@wisteria100 I know. We know kids who went to Carleton and two who are there now. At least s19 will be able to get good info from kids who grew up in our town. It’s harder to discern a school’s vibe when you don’t know anyone personally there.
Someone also mentioned this, but I do think kids go in phases in college too and so it’s not ‘arrive interested in parties and always stay that way’ nor is it "arrive not ever drinking and stay that way.’ Four years at this age is a lot of time of development and growth.
My D who was valedictorian, NMF, 4.0, blah blah was not interested in or comfortable with high school parties and never attended a single one. Now that she’s surround by other really dedicated, smart students at a top LAC I think she feels more comfortable exploring her more social side b/c she’s doing so in an environment where she’s with her people. So for her that means going to parties and having a drink on occasion. She’s not getting drunk tho I know some first-years are doing that. She’s also mentioned that it’s mostly first-years and sophomores at the parties – another indication that kids evolve and mature.
But again, I do think the environment at her college is ‘you be you’ and not peer pressure to party. And as has been said again and again, lots of different social scenes to enjoy.
Honestly, I don’t think it matters what school you attend, there is always going to be some type of drinking culture on campus. My oldest attends UofSC and I have been to many of the football games, and the aforementioned tailgates, and yes, there is tons of alcohol freely flowing around. But, not everyone drinks, and even those that do, don’t always drink to excess. They do have a reputation of being one of the best tailgating schools in the nation, and where there is a tailgate, there is always alcohol. My daughter has managed to get through to her senior year unscathed and can legally drink now, and although she enjoys a little wine every now and again, her almost perfect GPA is way more important to her. She has found a niche of friends and just because she does not like to party, it does not make her an outcast.
My middle daughter is a freshman at Duke and yes, there are lots of parties to be had there as well. But, there are also tons of like minded students just like my daughter who enjoy doing other things on the weekends to wind down. During Hurricane Florence when classes where cancelled and campus was shut down, instead of attending a “hurricane party” her and many of her friends binge watched Disney movies and played nerdy trivia games. Now that basketball season is starting up, her free time is spent planning and coordinating what time to get in line for home games and who she wants to tent with come January for the big UNC game. She is also one of the students that host those that do overnight visits and has hosted several ED prospects so far. I am sure that she gave them a whirlwind tour and unique prospective of the campus and life that can be had at Duke.
Both of these schools are in large, urban cities that have plenty of other things to do on the weekend as well, so there is no shortage of things to do for those that do not wish to party all the time. I am sure that once your son gets his acceptances, and visits his favorites, that more clarity will come into play and he will find his place. We live right down the road from Davidson (drive through there all the time when traffic is bad on the interstate) and it is a lovely campus and town. I tried to get both of my girls to apply there, but it was way too close. 
It’s been stated multiple times upthread, but once more:
Let’s say 33⅓% (an extraordinarily high rate) of the students at a college use drugs—that means ⅔s of them don’t.
Or, playing it another way, let’s say that 80% (higher than any published numbers I’ve ever seen) of the students at a college drink multiple alcoholic beverages weekly. That means that on any given week, even at a small 2,000-student college, there are 400 students who are either drinking very moderately or not at all.
This whole discussion strikes me as an overblown moral panic, honestly.
You say that as if someone else’s drinking has no impact on surrounding nondrinkers, though. Anyone who remembers when airplanes had smoking sections knows that the behavior of a small group can negatively impact the larger group.
Something to consider (maybe was mentioned upthread): It can be hard for a kid to say “I didn’t like that school but I don’t know why”, especially if the school is a parental favorite. A natural work-around is to find a negative that he knows would be a concern for the parental units. He could visit a different school and be exposed to the same things but if the school was the right fit for him, he would never mention the exact same negative experience.
Just leave it at : you will click with some schools and not with others. Don’t push for specific reasons because he might even change his mind if he goes back to visit after acceptances. When it comes to LACs, the heart knows what it wants. Don’t overthink it.
