<p>I was curious about the schools my son is interested in, so I pulled up the crime sheets for all of them. If the statistics are to be believed they are quite eye-opening. There was quite a range for arrests and disciplinary actions for underage drinking as well as quite a range for car theft. For example, at Bucknell, a school of only 3600 students there were 290 liquor law arrests and 104 liquor law disciplinary actions. Contrast this with Northwestern. With over 17000 students there were only 3 arrests and 388 disciplinary actions. Not only does this give me cause for concern about the amount of drinking going on at Bucknell, but I would also worry about my son graduating with an arrest record if he participates.</p>
<p>The statistics for car theft seem more related to the number of students and perhaps the number of cars on campus. For example, Cal Poly at 17500 students had 11 car thefts (combined on and off campus) and Northwestern at 17700 students had 9 car thefts.</p>
<p>I highly recommend checking out this website and drawing your own conclusions.</p>
<p>We have a number of colleges in a city near us and how they get around the crime statistics is to not report them.They are reported to their on campus security but not to local police and it appears their statistics look better.There is also the issue of how far the campus extends and off campus apartments.</p>
<p>I would recommend caution when trying to use the crime stats to assess a college's alcohol/drug culture. Some colleges are very lenient and the stats may be low, while others may have a smaller problem but are more aggressive in enforcement.</p>
<p>I don't mean to imply that Bucknell or Northwestern fall into either of these categories.</p>
<p>The two best ways to assess a college's alcohol/drug culture is to ask the college alcohol and drug officer (every college has them - they are required by federal statute) for the data from their most recent alcohol/drug survey. It is public information, virtually every college has it, but most aren't willing to publicize it. The second way is to do a Thursday overnight. </p>
<p>As for crime, on-campus rapes, sexual assaults, assaults, and theft are closely associated with binge and heavy drinking rates. And there are many, many more rapes, sexual assaults, assaults, and thefts committed by students on each other than anything from the outside. Most are never reported to police.</p>
<p>Mini, could you give us a bit more explanation on the alcohol/drug surveys? What type of data will we receive and how easy is it to interpret? </p>
<p>I would guess that most of us would need to spend a great deal of time looking at data from many colleges. I would also be concerned that the data would tend to look good for those colleges where alcohol and/or drug use is considered normal and acceptable.</p>
<p>My D did the Thursday night or even more extended visits. She also seemed to be able to get a lot of information through internet contacts. I guess there was some value from the countless hours spent on emails and IM's.</p>
<p>There are two major national surveys of alcohol/drug use on campus - one from the Harvard School of Public Health (usually known as "Wechsler"), the other from Southern Illinois University. Occasionally, there are schools that do their own surveys in addition. The surveys, which usually include upwards of 50% of the campus in the sample, include information on binge drinking, heavy drinking (two or more drinks nearly every day, or bingeing 3-4 times in the past two weeks), moderate drinking, abstinence, drug use including frequency and type of drugs used, demographic information, and a lot more. Most of the schools have this information going back 15-20 years, so they are able to follow trends. The surveying agencies are not allowed to release the information on individual schools, but the schools themselves can (and sometimes do); and, if asked, they have to.</p>
<p>The most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) is a face-to-face survey. The most recent survey indicates that 45% of college students binged in the past two weeks, and 19% engaged in "heavy drinking". Drug use is associated with a high alcohol use - it is a myth that high drug use schools are low alcohol use schools and vice versa.</p>
<p>But in reality you don't need the data on individual schools. They are factors specifically associated with higher than average alcohol use: rural; 4-year; co-ed; residential (few commuters); wealthier students; heavy participation in spectator sports; non-religious; high percentages of frat/sorority participation; heavily white. If you see a school with 8 of these 9 characteristics, you can be pretty sure that there is higher than average binge drinking. (In my state, where I have all the data on individual schools, there isn't a single exception.)</p>
<p>Higher binge rates are associated with blackouts. Aaron White at Duke found that 9.4% of the student body had experienced an alcohol-related blackout in the past month. Blackouts are also associated with rape, sexual assault, assault, etc.</p>
<p>Binge drinking is NOT directly associated with future alcoholism or alcohol problems; heavy drinking is. Roughly 60% of heavy drinkers will experience alcoholism or alcohol problems at some point in their lives. So, on average, at a school with 19% heavy drinkers, roughly 12% will become alcoholics/experience serious alcohol problems if they aren't already.</p>
<p>When considering alcohol use while picking a school, I think you need to ask yourself whether your child is definitely going to be a nondrinker or whether your child is likely to drink if placed in an environment where drinking is common (and how you feel about that, too).</p>
<p>Both of my kids were definitely going to be nondrinkers. One cannot drink because of a medical condition, the other has a horror of anything that could cause her to not be in complete control of herself (to the point that she is afraid of sedatives and narcotic painkillers, even when medically necessary).</p>
<p>For kids like mine, all you really need is a large school. At a large school, say 10,000 or more, even if 90% of the population drinks, there are a thousand or more kids who don't, and another thousand or two who only drink occasionally or moderately. You really only need 15 or 20 friends. There are plenty of people to choose from.</p>
<p>Both of my kids recognized that they would be in the minority at their colleges as nondrinkers. (They both attend colleges that meet most of mini's criteria for higher-than-average alcohol use.) But they have friends. They have things to do. They are not unhappy, socially. </p>
<p>If the kid selecting colleges is a committed nondrinker, I would worry more about the Bucknells of this world -- which are so small that a nondrinker might feel really left out -- than a larger school like Northwestern.</p>
<p>That seems quite reasonable to me, especially if there are sections of campus or housing communities where substance use isn't the norm. And one must feel comfortable being among a smallish minority.</p>
<p>However, and this is the kicker, more than 45% of high school students who report they plan to be abstinent when they get to college, actually start drinking when they get there. (However - the however to the however - and contrary to popular myth - they have very significantly lower rates of both binge and heavy drinking than students who did so in high school.)</p>
<p>Depends what you mean by "drink". Abstinence rates at the vast majority of non-religious schools are 15-25%. No, off the top of my head, I can't name a single non-religious school where a majority of the student body are tea-totalers. But there are lots of non-religious schools where combined moderate drinkers and abstainers make up the bulk of the population. You are right to start with the women's colleges - Wellesley, Smith, Mills, Mount Holyoke, and (I think - I've never seen the data) Barnard. Urban schools, even non-religious ones. Schools with lots of commuters, or financially poorer students. Schools with high percentages of African-American, Asian, and Hispanic students (in that order). Community colleges.</p>
<p>And policies DO make a difference. There are several dozen schools which have successfully reduced binge and heavy drinking. It takes time, money, and effort, and, more critically, an end to denial, firstly, that there is a problem, and, secondly, that they can actually do something about it.</p>