<p>Hello--I'm a new member and haven't joined a forum before. Please excuse me if I don't know the etiquette.
S just returned from a college visit and was disheartened by the amount of alcohol and fact that he was offered what I assume was marijuana. He had really thought highly of the classes he'd sat in on and we all thought the college was great during an earlier visit. He's been accepted and given generous merit aid. I should also say that we're really fortunate that he's been accepted at the 4 schools he's heard from to date, with some merit aid from all, and is waiting on 2 other schools. I've read the StudentsReview site comments and realize that alcohol plays a major role at many/most schools but haven't seen that much about drugs. My question is: How much did the role of alcohol use play in your students' decisions? Furthermore, if any of you have experience with the following schools I'd be glad to hear: Beloit, Denison, Dickinson, Eckerd, Gettysberg, U. Del. (Didn't clarify which is the school referred to re. visit, because I don't know if that's allowed and I don't want to defame a school based on one visit.) Thanks very much, jonsmom</p>
<p>Welcome!</p>
<p>I have sadly discovered that alcohol and even marijuana seem to be prevalent at many, many colleges. However - and I can't stress this strongly enough - anyone who really doesn't want to drink or smoke CAN find people like him/her and CAN find things to do. You can be busy 24-7 without alcohol. My son does not drink at all, and besides finding others who don't, the ones who do respect him and do not hassle him at all. He goes to a top LAC. </p>
<p>Lots of kids are turned off by various thing - terrible tour guides, etc. If you read "The Gatekeepers" you'll laugh remembering the night one of the nation's top female URMs went to Wesleyan and was invited to a meeting of a club women had - if I write the name of the club, the CC censors will blaock it! Things like this happen, and I think the alcohol shouldn't make anyone change his or her mind...</p>
<p>UNLESS --- UNLESS it is a really, really big deal for your son. Then it might be better to go to a non-drinking campus.</p>
<p>You CAN name the school and we won't think you are defaming it.
If you post the name of the school, others who have gone there or know people there might be able to tell you more about what really goes on.</p>
<p>Sex, drugs, and alcohol are a part of campus life, to varying degrees, at the vast majority of colleges.</p>
<p>The fact that your son found this out on a pre-frosh visit is actually a good thing, IMO. It provides the basis for some REAL talks about choices that your son will face as he transitions from childhood to adulthood in college. It was after a similar visit that we had some frank discussions in our household that included: "Dad's five rules of college: don't ever get in a car with driver who has been drinking, don't get arrested, don't get pregnant, don't get AIDs, and don't flunk out". </p>
<p>Having said that, there are very real differences in the campus culture at different schools and I believe these issues should be a major consideration when making a colllege selection.</p>
<p>There are ways to research these issues. The Fiske Guide usually highlights a school that is known as a "party school" (a euphemism for heavy drinking). Looking at the rate of sorority/fraternity membership can provide a clue. As can searching the archives of the college newspaper for "alcohol".</p>
<p>If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it's probably a duck. For example, Washington & Lee has the highest frat/sorority membership of any college in the US, ranks #1 in the Princeton Review categories of "Beer Flows Freely" and "Hard Liquor Flows Freeley", is described by Fiske as "the last bastion of the southern gentlemen who can hold his liquor and is damn proud of it", and a recent survey on campus revealed that more than 2.6 % of the female students said they had been raped. Here was the account published in the student newspaper last fall:</p>
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A senior, who wished to remain anonymous, said that she was raped during her freshman year, and never considered reporting the incident to the SFHB.</p>
<p>"I was scared of anyone close to the situation finding out about it," she said. "I didn't want to tell my friends, because they had boyfriends in the same [fraternity] as the guy. Plus, until this year, I didn't even know how to report it."</p>
<p>The student said that the incident occurred during a date function weekend. She said that her date was older than she was, and she felt like he wanted something in return for asking her to be his date that weekend.</p>
<p>"So many of the guys here expect to get something in return for a date function," she said. "It makes sense for them to feel that way, which is weird."</p>
<p>She said that both she and her date had been drinking when he raped her. She remembers being put to sleep in his room while he stayed downstairs at the party. When he returned to his room, she stayed in his bed. </p>
<p>"I slept in his bed, so maybe I was asking for it, but honestly, I was too drunk to go home," the student said. "I definitely know that I said no. There's no way he didn't know," she said.
