<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I found out today that on March 30th a fellow student was arrested for growing marijuana in his room. This article from the local newspaper sums up the incident.</p>
<p>Earlham</a> student faces drug charges | pal-item.com | Palladium-Item</p>
<p>There is a strong presence of marijuana on campus, and perspective students should know this. As of yet, the school has not released a statement regarding the incident, but if I hear anything I will post it on this thread.</p>
<p>This is no surprise for any liberal arts college. My daughter was admitted to 5 top LACs and there is a heavy marijuana and alcohol culture on all of them (it seemed the higher the US News rank, the more weed). Her academically intense LAC has a big alcohol and pot presence. The students there are serious academics and many have a “work hard, party hard” mentality. She has been able to find plenty of folks that don’t use or grow to have fun with. Her high school friends who are now attending Earlham have also. I don’t like the idea of spending four years in an altered state but substance use abounds at most colleges.</p>
<p>I looked at some of your other posts. Two of the three schools you are considering as a transfer also have a strong marijuana presence. I am afraid you are in for a big disappointment if you are trying to find a drug-free culture.</p>
<p>I am sorry you had a bad experience at Earlham. Perhaps you should live at home next year, attend college and do a more thorough search for a drug-free school to transfer to.</p>
<p>I recognize that it may appear as though I am trying to find any excuse to bad mouth Earlham on these forums, but that is not my intention. As I have afore stated, it is my attention to provide information that is not available to a perspective student, so that they may make a informed decision. The presence of drugs on a college campus is a legitimate question that a perspective student may have, and this article is pertinent to the question of drugs on Earlham College campus. Personally, the presence of drugs on a college campus is of little concern to me.</p>
<p>ET you say that it is not your intention to badmouth Earlham, but that is exactly what you do and it appears by what you say that in fact it is your intent to cast Earlham in a bad light. In this post you make damaging statements (strong presence of marijuana on campus on the basis of one arrest) without providing context or evidence. What does strong presence mean–95% of students getting high every day, or 5% once a week? Strong presence compared to what? Is there a student arrested every week or is this the first in Earlham’s history? Based on surveys I have seen (e.g., College ******* gives Earlham a B on drugs, A being a school where drugs are not a big issue, F where they are a big issue), anectodal evidence (I have talked to a former student who I trust quite a bit), and the fact that Earlham is a Quaker school (Quaker principles and practices say no drugs or alcohol), I believe that pot use at Earlham probably is no greater than, and probably less than, at similar LACs. Students occasionally are arrested for various drug/alcohol type offenses at the very highly ranked LAC near my house, but it would be silly for me to and I don’t draw any sweeping conclusions from that. In a different thread you made at least one factual statement about graduation numbers that was grossly inaccurate, and I really question the validity of some of the subjective statements that you have made (e.g., that Earlham tries to “rope in” students with high FA that then drops off, implying a really bad intent on the part of the Earlham people). I hope that prospective students reading your posts do so with a pretty big grain of salt.</p>
<p>It is true that Friends shun the use of any addictive substance, because of its effect of separating the user from God and ones community. Earlham is indeed an institution that tries it’s best to follow Quaker faith and practice. That being said, Quaker students are a minority on this campus. The majority of students do not hail from Quaker families and do not follow Quaker practices. The school has a no alcohol approach, but this is not enforced. The same can be said about the use of marijuana. I recently asked an RA why the school does not take a firmer stand with alcohol and marijuana, and the RA said that the school is worried that if they take a firm stance that retention will drop. That is to say that if Earlham actually the enforced the rules it claims to enforce, students would leave because of the strictness of the campus. One arrest does not indicate a problem, hearing several students say, " I cannot go to legal studies unless I am high." That is a problem. I am not trying to say that the majority of students are high all the time, but there is a drug presence on campus. </p>
<p>I would also like to say that I find it offensive that you are trying to hard to disregard my statements as biased, factually untrue, and harmful towards Earlham. The fact of the matter is, I am a current student at Earlham. I live here, I go to classes, I am a part of the community, and I have first hand experience. You on the other hand are going off of second hand information, biased surveys, and here-say. To completely disregard my comments as lies and slander is a gross mistake on your part. Even if I exaggerate, there must be a factual basis to my remarks. I am on CC to share my experience with perspective students, and if my opinions are going to be disregarded and attacked I won’t keep posting here. If you have a problem with what I am saying, that is fine, but don’t tell others to write me off without reading my posts and gaining their own perception of my motives and honesty. </p>
