My D is a junior at Boulder right now. They need to be smart. She parties, but does NOT go to the frat parties at all because she says they are just too wild. I would stay away from those for sure.
My friend’s D went to UC San Diego, and it was so bad there she had to buy “test strips” for her D to dip into drinks to make sure they weren’t spiked as several of her friends were drugged. I hear the same issue at University at Oregon - quite a bit of police activity on campus. Tulane just released figures that are startling as well. My point is - there are problems everywhere. And I have to believe that a lot of this are sheltered kids going away and just going crazy. I saw that happen 30 years ago when I was in college as well. This is not a Boulder-only problem.
The housing definitely is crazy there. My D is lucky enough to live in the sorority house - it’s easy and close to campus. She has friends who rent tiny apartments for a lot of money. I bet the same issue happens at San Francisco State, or NYU, or Tulane or SMU. This is not a Boulder only-issue either. Boulder is a great small town that definitely has some big town problems. But I honestly would not think twice about sending any of my kids there as long as the fit is right (not right for my D#3 - too big). And I think she’s getting a good education too. Everyone’s experience is different.
Wouldn’t private schools have more legal leeway in terms of being able to restrict their students from joining unaffiliated off-campus organizations, compared to public schools?
There are 11 fraternities affiliated with CU (3 MCGC, 5 NPHC, 3 CU-IFC):
https://www.colorado.edu/greeks/fraternity-life
There are 19 fraternities affiliated with the off-campus IFC on the Hill that are not affiliated with CU.
https://www.coloradoifc.org/chapters
There are 2 fraternities that were expelled from the off-campus IFC on the Hill.
@ucbalamnus Thats a great question. I will try to find out the answer. I was surprised that MIT could do that because the students were living off campus in a private home, but the current President at MIT is very tough on drugs. MIT also closed down an undergrad living group on campus called Senior House for many reasons including drug sales (cocaine) inside the dorm that were detected by Boston police. Senior House also had an unhealthy culture in my opinion, with a lot of older Boston alumni involvement. I don’t honestly know what CU Boulder’s legal abilities are but I could think of drastic measures:
No open alcohol at Football games? OK boo me out of the room! Football is a big alumni draw at CU Boulder.
Alcohol is sold with the fancy hot dogs, and I have worked as a food worker to raise money for a local high school orchestra trip serving alcohol to disgruntled CU fans and happy Nebraska fans over the years. The local high schools actually get a % of CU Football foot sales if they run the food courts at CU for the football season. No underage kids
serve alcohol at least.
@MomTwo2 thanks for your additional clarifying comments. I like to keep track of CU events, as I do advise students locally, and I hope that your daughter can find a way to make it work out. I do agree that its very rare for undergrads to stay in RAPS for four years. Shared house situations are less expensive than 12 month lease in fancy condos
that some wealthy parents do pay for, and all of these options are off campus. I hope that the additional Williams Village Housing to be built in the next few years, will help. I know you believe its too far, but its actually closer than most students I know who live far east on Colorado Avenue for instance, near the Foothills Parkway. There is a third research campus over east. Williams Village is closer than that campus area.
@MomTWO2 I do agree that its good to be aware of the pitfalls in Boulder. Just to clarify, not to be snarky, daughter does not have to avoid athletic events. She needs to avoid drinking at football games. Sealed water bottles only, I would say are safe at football games. There are many clubs, sports, and service clubs to keep busy at CU, as well, and believe me the scandals at CU have been ongoing and it will not affect California applicants that much, who
are comparing Boulder to the larger, even more adult behavior savvy students at San Diego, UCLA etc. Remember, California students are shut out of their own in state system if they do not have ten AP classes under their belts, so Boulder is where they can get in, as well. Boulder is in no danger of having this minor crime and ongoing drug issues affect the schools reputation, in my opinion, and in fact more and more international students are clamoring to get in, and its growing.
I can only remember one shooting on the Hill in the last twenty years, it was drug related. And a student from New Hampshire got killed. It was bad…
But I do hear troubling stories about drug use, about freshman dorms dumping at 3 am when a drunk student sets off fire alarms, and all sorts of other behaviors that may not really be what a parent wants to pay for.
