<p>My bad, I sounded hostile. I can't take back anything you've seen in person.</p>
<p>I've had a sibling go, he didn't find any real problems at Berkeley. That said, the school is so huge that he might just not have been at those parties.</p>
<p>Other friends who have gone have mentioned drug abuse, though.</p>
<p>But my apologies.</p>
<p>OP, I think you'd be wrong to immediately discount Colgate, as the type of things that happen in the video happen everywhere. Unless everyone you know that's gone (or can find on the internet, that's gone) mentions dissatisfaction with it, keep in mind that you can avoid that. Just make sure that the school/area offers opportunities and things to do besides drink, which Colgate seems to have.</p>
<p>I would love to see part two of that video being him hugging the toilet for the next hour. I don't even think you can enjoy that, but I've got a friend who does that and it makes ME gag.</p>
<p>And as for the OP, Colgate is in the top 20 liberal arts schools. Yes there will be some partying, you will find that no matter where you go there will be SMART people who LIKE to party. There are parties on the campus' of Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, etc. That shouldn't deter you from a school you like because again, a school rated that highly is obviously doing something right to maintain that position. I think you should go if your only qualm is that you heard there may be some drinking but you like everything else about it.</p>
<p>kknight - none taken. I'm sure that I just was around the wrong bunch or something, but purely from what I saw, it was among the worst that I had seen. And perhaps my local point of view where weed has way more of a stigma than alchohol makes me think of a school with a binge habit less harshly than a more mild weed and other drugs thing.</p>
<p>Daughter almost attended Colgate, but selected another school that fit her better. There is a tradition of work hard, play hard at Colgate. It is a great school--but there is that culture. </p>
<p>Adminstration has been trying to gain control of the frats by making them sell their houses to the school. One has resisted, and I believe is operating underground. There is a website operated by what sounds like unhappy alumni who want to go back to the "good old days". You can't miss their billboard just after leaving campus.</p>
<p>So there's less frat scene than there was? That sounds like a good thing. So all the top LACs have a party scene? Do any of them have it to a lesser degree than the others?</p>
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Do any of them have it to a lesser degree than the others?
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<p>from what i know, swarthmore is all business (ie pretty academic and not a lot of partying), and haverford has not a lot of drinking, but a lot of weed smoking</p>
<p>Swat seemed that way. Haverford is heavy on the weed? I thought that it had more drinking than weed, at least, that's what it seemed like when I visited. However, Haverford did seem to have a nice balance of everything...</p>
<p>i've only spoken to one person who went to haverford, so i could be wrong. she told me something along the lines of 'everyone smokes... and it's awesome'</p>
<p>NewEngSocSci, have you visited Colgate and/or spoken to students currently at Colgate? You'll get your best answers there instead of posters on CC with no first hand knowledge. Best source would be a recent grad from your high school now at Colgate. </p>
<p>Old reputations die hard. Traditionally the frats were a strong presence on the Colgate campus. Over the last five years or so the administration has been very proactive in exerting control over the frats - this has ticked off a number of alumni but as a parent I think it's a good thing and it has had a positive impact on the campus culture. The college now owns all of the frat houses, controls the rush process, etc. Colgate today is very different than it was a decade ago.</p>
<p>I've talked to several current students , not any alums, though. They seem to love the school, but admit to a significant party scene. I'm just concerned that the students I talked to are all in one sort of social group, so I was wondering if the non-athletic, intellectually-bent sort of group of students are less alcohol-inclined.</p>
<p>one of my best friends goes to haverford. id say theres an average amount of weed smoking there for college. she didnt smoke that much at all, only a few times, in hs but now does occationally. so its part of the scene but they drink heavily too. she lives in a freshman apartment dorm thing and her and the 3 other girls always have a 30 and a bottle of vodka in their house. theres obviously not as much during the week but they always have a very good itme thursday, friday, and saturday night</p>
<p>theres drinkers and nondrinkers at every school. i go to BC and drinking is a big part of the social life here but i still do know groups of kids who dont and hang out with some people who dont care about other people drinking, just choose not to themselves.</p>
<p>This is really mostly a silly, misinformed thread.</p>
<p>Go into the top LACs section of CC and do a search in the forum of most of the top 20 schools there using the two words "drinking" and "alcohol" and you will see that it exists everywhere. </p>
<p>I'm sure you'd find the same in the forums for most of the better known Universities on CC too, but I don't have the time to verify it. Almost every school has students who boast that they work hard and party hard. And then students (or their parents) who will say, Yes it's here, but I (or my son/daughter)has had no problem finding friends to socialize with who don't drink</p>
<p>My daughter is a Junior at Colgate. Yes there is drinking. There is also drinking on every other top LAC campus where her friends go to school, much more in a number of them. And there was lots too in every University I took my son to visit this year too. </p>
<p>There are some posters here on CC who like to distinguish their favorite LAC, or where their child attends by contrasting it with others based on what they'd like to see or think. People like to paint present day Colgate with a drinking tradition and character larger than other places which for all I know, it may have had years ago.</p>
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There are some posters here on CC who like to distinguish their favorite LAC, or where their child attends by contrasting it with others based on what they'd like to see or think.
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<p>no offense but isn't this exactly what you just did:</p>
<p>"There is also drinking on every other top LAC campus where her friends go to school, much more in a number of them."</p>
<p>and no one (or at least not me) ever said drinking doesn't happen on every campus, or that colgate is the only party school, i simply said it is a big party school.</p>
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<p>isn't this exactly what you just did?<<</p>
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<p>It might have been the same if I had named some schools or one particular school where I thought there was more drinking and sought to distinguish Colgate from it. But I didn't.</p>
<p>Nor did I refer to you or your post. What makes you think I did? </p>
<p>i didn't necessarily think you were referring to my post.</p>
<p>i suppose no parent wants to believe their child attends a school with a lot of drinking. what's more important to understand is that while drinking isn't for everyone, this doesn't necessarily detract from the strength of the school.</p>
<p>in my opinion, the more "academic" schools serve best to breed academics (as evidenced by, for example, the large amount of uchicago students going on to receive PhDs) while the schools with more liquid social scenes turn out more socially-adjusted world participants (as evidenced, continuing the example, by northwestern's purpose as a pre-professional feeder)</p>
<p>colgate would fall into the latter category in my opinion. i know relative to many of its peers it siphons many kids into the finance world. in my opinion the social scene at the school contributes greatly to this, not detracts from it.</p>