<p>Drinking is more rampant than I thought. My D is there for BDD and her host said told her group that she was taking them to a frat party and asked the kids if they all drank!!! These are 17/18 year olds. Yes I know many do, but many choose not to yet. So, my daughter politely excused herself and is NOT planning to go to school there. She was concerned about the drinking culture before she got there and I guess this confirmed it for her. Such a shame, as I thought Duke would be a good fit for her.</p>
<p>Tksmom, I am so sorry that your daughter was put in an unpleasant and unfair position.<br>
I am a graduate of Furman University which has to be one of the last holdouts for a dry campus in colleges of its category and I very much hope they cancel the dry policy (probably will do so soon) and allow over 21s to drink on campus per their own discretion, while continuing to be against underage drinking. The policy is a vestige of the religious denomination that founded the college and is in deference to the Trustees and is hotly debated. I did however enjoy having so many sober friends to age up with in life.
I also would like to think that my own sons would find drinking to be a minimal and completely unimportant part of their lives.
My Duke 09 grad on BDD…was assigned to a guy who was impaired but in another way which I can only speculate about and perhaps shouldn’t on such a brief meeting …he was simply very very odd on BDD night, and had not wanted a prospie at all and was forced to take one somehow…and he left my kid to go to a party…without anything to do and went off without him, not even leaving him a key. To say he was rude wouldn’t be fair. My High school kid could see he had other issues.
Even so, my son went to a major event on campus solo (Symphony) and he was able to see a great peer group there, and a place where he wanted to be a part of the community. He also met enough great kids in the classes he attended to make up for the blundered overnight. In fact, we saw the odd kid a few times over the years usually alone.
My son also had other choices of colleges, many of them with drinking reputations up north closer to Cornell.<br>
He found the loveliest friends at Duke immediately and made the right decision for him. We lived in a very small town where everybody knows everybody and he had not been out enough in high school to even be around the kids who were drinking.<br>
He was happy with Duke and has many friends who are not interested in drinking. </p>
<p>I do think there are colleges where drinking is less prominent that Duke and Cornell, but I do not think she will have it very different at Cornell. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, I hope her days are golden at Cornell and that she, too finds a great circle of friends to grow up with there, and I am sure she will. </p>
<p>There are great people at both schools. In the end, you really have to go on your gut instincts for these big decisions.</p>
<p>Faline I agree with your comments especially about the gut instincts. I think her gut instincts were somewhat negative throughout the day and then when the host said she was taking them to a frat party, my daughter was the only one in the group who did not drink. It just further solidified what I think her gut was telling her all day–this was not a good fit.</p>
<p>I have chatted with many amazing people on this Duke board and continue to be impressed by the personal touch that I experienced whenever I had to reach someone at Duke. I was shocked at how negative my daughter’s experience was. She was so frustrated with it that she did not even want to stay for the rest of BDD tomorrow. I just don’t think Duke was the right fit for her and she realized that after being there and interacting with people.</p>
<p>What is odd, is she did not see any evidence of underage drinking or excessive partying while at Cornell and she was there on a Friday night and Saturday–when I would expect it to be prevalent. I think she a lot of kids having fun doing non drinking stuff which was really great.</p>
<p>I am happy that she found a place that she thinks is perfect. I just really thought it would be Duke. But as the parent, what do I know?</p>
<p>Question. Should I say anything to administration about hosts taking these kids to frat parties with the intention of letting them drink? At the least, that person should not host again, but contributing to the delinquincy of a minor is a huge liability.</p>
<p>I expect that my kid will drink some when she gets to college and attends parties, but it is very risky for the admitted students too. Can’t they have thier acceptances revoked for something like this that they know they should not be doing?</p>
<p>Are there some more current students who could provide insight to this issue? I mean, I realize there is drinking at every school, but I want to make sure it is not a dominant part of the social life. I am hoping to be in a sub-free dorm my freshman year (depends on if I choose to be in a FOCUS cluster), but I do not want everyone to be out on Friday and Saturday nights partying and getting drunk. Thanks!</p>
<p>TKsmom, I hope you all will get out and focus on some of the things tomorrow that are beautiful about Duke in April even if she has already made up her mind to be part of the Big Red scene where the Cornell engineering culture seemed to beckon to her more. My son is big into the arts and into sports and Duke delivers mightily in both realms–he went abroad twice in stunningly well staffed programs with Duke and mastered a new language, served as a Duke Tour Guide and his engineering friends all got fabulous jobs in the worst recession since the depression. Others are at great schools of medicine, in the armed forces etc. </p>
<p>Maybe you will have some good memories of meeting with faculty and attending some of the events to take with you, just as we have fond memories of the schools our son declined but respected. The Sarah Duke gardens are lovely, the Nasher Museum is great, we love the all soaring Gothic glass study area attached to the library and the portrait of Reynolds Price in the upstairs vestibule there. Duke is full of nooks and crannies, and loved teachers, personalities and friends for us.