We did avoid Boulder with our sons.
@JenJenJenJen You ask a good question. I don’t know , see answer above. I may write to President Benson. While he is transitioning to retirement i know he really cares about CU Boulder and all the campuses he runs. He may have answers about fraternities and their ability to advertise. Its confusing at best, the relationship of CU to the fraternities.
I seriously do believe that CU Boulder offers a very good academic experience for many students in science and engineering and some other fields. I think the fine arts, dance, and music are all strong. There are plenty of service clubs, club sports, international clubs, business clubs, ski clubs, religious activities. CU Boulder has a STRONG Roman Catholic community, see Thomas Aquinas Church ! There is a Lutheran group, many Jewish groups too,
and I believe students go to these services and get something out of them. . I do know boys who live in Longmont to avoid the drinking. My sons do go to parties in Boulder over the years, so I hear about them, but they both did not want to to attend CU. (both got in with small merit scholarships ) With that, I believe faculty largely care, the city is beautiful and has very little crime, apart from the Hill and remember your student does NOT have to go to the Hill.
Pearl Street Mall is safe even at 10 pm, I have been there and feel fine there. 29th Street Mall and shopping area, I eat there weekly, completely safe. All parts of campus beside the Hill mostly safe. I walk around campus at night frequently, it is safe to walk say from the Math building over to the parking on 26th Street, I do that myself and I am not strong and do not carry mace.
The Hill is a place I have had lunch and its fine at lunch time. I do go to the Hill at lunch
would not go at night, without some other person with me, probably. I don’t find the Hill overly scary,
compared to say parts of Cleveland.
Boulder is a city with a lot of federal research labs and a lot of educated people. Is there drug crime? Yes.
but not so overwhelming that I feel afraid to walk around Boulder.
Just to be clear, The Hill is a commercial district in Boulder, its not really that big of an area, but
it is adjacent to the CU Boulder campus. Its got some good student restaurants, and its fine during the day.
At night The Hill changes. It seems more edgy. However a student does NOT ever have to go to The Hill
and can still get a CU degree and go to classes and clubs that meet on campus. Williams Village is not
close at all to The Hill. Williams Village is a residential area of campus thats south of the main campus.
Read this to get a feel for The Hill and look at a map to locate Williams Village, and then just go into this knowing
that freshman dorms are going to have a lot of social drinking and drug using behaviors. A RAP is safer
for freshman year.
http://www.thehillboulder.com
This explains the history of Fraternities at CU Boulder. Interesting, I did not know all of this story.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/07/27/university-colorado-boulder-adding-back-fraternities
I need to chime in for a bit as I really think the safety aspect is being over blown. I wouldn’t hesitate to walk around the Hill at night and have done so quite often. I would expect to encounter a higher concentration of students holding red solo cups the closer to campus I ventured. The upper part of the Hill is predominantly non-students. I know dozens of kids who go to school at CU - some extremely studious, some not. I would say that those looking for the more studious types might look into the Honors RAP. The advice I’d give my daughter isn’t any different than what I used 20+ years ago - when it comes to drinking and parties and it’s pretty much the same advice I’d give her at any college she’d choose to attend.
@Coloradomama
[quote]
and believe me the scandals at CU have been ongoing and it will not affect California applicants that much, who are comparing Boulder to the larger, even more adult behavior savvy students at San Diego, UCLA etc.
[quote]
I don’t understand what you mean here - are you saying UCSD and UCLA are larger than CU Boulder and the students at these UCs are more “adult behavior savvy” than at CU Boulder? I am not sure there’s any basis to make that claim.
Incorrect. Yes, some of the UCs may be highly competitive to get into (but ten AP courses are not required), but there are 9 UCs and 23 CSUs, many of which are much less competitive to get into. And there is a robust community college to UC or CSU pathway that many take.
Going out-of-state to CU Boulder is mainly an option for California students from wealthier families, due to cost and financial aid reasons.
Hint: public universities are part of the government and therefore more constitutionally restricted in what limits they can put on their students (with respect to things like speech, religion, peaceable assembly, etc.) than private universities.
