Hi!! I want to start off by saying that I love Kenyon so much. However, I am not into partying or drinking. My ideal weekend in college would be staying in and watching a movie or debating politics with friends. I am concerned about the amount of reviews I have read about Kenyon’s heavy drinking culture. Do you think I would fit in as a student there, or is it difficult to have a social life if you do not want to partake in that stuff? I would appreciate 100% honest answers from students. Thank you
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I’m not a student, but my daughter is a sophomore at Kenyon. She’s not into drinking or partying at all. She has a great friend group but also is branching out and finding new friends outside of her group. None of them are into drinking (in fact, she and some friends are in substance-free housing this year). They talk, laugh together, play games, watch movies, argue about politics and philosophy, etc. She’s also involved in a couple of clubs + theater and music, so always busy. There’s drinking going on, of course (as is the case on most campuses), but it’s easy to avoid without sacrificing your social life. She absolutely loves Kenyon. I can put you in touch with her if you don’t get enough feedback from students here.
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I agree with @Motherprof. I think the drinking/party reputation is both exaggerated and outdated. There is drinking on every campus, including at Kenyon, but certainly no more there than at any other peer college. Years ago most of the social life was centered around frat parties, but the Greek influence has diminished dramatically over time. Our daughter spends most of her free time hanging out with friends, watching movies, going to see the many performances on campus – theater, a cappella, symphony… There is plenty to do if you aren’t interested in drinking.
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If you would be interested in surveys of college students, including those from Kenyon, note that neither of these lists pertaining to high alcohol consumption include Kenyon:
https://www.ctpost.com/living/slideshow/Princeton-Review-Top-party-schools-2019-195091.php
Have you looked at niche yet? It’s a very useful website because it is based on dated student reviews. I noticed you were also asking about Bryn Mawr. I encourage you to look at both schools on that website.
Kenyon is a wonderful college. There will be drinking and partying there, and at almost every other college. But my impression is that it’s easily avoided if you don’t want to partake. As you appear to be agonizing about this, I suggest you look for student reviews on other sites.
Remember that just because some students indulge in partying, it doesn’t mean they all do, and it doesn’t mean they don’t take their studies seriously. You’re thinking of attending Kenyon, not FSU. (No offense to FSU, just making a point.) It might be fair to say that there will be a little less partying at Bryn Mawr than at Kenyon, simply due to it being an all women’s college and its proximity to co-Ed colleges where there may be more parties.
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OP: Kenyon College’s issues with excessive alcohol consumption are well documented. However, due to tremendous pressure from both inside & outside sources, the administrators at Kenyon College have taken steps to reduce the excesses. Whether or not these attempt to curtail excessive drinking on campus have been successful is better addressed by current students and, to a far lesser extent, by parents of current students who–although well intentioned–are not always as well informed as they may wish. It is just human nature that kids tell their parents what they want to hear in order to not disappoint their parents.
Kenyon College is a small, fairly isolated school in a cold weather area. A popular study done by Harvard documents the type of colleges at which excessive drinking is common. Kenyon College fits the profile of such a school & has experienced serious problems in this area in the not too distant past. But, things can change & hopefully they have in the last couple of years.
Current Kenyon students, faculty, and administrators may be your best source for current information hence & Lindagaf advice to visit Niche & read the reviews. Unigo is also an excellent site. There has been a concerted effort to present Kenyon College in a more positive light as the noteriety of the excessive drinking culture was widely publicized so take even purported “student comments” with a grain of salt.
In short, Kenyon College is a small, fairly rural school in a cold weather area. Consumption of alcohol will & does occur. Of course, this is true of almost all collleges & univerities, but the concerns focus on excessive, binge type consumption which has been a known issue in the recent past for this school.
@MWolf has posted a letter from a faculty member at a somewhat similar school–Grinnell College–who has serious concerns about excessive substance abuse on that campus that may be of interest to you.
From a niche survey of Kenyon College students: A majority endorsed this statement: “We party as hard as we study.”
Hey, thanks for all your help. and I totally agree that parents are not the best source because their kids only tell them what they want to hear instead of what’s true. Now I have to figure out if this is a reason to choose the other school I am considering, Bryn Mawr, which does not have a drinking or party school. However, it has its own cons such as lack of political diversity and I’ve heard it’s hard to be straight/cis/non LGBT there (I am not LGBT and consider myself to be pretty mainstream). But the people at bryn mawr may be more what im looking for than the people at Kenyon. thanks for all your insight.
Much depends upon why you are attracted to Kenyon College and to Bryn Mawr or to any other school.
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You may consider me naive, but I actually have a very close and open relationship with my daughter (and I still do with my own mother). She did choose substance-free housing after all. But, again, I’ll be happy to put you in contact with her if you would like more direct feedback. I’ve met many of her friends (two of them rented an apartment with her in our town during the pandemic when freshmen weren’t on campus in the spring semester 2021, so we saw them regularly), and they’re not the kind of people that emerge from the abstract and generalized descriptions you’ve seen in one of the posts.
I’m not trying to recruit you for Kenyon–Kenyon actually overenrolled this year, miscalculating the yield. They have plenty of interested applicants. I’d just like you to have an informed opinion. Good luck!
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I would take advantage of @Motherprof 's offer if Kenyon College is at the top of your list.
I doubt that anyone thinks that parents are naive. We all want the best for our children.
OP: Much depends upon why you are attracted to Kenyon College.
At small rural colleges, there tends to be a dominant campus culture including a dominant social scene. While one can avoid certain types of activities, the choices are limited in such a small community in a rural area. But, individuals differ as some prefer the intimacy of a small school & a couple of close friends while others need / desire a different type of environment.
At Bryn Mawr, you will have other nearby associated schools and easy access to a major US city. Great for some, not a need for others.