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<p>It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this very highly rated college may have an above-average prevalence of alcohol and acohol related problems. Do your homework and make your decisions accordingly, keeping in mind that you are looking for relative differences.</p>
<p>BTW, one of the parents here is an expert in the field of college alcohol problems and has access to the national statistics for binge drinking rates and other data. These colleges have the data as well, although, by agreement, the researchers do not publicly release the data for individual schools. It would benefit the consumer in making informed choices if these colleges would release their data.</p>
<p>It is possible to find the data for alcohol related arrests and disciplinary actions each year. However, this data is somewhat imperfect due to the different degrees of "policing" that various colleges apply to drinking on campus. But, it is another clue.</p>
<p>Welcome. I can understand how you and your son feel. Of course you both know that there will be drinking and drugs on even officially dry campuses but that's small comfort when your son was exposed to this on an overnight meant to intice him to come to the school. Of course, one overnight experience doesn't tell you much beyond the person he stayed with --- some parents here have reported their kids having very different experiences on different overnights at the same school.</p>
<p>I think I'd do several things. First, I'd call the admissions office and ask to speak to the admissions director. I'd explain the situation exactly as you told it here and express your - and your son's - concerns. Then, I'd ask if they have any surveys or research on drinking/drug use on their campus. Many colleges do track this sort of thing through annual surveys but not all will share the information. I'd also ask how underage drinking and drug violations are handled by the school when they occur. I think the way admissions responds to your question will be telling. Your son is someone they obviously want enough to offer merit money to, if they seem at all defensive about this issue, you have to think deeper and do some more research. (Of course, admissions offices aren't always going to have this info. in hand so ask if you could speak to the person who would.)</p>
<p>Second, go online to the school's web site and do a search for their student newspaper. Then, plug in a couple of keywords in the archives "Beer, drinking, drunk, hangover, parties, pot, weed, marajuana, arrests" The results are often telling and can paint a good picture of the campus culture.</p>
<p>I'd also suggest doing an interest search at Livejournal.com for the college name. Most colleges have an online discussion group there. My daughter has found this a useful place to ask questions of current students. It's anonymous so your son doesn't have to worry about asking if this is an indicator of campus life. I also recommend that you read the individual journals that will pop up under the interest search. While this is probably going to be only a tiny number of students, if you see lots of posts about getting drunk or doing drugs, you will have another snatch of information.</p>
<p>Finally, I hope you will share the name of the school (My daughter will be doing an overnight at Beloit in a few weeks). Here is what I know about some of the schools on your son's list --- both from my own research and from talking to parents and students who have visited or have attended.</p>
<p>Beloit - drinking and drugs common but fairly low key. Not much to do in the surrounding town but enough to do on campus that both are not the focus of social life, except in the fall when the freshman arrive. Administration doesn't seem particularly concerned about enforcing non-drinking/drugs rules.</p>
<p>Denison - still living down its culture as a Greek school with lots of beer parties, administration has tried hard to change this but not altogether successfully.</p>
<p>Dickinson - has long had the nickname "Drinkinson" - they have had some on campus alcohol poisoning deaths in the past decade. When we visited, all of the students we talked to knew how far it was to the nearest bar and all said there was plenty of drinking on campus. Had a father here on CC whose daughter transferred out after one semester - she had other reasons as well, but one of the reasons was she didn't like the party scene atmosphere. Dickinson admin. says they are working to control this.
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Eckerd - Had reports from two parents last year here on CC that on their campus visits, students were openly sitting outside on the beach drinking and smoking pot. Others did not notice this on their visits however.</p>
<p>Gettysberg U. Del. : no first hand knowledge</p>
<p>NOTE: The above schools are probably no different from many other schools - they are all very good schools and only your son (and you) can decide if he likes the overall social atmosphere. As ID said above, there are going to be different types of kids on every campus.</p>
<p>If this concerns you you can investigate the availability of substance free dorms on campus; a place where your dorm won't be Animal House.</p>
<p>LACs have a rep of drinking and even worse, drugs. There's always people that dont do that sorta thing. I'm sure he'll find his crowd to fit into. If thats not the case, you can take solace in the fact that he'll be pulling straight As while his classmates get crunk on a nightly basis.</p>
<p>I'm sorry your son had that experience, and I think it's a little surprising as well as disappointing that students given the responsibility of hosting a prospective student for an overnight would have put him in that position. Admissions ambassadors or hosts are usually screened to be good representatives of their school, so it might be a good idea to mention the incident to the admissions office. That said, there's a tremendous amount of drinking virtually everywhere among students and it sometimes spills over to involve visitors (for example, Williams had a couple of highly publicized incidents of prospective students getting drunk and having to go to the infirmary on autumn visits a year or two ago). I'd agree with the posters who said that there is room for nondrinkers/nonsmokers to be comfortable at most schools, but I also think they have to work a little harder to find their niche. After all, for most kids it's not a matter of finding a place to hide and study to avoid drinking (which is relatively easy to do) but rather of finding people to socialize with who don't depend on drinking or drugs to make their socializing fun. And of course that can be done, usually via shared interests, but it's more of a challenge to find that rather specialized zone (for college kids) of having fun while sober, especially as a first-year.</p>