@hopewhite25: Significant differences are that both of your young adult students are at National Universities (larger & more varied student bodies) and located in urban areas which make other options readily available ( as you noted in your above post).
@RandyErika Can you name the college with all the great activities and trips to go karting, etc? Sounds great
That’s fine, but what if you have already limited the group you are likely to hang out with because of other thing like religion, race, sex, sexual preference? Out of those 400 non-drinkers, how many are going to be in your ‘target’ group with similar interests? I know plenty of people who want a critic mass of Jews so their kids will have someone to date (doesn’t always work out that way), or want other URM of the same race.
Now I think you have to be willing to try new things in college, meet people from different backgrounds, not put everyone into categories. I didn’t want to go to college with a whole bunch of kids who were just like me. I also think there are a LOT of parents of high school students who think their kids will not want to party in college and then next thing you know that kid is dressed like a banana and cheering at a football game on TV.
Each one of the 5 high schools I, my husband, and our three kids attended had less than 400 kids total. Somehow we never had trouble making plenty of friends. The concern that a kid can’t find friends at a small school or that a non-drinker can’t be friends with drinkers is overblown.
Whether the school’s social life and resources revolve around partying is a different matter.
@citymama9 It’s Moravian College, in Bethlehem, PA (the 6th oldest college in the US). The activities are organized by the Moravian Activities Council (MAC), a student run organization. It’s been a lot of fun for DD, and a great alternative to the drinking scene for her.
I’ll see your question, and raise you with one of my own: What if you didn’t limit your circle to only the non-drinkers? Out of those 1600 (to go back to my postulated numbers), how many are going to actually be a problem for you to be friends with?
I didn’t drink alcohol in college. Ever. Most of my friends did, some to excess. It’s not like it was a problem for them or me—so why the assumption it automatically will for a non-drinking student in 2018?
@homerdog I live about 1/2 hr. away from Carleton. While I am sure that students drink, smoke pot, and generally act like all round idiots there at times, I would by no means say that that is what defines the school. It is certainly not known as a “party school”. In other words, I don’t think that Carleton has more of a substance problem than any other elite LAC, and possibly less than some. It simply isn’t a place ruled by frats, or mobs of drunken students.
S1 visited numerous times, and would’ve happily gone there, but ended up going to a completely different school.
@Sue22 I agree 110%. I went to a small Catholic U in Philly, & it was a huge party school. It was to the point that the majority of students (except a few friends in honors) were coming to class high and/or hung over. It was part of the reason I ended up transferring.
One year, one of mine lived in a quiet dorm (or maybe on a quiet floor.) I came to see her on a Sunday, she was a long walk down a hall and never, ever had I seen such a mess before, in hallways. And that was the quiet place? (And I’ve been to plenty of dorm things, in my day, pretty crazy partying.)
If the idea is to avoid having to walk around the trash and etc, not living next door to raucous partying (even the loud whoops and shouting while a bunch watch sports games,) not going to the bathroom to find sick kids, OP is really going to need to hear some first hand reports. Maybe start a thread called, “How quiet was your “quiet” housing?”
I don’t think this issue is just about making friends. It’s as much about lifestyle.
I agree with you @dfbdfb I don’t think you should exclude those 1600 drinkers from the possible friends list but that’s what others seem to be doing. “He’ll find his tribe. There are plenty of others in the substance free dorms.” If you exclude the biggest number of students from consideration, you are making a very small group.
My daughter had a friend who was president of her sorority, president of the ME fraternity, on the Jet Car team, involved in a lot of activities. And she drank and partied with the best of them. If someone excluded her from consideration as a friend or someone to hang out with just because she was involved in Greek life and liked to party, I think he would be missing something from the college experience at that school. She was a leader and very involved. She also had a 4.0 and graduated with highest honors, and went to grad school at Columbia on a full scholarship.
