<p>This is a great site when researching colleges.<br>
1. Type in the name of the institution you are researching
2. click "search"
3. Click on your choice of specific campus
4. Now this is the important part that many people don't realize. Click on--
ARRESTS & DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS. This is where you can find the alcohol incidences.
5. Compare the number to the student population. In other words, for example:
200 alcohol disciplinary actions on a campus of 2000 students is different
than 200 alcohol disciplinary actions on a campus of 6000 students.</p>
<p>It's not. It simply tells you whether a campus has decided to take disciplinary actions or not, whether they make use of local law enforcement or not, and whether they actually count or not.</p>
<p>In many cases, you will find, given your #5, the lower the ratio, the larger the alcohol problem on campus (which can be ascertained through data from the Core Survey from Southern Illinois University, or the survey from the Harvard School of Public Health).</p>
<p>How can you not find this useful? You're correct in that it doesn't show every alcohol disciplinary action or referral but it does show those that were counted. Obviously, if they're admitting to----let's say 310 alcohol infractions-----there are many more that were never recorded. At least this site can give parents an idea of the campus. It's not perfect but it's more info than you would get if you were to ask an admissions officer.</p>
<p>It doesn't do anything of the kind. In a campus where the binge drinking rate is 50% in the past two weeks (i.e. Williams) - according to the college's own surveys - or 9% of the student body had an alcohol blackout in the past month (i.e. Duke), the number of "alcohol infractions" per month would number in the thousands.</p>
<p>It doesn't tell you ANYTHING (and actually less than you could get from an admissions officer if you simply asked him or her whether the campus' "work hard, play hard" image is justified). (It doesn't tell you anything about rape or sexual assault either.)</p>
<p>I don't trust any such statistics anymore. I've been at two universities now where they GREATLY underreported crimes. We knew of happenings and when you saw the monthly reports, the quarterly reports, they never showed up (e.g. rapes on campus, large break ins). These were tings you come to know happened as faculty (it's your place of work). </p>
<p>Unless required by law, it's not in their interest. Moreover, as with any data coming from colleges and going out for public consumption, there are many ways to slice and dice it to make some things count and others not.</p>
<p>nysmile, I agree with you. I've checked the info before my son applied. I was more interested in robberies, assaults, etc. Campuses are required to report crime statistics under the Jeanne Cleary Act. Of course, there will be some alcohol vioations that aren't reported. The fact that a school has a higher rate of violations could also just mean that they're better at enforcing the law. Either way, it's still useful information.</p>
<p>Wildly inconsistent data can't be very useful data, and everything I have heard indicates that the data in these reports are wildly inconsistent. Colleges have different thresholds for reporting incidents, different definitions of what constitutes on-campus or not, and very different approaches to student-on-student crime (much of which goes unreported anyway).</p>
<p>How can data about alcohol violations be useful if you don't know whether the college has a big alcohol problem or a hair-trigger reporting standard (or conversely no alcohol problem or completely lax enforcement)? You could look at the figures for two colleges, one with lots of incidents and one with very few, and have no idea in the world which one has a more toxic alcohol culture. Unless, of course, the one with few incidents is an isolated, residential campus with high percentages of fraternity members and high income students, and not closely affiliated with a completely teetotaling religious sect. In that case, it would be likely that the lack of incident reporting indicated a big problem.</p>
<p>A campus of 2000 students and a 50%-two week binge drinking rate, and a 25% heavy drinking rate will, over 30 weeks, have upwards of 40,000 "alcohol infractions". That's just for the binge and heavy drinking incidents - I haven't even touched everyone else. So, over the course of the year, there are more than 50,000 alcohol violations on each of these campuses. Now take a look at two schools whose surveys report such data and you'll find one listing 136 alcohol infractions, and another listing 320. </p>
<p>Did you learn ANYTHING from the reported data? (I deal with alcohol and drug data professionally, and I'm telling you that if you give any credence at all to this data, there's a bridge I'd like to sell you.)</p>
<p>It's even worse when it comes to rapes and sexual assaults.</p>