<p>In response to one of your questions: Neither of my children thought much about level of drinking and drug use at the schools they applied to; they were interested in having fun at the "best" possible schools they could get into and assumed that all would work out in terms of balancing social life with academics. InterestedDad's five rules of college are pretty much the key--the point is, just don't do anything irrevocable. That doesn't preclude doing some pretty silly things though. My son drank little if at all in high school but when we visited him for family weekend in the autumn of his freshman year at a selective LAC, he and his roommate had decorated their common room with a vast wall unit filled with an amazing array of beer bottles from all sorts of picturesque brewers; I assume they had consumed at least some of the contents themselves. The school had and has a fairly permissive attitude toward alcohol; junior advisors were trained to make sure kids who were potentially dangerously drunk got to the infirmary, and drunkenness was not handled as a punitive matter. </p>
<p>My daughter, now in her first year at another LAC, was more social than her brother in high school, but her friends were, if not nondrinking, not primarily identified as a drinking group. She was eager to go to parties at college (though I'm not sure that she fully realized the extent of alcohol use that implies), and the college she attends is one of those classic work hard/play hard environments. Interestingly, she says there is virtually no drug use, though there clearly is a substantial drinking culture, which she aknowledges. She also says about half the students don't "go out"; the question of whether those students find each other and form a cohesive and active social unit is one I don't yet have the answers to.</p>
<p>Drinking was a huge issue with my daughter. So much so, in fact, that she decided to go to a Christian College where students that drink or smoke, etc. are the odd ones out. She says she enjoys not having to be concerned with that aspect of college life. Her friends that are at other colleges have been able to find like minded non-partying friends at colleges all over the place, including ones that have the party school reputation.</p>
<p>BTW, U of D has a definate party school rep as does Gettysburg. Anything that I've read about Gettysburg talks about the dominance of greek life - but I've heard the food is excellent. : )</p>
<p>Everyone above has been right - you will find drinking and drugs everywhere you go - its just a fact. But if you dont' want to drink, smoke, inhale, whatever you dont' have to. I don't drink any hard alcohol because i can't stand the taste, and have never done drugs, and I keep myself busy 24/7. I think the fact that the hours of sleep I've gotten this week can be counted on my hands.
Your son should go wherever he feels most comfortable, but don't base that solely on alcohol/drugs.</p>
<p>You've all been very thoughtful in your replies. Wish I'd found this site sooner, but it's good to have the input and resource now that S. is in the final stretch. </p>
<p>My advice to him so far is to choose the school where he thinks he can learn the most, and that includes all aspects of campus life. If something is going to distract him, e.g., not feeling he fits in well, or too much emphasis on something he's not interested in, then he needs to take that into account in his decision.<br>
Thanks to Carolyn for her concrete suggestions and to I.Dad for his 5 rules--I might add, "Find something you love to do (that won't get you arrested! : )"</p>
<p>Re. Carolyn's comments on Beloit. S had an earlier overnight there and found it to be exactly as she noted. The admin. treats students as adults re. alcohol and for the most part students act accordingly. My guess is that it's the kind of kids who like Beloit that makes the policy work. There was a kid that drank that night, but not over the top and there were more that didn't. It seemed reasonable and tempered. </p>
<p>Re. the more recent visit--it was Denison. I suspect he was uncomfortable more because he didn't feel he fit in with the kids there and the amount of drinking and the drug offer was evidence of that. I had the same thought: why in heavens name didn't the admin do a better job of selecting hosts, but then as I.Dad noted, it's certainly better to know it going in, than have an artificial experience and find out after he'd accepted admission. </p>
<p>Thanks again all.</p>
<p>As a parent of two intelligent college age girls, I consider myself fairly open eyed and with it.
I am continually astonished by the conduct of young women on college campuses. After my generation fighting so hard for sexual equality and advancement in workplace , the girls of this generation seem to willingly place themselves in situations which set women BACK, to days of sex object status. Again I am NOT a holyroller, however, the idea that girls eagerly pimp themselves all over college campuses and drink themselves into oblivion is sad.
Look at the facebook pictures and search groups of some of these colleges, as well as community webshots website, search a college name and you will find a PLETHERA of drunk girls squeezing their ample bustlines and photographing themselves in Vickies bras and thongs... in more than suggestive poses. Why?
This can get into a long discussion of date rape... however as a parent of girls which are astonished by this behavior, I have concern and empathy for parents of sons that are accused of unwelcome behavior.</p>
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The admin. treats students as adults re. alcohol and for the most part students act accordingly. My guess is that it's the kind of kids who like Beloit that makes the policy work. There was a kid that drank that night, but not over the top and there were more that didn't. It seemed reasonable and tempered.
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<p>If you can find that scenario is a college, I would give it a lot of weight in the decision making process because it is suggestive of an effective self-governing campus community that is probably working well on a variety of levels.</p>
<p>This whole issue is a difficult one. I don't think many of us are pollyannas. I certainly don't think there is anything wrong with college kids drinking beer in appropriate ways. Where it crosses the line is when the drinking on campus is so pervasive that it makes life miserable for kids who do not "drink 'til they puke" on a routine basis. The danger signs for this kind of school are high numbers of alcohol poisoning hospitalizations, etc.</p>