Mom here. I would love to hear from current students or parents from boarding school classes of '24, '25, '26 and '27 about two issues: drinking culture - parties featuring free flowing alcohol - and hook-up culture - low-emotional intimacy sexual activity.
Acknowledgment. Is there a frank discussion about drinking culture and hook-up culture on campus on the part of the administration?
Guidance. What, if anything, is your or your child’s school doing to provide students with information and actionable guidance about the negatives associated with drinking and hook-up culture?
Programming. Does your or your child’s school collaborate with students to provide alternatives to drinking culture and hook-up culture?
Status quo. Alternatively, would you characterize the attitude of your school - in word and deed - as aware of drinking and hook-up culture but accepting that there is not much that can be done about it. Does your school view drinking culture and hook-up culture as so pervasive among young people as to be impossible to do much about?
Thank you for your honest appraisal and for naming the schools about you can speak.
No attacking or trashing of specific schools will be allowed - such posts will be deleted immediately. If the thread veers towards that sort of discussion it will be closed.
Not sure how much any parent or child can reliably talk about the culture at a school changing per se. Even if you had e.g. 3 kids attend a given school across 10-11 years, not clear whether their anecdotes would mean much. I can think of a zillion reasons why that would be the case.
That said, you could take a look at the SOTA, a survey done each year by Andover’s newspaper. The newspaper and survey are student run. The survey itself is anonymous so there’s no way to control for whether or not kids reliably self report. Here’s the most recent:
This ie exactly the survey that catalysed my post! I found the picture painted both shocking and likely representative of other schools’ social scenes, and wondered what schools (if any) are doing about it (if anything).
Got it. My guess has long been that there’s some exaggeration in it, particularly at the extremes. But that it’s reasonably representative.
In general though I’m more of the view that BS (and HS) are more alike than not wrt this kind of thing (i.e. sex, drugs, rock n roll), and that parents who believe otherwise are mostly deluding themselves. I don’t say that to be insulting, it’s just reflective of my take on the world.
Thank you for sharing that. It was definitely enlightening, and I suspect is probably not that different from a number of high schools. (Well, apart from the fact that it included income strata like $250-500k, $500-999k, and $1M+.)
Folks, it has been explained to me privately that this topic can elicit strong and vitriolic responses.
I hope that my framing of the question invites both fact-finding and mature, thoughtful discussion.
If we adults can’t be mature in discussing the pervasiveness and alternatives to drinking culture and hook-up culture, how can we hope to help our kids enjoy healthier socializing?
My kid, '24, says that apparently their year is the lamest, most strait laced, due to spending so much time freshman year in remote and hybrid classes.
'25, '26 are more relaxed and prone to p-a-r-t-y-i-n-g.
Does anyone know of any schools that openly talk about drinking culture and hook-up culture? Or rather, is this something that schools do not like to discuss? A sort of don’t ask don’t tell?
I imagine they ALL talk about drinking and sex! I imagine all have some sort of “Human Development” class. I don’t get the feeling that there’s a lot of either going on at the schools I know. Guessing less than public schools, as there isn’t a slacker social group, really, at these schools.
Yes, human development or sexual education classes play an important role. Very important safe space for kids on a range of topics they may not discuss with their parents or other trusted adults.
I’m speaking more to school culture… What is/isn’t known by the administration about how students actually behave on campus grounds, and what is/isn’t tolerated.
For example, does anyone know if the administration at Andover discuss the Andover SOTA survey with the students? Does anyone know if there is any administrative response?
I have two children, at two different BSs, and drinking and hook-up culture is definitely not on the list of things they talk to you about over parents weekend. Both schools have gone through periods of excessive rule breaking while my children have attended, but we heard nothing from one school during that time (I believe they did send an email to the parents of the offending class, but kiddo was not part of that class), and did receive an email from the other school (kiddo was part of the offending class, but not part of the problem) explaining that they were essentially at their wits end with students making poor choices, and asking parents to help guide their children into making better choices.
I assume there is drinking and hooking-up at the vast majority of boarding schools, and high schools in general. I also assume that school administration does what they can to keep it in check, but none of them are actively working to eliminate it completely, as they likely know that would be an exercise in futility.
Having said all of that, students can certainly get through BS, or any other high school, without partaking in drinking and/or the hook up culture.
My offspring is a recent Andover grad. I read the SOTA the year the kid applied and during his time at the school. Keep in mind that the SOTA is run by the school newspaper so technically the information is NOT collected by the administration. My understanding is the school does not directly address any of the results with the students.
From what I understand, the substance use and hook-up culture is there if one wishes to participate but is easily avoided and there is little peer pressure. I did not get the sense that it is pervasive. My read of the data supports this.
On a somewhat related point, while a number of kids were exited or chose to leave the school, my child thought the school got a little soft on discipline over his time there. He thought there were children who violated rules during junior/senior year who may have been exited freshman/sophomore year for the same offense.
The same was true for me at Lawrenceville. It was definitely there (and among certain groups of people, quite popular), but if you wanted, you could be completely detached from it, and it wouldn’t affect you at all.
Not sure how recent you mean, but under the new/current HoS (for those who don’t know, they started in the 20-21 academic year) they completely changed the entire approach to disciplinary action. More “learning opportunity” than “punishment,” for 1st infractions at least.
I do agree. However, I also believe more kids drink because of the second chance/learning opportunity option. At least, that’s what some kids have told me.
Honestly, I think teachers try as hard as possible to ignore the hook up culture. It’s my impression that teachers are terrified of running into a couple hooking up and having to deal with how awkward and creepy that would be.
I think generally drinking is more sporadic that at most public schools but I don’t think many schools are confronting these issues head on.
If you notice, I am constantly admonishing parents to really hash these issues out with their kids before the kids go to boarding school. Maybe you can ask if there are schools where kids don’t feel pressured to join in the drinking and hooking up if they don’t want to.