My point is that at a small, rural school, one cannnot ignore the dominant campus culture & the dominant social culture even though one can “work around” these aspects.
P.S. OP: Have you considered some of the larger elite LACs such as Weleyan, Oberlin, and Middlebury College ?
The issue is whether or not the administrators at Kenyon College have been successful in their attempts to stifle the drinking culture at this school. Best source would be current students & faculty & administrators at Kenyon College.
My point is I don’t think drinking/party culture is “dominant.” There are theater or film auditions almost every week, clubs, guest lectures (even in-person ones), a couple of orchestras and tons of a capella groups; a major art exhibit at Gund gallery right now (“The Visitors” installation, which was at Guggenheim and Boston Art Museum before, as well as in Europe). And this is only what would attract my artsy daughter (although she has also played sports recreationally with her friends, which is a new interest). One doesn’t need to work too hard to find things to do outside of drinking/partying.
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@Publisher Not this again! Making broad generalizations based about a “type” of school “in a cold climate” – against which you have demonstrated a bias in many threads – simply isn’t useful for someone considering such a school today.
@anxious_senior PM me if you’d like to speak with my first-year daughter as well, especially about her impressions of Kenyon and BMC. Before she made her decision between the two she spoke at length to several students, who were happy to speak candidly and at length with her and address any of her concerns. No one is going to try to convince you that it’s a great place for you when that isn’t true. The Kenyon community is small and intentional. Speak to some students, either through this forum or through the admissions office – they would be happy to put you in touch with someone who shares your interests.
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Conclusion of a Harvard study on excessive drinking at colleges. Plus, Kenyon College has acknowledged this issue at Kenyon. Do some research & you should find plenty of information from concerned faculty, administrators & alums of Kenyon College.
Applications to Kenyon College took a substantial dive after publicity of the binge drinking issues at Kenyon College. Resulted in multiple hospital emergency visits & at least one student death (froze to death in a cornfield after drinking too much on campus).
After applications to Kenyon College declined substantially, administrators & faculty took action to curtail the excessive drinking culture at Kenyon College. Facts are facts whether one likes them or not. Could things have changed ? Yes, but only those living or working on campus know the full answer to that question.
Right, so, since OP didn’t ask for a Harvard study but for students’ feedback and now she’s been offered resources and contacts to pursue, we should probably let her make her decision.
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Agree! Referring the OP to a Harvard study surveying students from 120 colleges that was last conducted in 2007 doesn’t seem relevant to the original question about student life today.
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Those colleges will have just as much partying as Kenyon, so I’m really confused by the recommendations. Wesleyan is well known for celebrating April 20th. Middlebury is in the middle of nowhere too. Oberlin has article from May 2021 all about the return of weekend parties. These are also excellent schools and all have high retention rates, including Kenyon.
I’m not interested in getting into the usual LAC vs big college debate, but I strongly disagree with the portrayal of Kenyon as having some kind of unique and pervasive issue with alcohol consumption. If the OP absolutely wants to avoid colleges with alcohol use and partying, there are colleges that might be a better fit. BYU and Liberty come to mind.
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Fun Fact:
Kenyon alum, Josh Radnor `96, is perhaps best known for portraying the fictional Wesleyan alum, Ted Mosby on the long-running sit-com, “How I Met Your Mother”. Perhaps, this was a bit of type-casting? 
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If you love Kenyon, and from all I’ve heard and read there are many reasons to feel that way, then you should go to Kenyon and not worry about this. Just my opinion, which is all you’re going to get from anyone here.
My D attended Wesleyan just a few years before there had been a widely-publicized drug “event”. My D, who battles a chronic illness which prevents her from over-indulging in pretty much anything and who was (and is) a homebody and didn’t party in HS, didn’t experience anything that ever made her feel uncomfortable. Not once. My other D attended another well-known LAC in a small city (with more to do than Middletown) that for whatever reason hasn’t experienced the same kind of publicity notwithstanding the fact that there were incidents of binge drinking there not infrequently. Because some of those “events” involved members of her sports team, she was a little closer to it, and even she never felt uncomfortable.
And, of course, notwithstanding some of what has been written here, the large national universities always have their hands full with this stuff. I could write a book here about the incidents that occur and occurred at my alma mater without even getting into the complications of major division 1 men’s sports, of which there are many.
So, you should not avoid Kenyon because some people drink a lot any more than you should avoid Penn State because some kid tragically drank himself to death or Middlebury because some kids last year engaged in vandalism, even if Harvard said so in 2007.
There is always, always, always, another tribe for you to find … even at the small LACs located in rural settings. With all of my exposure to higher ed and all of the many, many people I know with college aged children, I have yet to meet one single kid or family member of a kid who ever left a college because “there was just too much drinking going on.” Not once. Ever. And I have family and friends who attended Dartmouth, a place somewhat famous for its party culture.
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Whitman College is about as isolated as it gets, in a town known for three things other than being home to Whitman: great wineries, a particular strain of white onion (Walla Walla Sweets) and the location of a large state penitentiary. It is hours away from anything in all directions down in remote southeastern Washington and it is a small school. And nobody ever writes anything about Whitman having a drinking problem.
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For those interested, google:
Report of the Alcohol Task Force Kenyon College March, 2017
The Task Force Mission according to Kenyon College’s President in September, 2016:
To “set forth a series of recommendations on what strategies Kenyon College should employ to address high-risk practices and behaviors related to the presence and consumption of alcohol on campus.”
Conclusion states, in part, “…concerted effort to reduce excessive alcohol consumption at
Kenyon.”
Page 5 & page 6 of the Alcohol Task Force at Kenyon College may be of interest. Start with:
“General Observations: Alcohol is prevalent at Kenyon, with binge drinking a significant concern.”