<p>So I've been accepted into Dartmouth and academically/location-wise it is currently my first choice. Now, as I'm sure everyone knows, Dartmouth has a reputation as a frat-dominated school. My father went to a school with substantial Greek life and his take was that not all fraternities are created equal. Some were for hardcore drinking and partying whereas other preferred to drink but in a controlled manner. My main fear is that all or the vast majority of the Greek life at Dartmouth will be of the hardcore variety and that there won't be much of a place for someone like me who wants to drink but not end up passed out or participate in vomit contests. I'm in a difficult situation because my next choice, Swarthmore, is of the anti-partying variety (as I witnessed when I visited), and nowhere on CC can I find an answer to this. </p>
<p>So does anyone know whether or not some of the Dartmouth Greek life is moderate? Or is it all hardcore?</p>
<p>You don’t have to join a frat at Dartmouth if you don’t want to. My daughter graduated this past June and she did just fine at Dartmouth without ever joining a Greek organization. In any case I asked her your question to get her perspective, and this is her reply:</p>
<p>“they are all pretty over the top, but its more that there are moderate people within every frat, people who arent as interested in all the debauchery and are more interested in gaining a new group of friends and having a social circle. so i would say generally within every frat there are those boys who want to party hard and go crazy and stay up until 3 every night and then there are those boys who will hang out and party on the weekends, but dont let the frat run their lives. of course, there are some frats who have a higher concentration of moderate people (like AXA, pauls frat or SigEp, tommys frat) and some with a higher concentration of crazy partiers, but i do believe the experience is really what you make of it.”</p>
<p>For CP333: the answer lies in yourself. Dartmouth gives one almost pure freedom to discover who you are and who you are capable of becoming. Dartmouth does not try to impose a scripted set of personal moral imperatives on its students. Dartmouth trusts that its students are intelligent enough to deal with freedom. Dartmouth is about the development of personal responsibility in a free society. </p>