<p>“I shudder to think we are so insecure that our children don’t exercise enough judgement to bypass whatever temptations they might encounter.”</p>
<p>It has nothing to do with temptation, at least in my case. It has to do with irritation and distraction. It is a pain in the neck to deal with reeling, vomiting classmates when you’re trying to have some fun on the weekends (or get your work done drink the week). Every classmate who is too blasted or too hung over to function is one you can’t learn from or connect with. Since you’re paying a lot of money for the schools in question, and a big part of the appeal is meant to be the diversity, intelligence, and energy of your classmates, smashed kids reduce the value of being in that community.</p>
<p>Yes, and if the kids are intent on getting vomiting-drunk every weekend, that means they aren’t putting on or attending other events, so there’s less to do around campus.</p>
<p>Isn’t that a tad simplistic? All getting “vomiting drunk” signifies is that that is what the individual decided to do- alone or with his/her acquaintances. What correlation is there between extracurricular activity availability and drinking, anyway? There are plenty of colleges with all sorts of activities, some you may or may not approve of, and there always have been. And these activities come and go as far as the students who pursue them are concerned, hopefully for the best outcomes.</p>
<p>One thing that is easy to discuss is the tendency of more high school students to drink and abuse drugs heavily. And then arrive as freshmen with real abuse problems. Speaking personally, I encountered all types of raucous stuff in college that I had not witnessed in high school. But it was all part of the educational experience and I quickly learned the work:play balance for the results I wanted to achieve at various points in time.</p>
<p>"What correlation is there between extracurricular activity availability and drinking, anyway? " If you’re a heavy partier who is out late drinking Th-Sun every weekend, you aren’t performing in a concert, you aren’t producing a play, you aren’t up at 5 am leading the running club, etc. That’s all I meant.</p>
<p>My S crossed a couple of schools off of his list because of rumors about heavy drug use, but I won’t name them as that would probably just bring in their defenders to start an argument. There was heavy drug use in S’s high school, and several friendships were lost or soured because of it, and S wanted to avoid having something similar happen in college.</p>
<p>My D has nothing against Greek life per se, but has crafted a list of schools where it does not dominate the social scene. If she found a sorority that she felt fit her personality, she would join but is not interested in ragers or getting drunk every week-end. For some kids the typical “party hearty” social scene at some colleges does not fit their personality. I think they want to avoid these schools because it makes it harder to initially connect and make friends if you are going against the dominate culture of the school. My D is pretty, social and has a lots of friends but just is uncomfortable with heavy drinking. She does enjoy a glass of wine and is more the type to want to get a group together and go out for burgers and a movie on a saturday night. </p>
<p>Another option for checking on a college’s drinking is to google alcohol drugs + nameofcollege. Some of the results for a couple of the colleges we were interested in gave us pause (videos, news stories). </p>
<p>Such a technique could also give a reader the wrong impression of the current state of the university’s level of drinking/ drug use. For instance after a pledge died of alcohol poisoning at my school, the university’s president dramatically cracked down on drinking, particularly in the fraternities. Today my school has a far lower rate of binge drinking than it once did, but searching for such information could very well give parents the impression that all fraternity members are intent on hazing their pledges to death. </p>
<p>To me, a party school is a place where many students are partying on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. You can also test a school by seeing how many students are in a library on a Thursday evening or a Sunday. Having a good time (while avoiding binge drinking) is normal on weekend nights.</p>
<p>IMO, this is a really outdated concept. I can literally count the number of times I went to the library as an undergrad on one hand. I’ve never been as a grad student. </p>
<p>My generation doesn’t need libraries, unfortunately. </p>
<p>@Turtletime, we had a very similar experience at Claremont McKenna. My daughter actually abandoned the tour halfway through because she knew she wouldn’t be applying there. We were grateful that the student who answered questions in the info session and led the tour was so up front.</p>
<p>Drinking I understand, but what do posters mean by heavy drug use? - perhaps we were fortunate but there wasn’t much drug use in our area and the kids have not commented on drug use in college. I think uppers and downers and even heroin, LSD and shrooms were far more prevalent during my college years than during my kids’ college years. Kids don’t smoke in the dorms anymore (pot or cigarettes) and even quite a few campuses are smoke-free so all in all I think my kids have less pressure than my college years. If they don’t want to drink alcohol it’s pretty easy to avoid the parties. </p>