@ucbalumnus I do not think that is the reason U of Colorado allows fraternities to join back
into their campus fold. . U of Colorado is very much about donations from alumni.
Because Colorado does not have a big state budget, the funds are only there for buildings, and not really there for hiring the best teachers, and thus the legislature and taxpayers in Colorado do not offer U of Colorado much money to run, the alumni do, though!
The administrators have their hands tied, and need alumni donations. Fraternities increase loyalty and donations, as does a winning football team. Unfortunately, thats the answer I have for now. If anyone else wants to contact President Bruce Benson, please do ask about the fraternity relationship with CU. I think you will find that CU is not at all concerned with a few spiked drinks, and much more concerned with alumni donors and making sure they have good memories of their college years,as well as football games that entertain, as many alumni stay in Boulder, Denver or Colorado Springs. Its the reality of higher education funding in the state of Colorado.
Governor Jared Polis would like to see that change. However Colorado voters may not cooperate.
@CAtransplant. I get my information from talking to parents in California, and talking to parents and faculty at UCLA, UCSD. Colorado is much more conservative state overall, for sex, drugs, and drinking, believe it or not. I know Boulder is an exception to that rule, but the rest of Colorado is quite conservative. Even Fort Collins families, (college town up north ) are very conservative, and many will send kids to CU Boulder. so I believe CU Boulder is a little more tame than any school on the west coast, but that is an opinion. The very religious west coast schools like Pepperdine do attract a much more conservative student body though.
I suppose we could look at drinking deaths as one measure but may not be the measure I was thinking of. We could look at the rate of student pregnancy and abortion? We could look at drug arrests, but I have not studied this carefully, so I don’t know for sure, which public school is higher for any of these measures.
Colorado raises more or less conservative and , sheltered kids. Of course many want to grow up fast, and do, once they leave home. Many Coloradans attend church, synagogue, Mosque, and discourage teens from having sex. That does not mean
they listen, but sex is really discouraged here, I would say for high school students.
Colorado public high schools have a much more sheltered approach to sex ed and teaches abstinence, believe it or not. The majority
of California public schools have the most liberal approach to sex ed. and a more sexually experienced student body, of high school students, is my opinion.
Certainly students at UCLA, seem to agree, that things are moving pretty fast there, but there are a mix
of students in all these schools.
The fraternities at CU did not want to meet the conditions set by the university to become student organizations again. One of the biggest sticking points was having to have a ‘house parent’ live in the house. Several of the fraternities have very small houses with only 8-12 guys living in them and it wouldn’t be financially doable to have a room or suite set aside for another adult. I don’t know if any of the 3 fraternities accepting the conditions to return as a campus actually have houses, as not all the fraternities do. My nephew was in a fairly large fraternity, but they only had a small house for the officers (and those guys might have just rented a house and called it ‘the frat house’) and he never lived there but lived on the Hill for 3 years. The sorority houses all have house mothers living in them. The sororities cannot have alcohol in the houses by national agreement (and they do not) so the university setting those conditions was no big deal. The frats didn’t give up much to remain separate from the student organizations on campus (an office, getting to use university meeting rooms at a reduced rate).
The city of Boulder has very strict housing laws and new construction laws. In single family housing, no more than 4 unrelated persons can live together. (the existing sorority/frat houses are grandfathered in) My nephew is currently living with his ‘brother’ and 3 other guys. Obviously the landlord knows they aren’t brothers, but is willing to overlook it for one, but wouldn’t for 6 or 7 kids sharing the house.
Harvard just ‘banned’ single sex organizations of any kind, on or off campus. Even though the sororities were off campus organizations, the school said that any member would not be able to get a letter of recommendation for grad school or an award if the student was a member of such an evil organization. The student could not be a captain of a sports team or officer of any student organization. I believe all 4 of the national sororities have closed their chapters. It seems sad that Harvard doesn’t feel their students have enough maturity to decide who they want to socialize with off campus and Harvard students are just can’t behave in single sex social settings. These horrible students were being nominated for noble prizes and Rhodes scholarships and medical schools, but they can’t be trusted to work on service projects with their friends and fellow Harvard students without the college supervising. I do not know if Harvard also prohibits members of the Elks club or Knights of Columbus, the Gay Men’s chorus, or DAR from getting recommendations, but the way I read the ban, students would not be allowed to be in those single sex groups and still be captain of the soccer team or get a recommendation for a Fulbright. I’m glad CU thought I was mature enough to be a girl scout and still be an officer of a school club.