<p>I grew up in a Quaker family, I went to a Quaker high school, and I believe strongly in the value of a Quaker education. Earlham is not a bad place, it can be a wonderful place to grow and learn. That being said it has its faults, faults that are not advertised when one goes on a campus tour. These faults are not necessarily specific to Earlham, I am sure you will find them at other LAC but in order to make an informed decision a perspective student should know these faults. Why do I spend so much time speaking to the faults of Earlham and not the good aspects? The good aspects of the school, academics, professors, study abroad, and so on are advertised fine. The faults on the other hand are only known truly to current students and are harder for perspective students to find.</p>
<p>ET. I get the sense that you did not have many admitted students visits to compare Earlham to when you did your college search. Several of the “dry” campuses I visited with my kids had a very active drug/alcohol culture that was not mentioned in the visits or addressed in the parent meetings other than to say “we don’t allow it”. </p>
<p>How did my kids discover the “truth”? The overnight dorm visits with no parents or administrators revealed all. My kids asked about these issues and all schools (Earlham included) offered honest, direct feedback. My older kid saw her first “naked beer pong” at one top 10 LAC during an athletic recruitment overnight. Quite a shock for a high school senior. Again, like ne, I feel your post is a bit designed to cast Earlham in a bad light. It also suggests a lack of worldliness in terms of college culture. Please try to do an overnight at the schools you are looking seriously at. Between my two kids, there were 13 overnight visits at LACs. They/we had a big pool to compare schools with. Earlham did not stand out as any more drug infested than the others. </p>
<p>If you are having financial aid issues, get your parents involved. Yes, college is a period of independence but your finances will be tethered to your parents until you are 24. It is amazing what a parent can accomplish in a financial aid office. I have been able to get better results by following up after my kids. Negotiating money is a skill that takes years to hone.</p>
<p>Finally, how are your grades and involvement at school? Schools will “pay more” to keep good students who are involved in campus activities. No school wants to loose a great student who is an asset to the campus. Many schools are fine to see a low GPA/involvement kid go elsewhere and are more retentive with going the extra mile to help that student get more aid. I know nothing about you and am not implying anything in terms of your academic standing. Just a bit of information that I have found useful.</p>
<p>Hornet,
Thank you for your information, you make several very good points, and I appreciate you advice. It is true that I only overnighted at two other schools, but when overnighting I found it hard to really asses how active the students at each school were in the drinking and alcohol culture. Personally, alcohol and drug use did not influence my decisions much.<br>
If you feel that I am needlessly bashing Earlham, I will stop posting my own threads, and will only field questions from perspective students. I just felt that I might be able to help shed some light on the drug and alcohol culture here.
As for the FA part. I had a 3.81GPA last semester and will likely have a higher GPA this semester, with a more rigorous course load. I am involved in the German club here. Also, I came from a Quaker boarding school that traditionally acts as a feeder school for Earlham, and I am a Quaker. It seems to me that I would be a desirable student for Earlham to keep around, and the administration has told such. The unfortunate fact of the matter is though, the school is hurting for aid money and just can’t pay to keep me around.
Once again thank you for your advice, and objective view of my postings.</p>
<p>If you are filling out transfer applications, may want to look up perspective/prospective. Hesitated to mention it since it sounds like I’m being nasty, but thought it might be one of those things you would want to know, like having broccoli in your teeth.</p>
<p>ET, this won’t help you, but for future prospectives at Earlham, or any other college:</p>
<p>*When doing college visits, ask! *Ask current students, that is. When D and I went to Admitted Students weekend last April, I attended a very valuable forum where prospective parents got to talk with current students. The question was specifically asked, “Earlham has a no-alcohol policy. What’s the real story?” The students were very forthcoming about the fact that both drugs and alcohol can be found on campus, if the student wishes. They also told us that if a student wishes to live sober/straight, that is very do-able as well. My D tells me that both of these things are true, and that is enough for me. We were never looking for an environment free of drugs & alcohol; IMO that can only be found at the most fundamental of fundamentalist Christian colleges. We were looking for a place where sobriety would be respected, and D has found that to be the case at Earlham.</p>
<p>BTW, the arrest in this case was based on a report from campus security, so if you’re implying that Earlham looks the other way with regard to drugs on campus, you’re wrong.</p>
<p>Hi, I was looking through this thread (and others) and thought that I could provide another perspective of a (soon to be) ex-Earlham student that perhaps isn’t quite so negative. </p>
<p>As far as the drug issue: yeah, there is a lot of weed on campus, but only if you go looking for it. If you have no interest in marijuana, no one is going to try to force it on you or whatever. There are plenty of great people on campus who have no interest in drugs or alcohol, much like any other college I suspect. However, if you go to Earlham assuming that it is both drug and alcohol free, you will come out disappointed (although I don’t think many people come to Earlham with that assumption, I don’t think that the school tries to hide the drug and alcohol use from prospies, but that’s just from my experiences), much like ET I suppose.</p>