I’d hate to think the only choice at a college was to party with alcohol or go to the library on a Saturday night. Those weren’t the only choices for my kids, and both were in Greek Life, sports, and studied hard. One participated in the Friday Night activities at her school (movies, ice skating, concerts, comedians, hypnotists), attended the plays, band concerts, recitals that many of her friends were in, played video games, built homecoming floats, dressed up for Halloween and gave out candy to kids in the community, did ‘24 hours of Pancakes’ and other fund
raisers. Would any of those things have been part of an overnight visit for a high school senior? Probably not.
The other was on a team and was either studying, practicing, or sleeping. In her free time, she probably was at a party where there was alcohol, by choice.
Another option is to go to a party and socialize without drinking. As my daughter, who does (legally) drink says, “No one cares if you drink.” It’s not a binary choice, between going to the library and wild bacchanalia.
@homerdog my D did an overnight with her family member at an LAC along the lines of Hamilton/Colgate etc…and there was no alcohol or partying involved…because neither one was a drinker or partier. Was there any drinking that weekend? Yes… but not by their group. I think much of this depends on the host, but I do believe there is drinking ( sometimes heavy) at many/most schools. My friend’s son is at Carleton. He doesn’t drink, but there is certainly drinking and partying around for those who want it.
I think if you do an overnight three times…you may get three different experiences. I would look at what students do on the weekend. Do they attend local concerts? Do they volunteer on Saturday afternoons late in the day… and then go out to dinner together? Kids at D’s school often hang out in a very large coffee shop on Friday nights… and local bands come and perform. My family member noted above is interested in art and creative writing… and I believe she met friends through those types of activities… they hang out together and seem to have fun without drinking.
Wow, three hours! Back in HS I was completely introverted and awkward (or “quirky” as everyone says today). I could never imagine myself doing any interview back then, much less a three hour one. I barely talked to anyone in high school. I sometimes went for days, maybe even weeks, without saying more than a few words to any of my fellow students. That changed when I arrived at Carleton and found students who were more on my wavelength. I’m glad to hear your son found a Carleton alum he could relate to.
Indeed that seems to be one of the two major ways prospective students and parents come to fall in love with Carleton. It’s the way my parents became enamored of Carleton: a co-worker/friend of my parents who attended Carleton in the early 1960s.
The other way people fall in love with Carleton is by learning various things about it. That’s what happened to me. For example, I heard the story about how during WWII Carleton was one of a number of schools that arranged for West Coast Japanese-American students to attend. Every college will say they are in favor of “diversity” or “social justice”, but here was a school that actually followed up words with action.
Although that event, then already 40 years prior, impressed me, it wasn’t quite enough to sell me on the school. What did it was learning they had a group for LGBT students that was funded by the college and advertised in their official viewbook. Now, today, every college and university claims that they support LGBT students and pretends that they “always have”. However, back in the early 80s, it was rather unusual for a school as small as Carleton, especially one located out in the rural Midwest, to even have an organization for LGBT students, let alone one that met on campus and was supported to such a degree by the community. Also, few schools had coed bathrooms and showers during the 1980s, but Carleton students implemented this on their own in the dorms. BTW, did I mention that we had a recycling program way back then as well? (When I tried to explain the concept of recycling to people back home, they thought the school was full of nutcases.) I could go on with other examples like this.
Anyway, I wish you and your son good luck; Carleton admissions is so much more selective that it was 35 years ago. I probably couldn’t get in there today with the grades I had back then. 
@hokupaa Well, I’m pretty sure the “interview” part was shorter but they just stayed and chatted afterwards. It was at our local Starbucks and S19 drove himself there. Our D21 and I drove past at the three hour mark just to make sure he was still there and we could see them through the window. LOL. They were talking about everything under the sun. S19 was very energized about the school after that. He visited last fall and went to class and enjoyed his time there too but it was a crummy weather day so I bet campus wasn’t showing well. This interview really made a difference for him.