MIT does have sororities so I don’t know what was banned. Maybe just living off campus? Harvard sororities did not have houses off campus, just meeting space. That was way too wild.
Oh, the Colorado legislature is NOT going to fund more construction at CU so that more kids can live on campus. First, there isn’t any more room on campus. Second, there are dozens of other state schools that need funding too. There is not extra money from marijuana sales. Colorado needs roads and medical care and k-12 education. The state legislature doesn’t care if CU students have to live off campus and pay a lot because Boulder is expensive.
@Coloradomama ok, I just was quite surprised to see UCSD characterized that way. I don’t have a kid there but have toured it twice, and as a California parent, the reputation there is very studious and very little partying. I’ve even heard it nicknamed “UC Socially Dead” though I think as with all stereotypes that is probably an exaggeration. I’ve just heard a lot more about partying at CU Boulder than at UCSD.
San Diego State, big party school, UC San Diego not so much.
However, CU, as a public school, cannot prohibit or restrict students from joining completely off campus unrecognized and unaffiliated fraternities, like some private schools have done (whether or not they have recognized or affiliated fraternities). Private schools can, if they want, have much more control over their fraternity scenes because they can prohibit students from joining fraternities that do not follow their rules.
@twoinanddone MIT has a large Greek life, both fraternities and sororities and three co ed fraternities,
including Number Six Club, mostly off campus near Boston University with a few on campus.
. MIT administrators recently,
in the last four years, closed down one fraternity in Boston, so off campus,
and one dorm on campus for drug and sex crime, drinking, etc,
related problems. The dorm was called Senior House.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2017/06/28/mit-shuts-down-a-dorm-and-grapples-with-its-identity/#3cae4e98360f
The fraternity was Lambda Chi Alpha, over in Boston, and MIT was able to force members to
move back onto campus mid semester due to violations of rules, or Massachusetts laws.
Its plausible the laws in Massachusetts are more strict than Colorado, but MIT was able to shut down
living groups that had unhealthy behaviors.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/10/31/mit-shuts-down-fraternity-house-citing-poor-conduct-members/BNLfZyAEmzAYas1o1mRbLJ/story.html
Thus, my strong sense is, U of Colorado can figure out a way to shut down fraternity parties where students are being drugged regularly, IF that is indeed happening. They may
need involve the city of Boulder police and they may need to make rules and then enforce those rules.
Police were part of the raid on MIT’s Senior House drug sails for instance. Police were called in when a weapon was found at MIT’s Senior House. Note this is a four year co ed dormitory on campus, not a fraternity, but it
had a lot of frat like parties, including Steer Roast since the 1970s.
It will not be a popular thing to use police to raid CU Boulder parties though!
. For the record many MIT alumni no longer give donations to MIT
over these housing closures. It causes a lot of hard feelings, among MIT alumni
who loved Senior House in particular, but sometimes warranted. I don’t really know
if drugging students is a serious problem at U of Colorado though.
More information,about how fraternities are shut down in Massachusetts,
it seems the National Fraternity also got involved to help MIT put an end to drinking, rapes,
and girls falling out of windows drunk. This is an off campus home owned by
the fraternity brothers, as i understand it. . So if CU girls are really being drugged,
I bet CU can work with the national fraternity organizations and shut them down.
See what MIT did, a five year ban on Lambda Chi Alpha. MIT could force these boys to vacate
the most beautiful Governor’s Mansion on Bay State Road, and force that building to not have any event with alcohol too as they have RULES for MIT students. If U of Colorado makes rules , they can enforce them.
Its reasonable to make a rule saying that students cannot drug each other. Its a crime to drug someone.
http://news.mit.edu/2014/lambda-chi-alpha-national-suspends-mit-chapter-1030