My son assures me that there are tons of kids not in frats (stats tell that tale) who are not at West frat parties. If you attend a college with a Greek life…there will be some party culture. My Duke son went Greek and handled it very well, Vandy son would be bored by that and would never spend his weekends at those functions and there are plenty of kids in second son’s camp at Duke. Students who drink are at both colleges.
However, I would never say Duke is better than Cornell at all. Isn’t Cornell engineering highly ranked? Duke has the best weather obviously! Enjoy the campus tomorrow and take some good memories with you.</p>
<p>To CollegeHappy:</p>
<p>I’m a Duke guy in a fraternity. There are a several different kinds of social scenes, but the loudest, most obvious, most “talked about” are the “top” frats and sororities. Within the Greek scene there are “tiers” that people don’t really care about but still exist. (Tiers are which frats mix and hang with which sororities; people who care too much about their social status care about ranking them). The Greek social scene is dominated by these top frats. Rush establishes which frats are “top”, as guys nobody wants get cut by the top ones and guys sought after generally go to certain frats. Same with girls but they have some computer system. That’s Greek social scene briefly.</p>
<p>There’s also the non-Greek side, which I’m not positive about but I do have a few friends that aren’t in frats or sororities. Their social scene doesn’t care about “ranks”, is way more innocent, nice, follows the rules, etc. I think they think they are throwing “ragers”, but they probably aren’t going too crazy. They probably have a more humane, ethical, satisfying social life, but without most of the “attractive”, hard-partying, wealthy, loud, Duke students. </p>
<p>My advice is this: if you drank in high school, you’ll be fine with Greek life. It won’t steal your soul if you don’t let it. If you didn’t touch much alcohol in high school, roll with non-Greek.</p>
<p>You can ask more questions about specifics if you want.</p>
<p>You can choose to drink or not to - it’s really that simple. No one judges you for whatever you choose. Remember, MOST college students don’t drink. It’s just that the frat scene is the one mentioned I guess.</p>
<p>TKsmom, just let your daughter know that there will be drinking at Cornell as well. There is relatively nothing to do in Ithaca compared to Durham, so if she thinks lots of kids at Duke drink, she’ll need to know that kids at Cornell will drink. Although she can choose not to, she won’t be able to avoid seeing the scene all together on any of these particular college campuses. I’m sorry she didnt like Duke. I’m sure she’ll thrive at Cornell.</p>
<p>TKsmom: I too am sorry about your D’s experiences. In my experience though, partying on Monday/Tuesday is really highly unusual. I’d even say that unless you are a hardcore partier, it’s unusual to do it more than once or twice a semester if not a year. </p>
<p>To be honest, if I were in your D’s shoes and this had happened to me, I would have seriously reconsidered Duke as well. I myself am not a partier and usually only have a beer or two a week at social events (actually this probably only started in the past year) so I know that if I was exposed to something like that on BDD I would have freaked. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, even though it might be too late in your D’s case I just want to say that drinking is not a mandatory activity. It a thing where if you do it then you do it, if not, then it’s OK. I don’t think I’ve ever had a situation where people pressured me to drink or where people talked about drinking like it was a big deal. Most people here treat it as a personal choice and a non-topic. The closest thing I would compare it to would be whether or not one is getting financial aid. It’s just not that interesting of a topic and frankly I doubt anyone really cares enough to exert peer pressure or anything like that. </p>
<p>But, while I am sorry that your D didn’t think Duke was for her, I’m glad that she has found a place that she liked. In that sense I suppose the purpose of going to these school visits has been realized. Best of luck to her in the future.</p>
<p>I think it’s kind of funny how most posts are by parents, not by students actually looking for a college. Message to parents: unless you are sending your kid to Brigham Young, they are going to a college that drinks. Learn to accept it and try to teach responsible drinking. You can’t choose a college based on anecdotal partying opinions</p>