges drank just as heavily as students
at nonban schools. Perhaps the greatest benefit of
banning alcohol was that fewer students experienced secondhand
effects from the drinking of others than students
at nonban schools. Campus alcohol bans appear to strongly
deter students from any alcohol use if they were an abstainer,
although the effect is less strong for heavier drinking
levels (Chaloupka and Wechsler, 1996).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Geographic location seems to matter.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The CAS results revealed that binge drinking varies by
college (ranging from 1% to 76%), yet, within colleges,
binge drinking has remained stable over time (Wechsler et
al., 2002b). These findings suggest that factors in the environment
may influence college student binge drinking. Binge
drinking varies by student subgroups, by the region of the
country (higher in northeastern and north-central states, lowest
in western states), and by the sets of policies and laws
governing alcohol sales and use (Nelson et al., 2005a;
Wechsler et al., 1994, 1995a, 1997, 1998, 2000a,b, 2002c).
Understanding the patterns of drinking by different groups
of students and in different settings can help researchers
understand the factors that promote heavy drinking and identify
potential intervention strategies to reduce alcohol consumption
and, in turn, the harms that result from heavy
consumption. Features of the environment, such as residential
setting, low price, and high density of alcohol outlets,
as well as the prevailing drinking rates at the college, are
significantly related to the initiation of binge drinking in
college. We have referred to the combination of factors in
the environment that promote heavy drinking as a wet
environment (Kuo et al., 2003; Weitzman et al., 2003b).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Generally, DON'T let you kid go to college in the Northeast. Look for a place out West where the booze is not readily available and is expensive and where the school bans alcohol on campus and has a near "zero tolerance" alcohol policy.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The CAS research has identified two other campus-level
factors that may help limit the level of heavy drinking by
students. The demographic composition of a college student
body appears to influence student drinking (Wechsler
and Kuo, 2003). A greater racial and ethnic diversity on
campus is associated with lower binge drinking rates among
the white majority students. Similarly, lower binge drinking
rates were observed among male and underage students
at colleges that had more female and older students. Students
who did not binge drink during high school were
more likely to take up binge drinking in college if they
attended schools with fewer minority and older students. In
addition, the amount of social capital (the social resources,
trust, reciprocity, and mutual aid in a social group, measured
as the aggregate level of student volunteerism) on a
campus is associated with decreased risk for alcohol consumption
and alcohol-related harms (Weitzman and Chen,
2005; Weitzman and Kawachi, 2000). The reduction in
harms was associated with lower consumption. These findings
suggest that increasing student involvement in their
campus and community through volunteer service may help
to limit overall campus alcohol consumption and the harms
associated with it. In general, students with more involvement
in productive college activities in addition to volunteer
service (e.g., studies and special interests) were less
likely to be binge drinkers.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>See if you can't get your white male student into an ethically diverse, high female and older student environment and encourage active participation in campus and community service.</p>
<p>Rachacha: My understanding is that you are writing about Davidson College, and not Bowdoin College. Interesting because I recently dealt with a family whose child is/was on a full-ride scholarship to Davidson & was, to my surprise, very unhappy.(Bowdoin & Davidson are two of my favorite colleges, both of which have gorgeous locations. So I understand your daughter's interest.)</p>
<p>vicarious:</p>
<p>My understanding of the data is that, yes, urban campuses have somewhat less drinking. I think in part that's due to there being lots of other things to do besides drinking, in part because drinking tends to be a little more expensive there, and in part because the urban environment moves some of the drinking off campus where it's less noticeable or doesn't produce on-campus statistics. (But I think there is support for the proposition that kids on urban campuses do actually drink less, as opposed to drinking elsewhere.) </p>
<p>Another factor that could come into play is that urban campuses probably have more students who live at home or who have serious part-time employment, both of which are going to limit drinking. That's not going to be a big factor at Columbia, and I don't know whether the data distiguishes between, say, Columbia and Fordham. Richer students tend to be students who can afford to drink more, in any setting.</p>
<p>I don't think there's any question that if you compare Harvard, Columbia, Chicago to Dartmouth, Cornell, Williams, there's significantly less drinking at the former set. I don't know how suburban schools like Princeton or Stanford, or not-quite-as-urbane schools like Yale, Duke, Rochester fit in. "Urban" in Manhattan or Cambridge and "urban" in New Haven mean very different things. And then there's Penn, which I believe (without data) to have a significant drinking culture, notwithstanding its relatively central lots-of-choices urban setting.</p>
<p>And all of this is relative. If your child wants to become an alcoholic, going to the University of Chicago won't stop him, or even slow him down much. But I do believe that there's a meaningful culture difference there. As my son (not a teetotaller) said when he was deciding to go there: "I like to party. I worry sometimes that I could go to college and fall into some party pit. At some of these colleges, you could fall a long way down before you hit bottom. But I've seen the bottom of the pit at Chicago; it's a pretty shallow pit."</p>
<p>My D will probably drink a little bit in college but at this point in time she is looking for a school that is not dominated by drinking, partying, fraternities or football. Her worry with an urban college (eg Columbia, NYU) is that a big city could dilute out the sense of community that a real campus brings. I guess one has to find a happy medium.</p>
<p>A parent was posting a while back about how she's very worried about her son coming home late(drunk) every night in NYC by himself. Most of those kids in NYC have fake ids to get into clubs. Granted it is more expensive to get drunk, but I think it's more dangerous for them to navigate around a big city when they are drunk vs a town like Ithaca or Hamilton.</p>
<p>vp, it's a general rule, but one with its share of exceptions. There's plenty of hard drinking at Penn, for instance. I think mini posted a list of risk factors once -- a big Greek population, rural location, emphasis on athletics, and heavily upper-middle-class white student population are all associated with a binge drinking culture. Women's colleges are clustered at the other end of the spectrum.</p>
<p>"more dangerous for them to navigate around a big city when they are drunk"</p>
<p>I don't have data, but I strongly disagree. In Ithaca or Hamilton, there's a real chance of somebody in the group having a car. I'm not saying it's impossible to get murdered on the street or fall onto the subway tracks or something when you're drunk, but it's vanishingly rare. You'd hear about if an NYU student died that way.</p>
<p>I'm proud of my D because she's been on a quest to provide fun alternatives to drinking parties at her school, like dances and game nights. At first she'd call and say "Noone showed up. They were all out getting drunk." But lately, she's reported that the events are becoming very popular and well attended. </p>
<p>BTW, when I was in college, I would have been one of the kids who wouldn't be caught dead at one of these uncool parties. I'm glad she didn't get my "follower" genes.</p>
<p>My S & his friends are at a very urban campus (USoCal), with a huge party reputation, huge athletic (especially football) scene & Greeks are very strong there too. He & his friends haven't mentioned having difficulty finding their niche at USC & I really don't get the sense it involves much alcohol.</p>
<p>I also wouldn't want my kids around alcohol & cars (driver, passenger, driver in other car or pedestrian). Urban schools are more likely to have the kids walking or catching transportation than driving or being driving by drunk buddies.</p>