Emory University Student Life

Long story short, here are my questions about Emory Student Life (as a high school senior considering attending but unable to visit due to the current pandemic):

  1. I have heard multiple people comment that you need to smoke, drink, and party to have anything to do on weekends. Can anyone confirm or deny this?
  2. What is there to do socially or for fun other than partying? What do students do for fun on campus on Friday nights and weekends? Is there any campus life or events students can attend?
  3. Is there any school spirit? Are students at Emory invested in their school and excited about being there?

Being concise is not my expertise, so if you wish to read the literal essay where I explain my concerns and questions feel free to keep on reading :).

I am a high school senior and recently got accepted to Emory University (both the main and Oxford Campus). I am really impressed by the gorgeous campus and amazing academics (I am going to be a nursing major). My main concern is student life at Emory. I really want to get a good education to pursue a future graduate degree, but I am also concerned about making friends and enjoying my college experience.
First:
I do not smoke or drink. I am okay with going to parties (I am even interested in joining a sorority possibly) but I don’t want to be in an environment where I feel I need to do these things to have fun. I have heard multiple people comment that you need to smoke, drink, and party to have anything to do on weekends. Can anyone confirm or deny this?
Second:
What is there to do socially or for fun other than partying? I know one of the benefits is having Atlanta near by, but, coming from California, a car isn’t a realistic mode of transportation and I know it can get expensive commuting to the city. What do students do for fun on campus on Friday nights and weekends? Is there any campus life or events students can attend?
Third:
Is there any school spirit? I have heard that there is literally none (and that many of the kids are just upset at not getting into the Ivy’s), and while I don’t need a school where everyone lives, breathes, and dies for sports and their school, I want to go to a place where people are excited and proud to be at. So, are students at Emory invested in their school and excited about being there?

As a final note, I know social life is not everything and that if I just want to have fun I should just go to my local state school etc. The point is, getting a quality education is really important to me and this is the reason Emory is so high on my list. At the same time, I am not willing to invest so much money to be miserable for four years.

Your post is not detailed enough. Please explain what you like to do on weekends and how you believe you will do that at another school as opposed to Emory. There used to be students who posted regularly to these boards, but they have since graduated and don’t post here anymore. They could help so much more.

The other thing that hurts here is that the pandemic has taken away the admitted students days, where all Emory clubs are represented. Those clubs provide students with a base of things to do. Some are social and some relate to different types of interests. You mentioned Greek life, which is pretty vibrant on campus, but not necessary as long as you make an effort to get involved.

You mentioned transportation and there is always Emory shuttle, which is free and gets you off campus when you want to get out. Sharing the cost of an Uber or Lyft with friends to go out nights will not break the bank (as much as the cost of owning a car).

In any case, I would suggest you take a look at the clubs and even do a pre-orientation trip that Outdoor Emory provides in the SOAR program, if you do decide to commit to Emory. It’s a great way to learn and get a head start on getting involved and making new friends. Here is a link to that page and I would guess it would be more popular this year than in others.

http://college.emory.edu/orientation/orientation/pre-orientation/soar.html

I’m currently a first-year at Emory. Parties are a big source of things to do on the weekends with most people drinking or smoking. Every Thursday or Friday, Emory sends out an email with different activities to do on the weekends. There are often free concerts and plays if you like the arts. The office of religion and spirituality has various events throughout the week. There are intramural sports and dance classes that you can join. Once a month, there’s an experience shuttle that will take you to different places off-campus(or you can uber there). Shuttles run to Lenox Mall every weekend, so you can also hang out there or in Emory Village. Find a department that you’re interested in and see what events they have coming up. Your RAs will text information for different upcoming events. There’s a lot to do on campus at Emory that you don’t even feel the need to get off-campus. The hardest part is finding events you like since some aren’t well advertised.

There are some students that Emory wasn’t their first choice and are upset about it. Most students at Emory are excited to be there but are aware that it’s a college and there’s about a lot of other great ones in the country.

The video’s a little old, but I think it gets the point across. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TksrHxdo7eA

Every year, Emory has a big spirit week called Dooley’s Week, which is run by an organization called SPC. SPC hosts various other events during the year as well.

Have you been getting the Emory admitted students emails? They’ve been having daily live-streams about campus life, academics, etc. there’s also a ton of student mentors listed in the email that you can ask about student life.

I’m about to graduate Emory (4th year student, RIP Senior Spring) and I’ve never posted on this site before but somehow I came across this website and so I wanted to add my 2 cents:

  1. You definitely don’t need to smoke, drink, or party to have a social life at Emory. The school’s pretty diverse so there are many different types of scenes. Some people find social life in clubs, others Greek Life, still others through classes, on-campus jobs, etc. - and Emory cares a lot about the Residential Life experience (particularly for freshmen) and many make their friends that way. I would say most Emory kids do party, but there’s at least a good 20-30% of the campus that does not (and/or do so rarely). Also, the partying is mostly bars & clubs off-campus - frat parties aren’t really that big a thing at Emory vs. State Schools. That being said, I did drink and loved the nightlife in ATL (fantastic for the price, lots of different venues, energetic, and all around positive vibes) + house parties with my friends. Yet, there are also many many many many many Emory people who don’t drink at all and still greatly enjoy their experience. You also don’t have to join Greek Life at Emory to have a life, but ppl in it are chill for the most part and have friends both in/out of Greek Life.

  2. You can go to restaurants, parks, stores, hang out w/friends (doing things like playing video games / board games / cook food), attend a huge array of constantly changing cultural events (ATL is a big city - it always has them + many are free, etc.). In my 4 years of Emory I still didn’t get to explore the city as much as I’d have liked. It’s also very cheap to take Uber/Lyft - often cheaper than having a car on campus anyway. I’m from a large coastal city (bigger than ATL) but still found plenty to do.

  3. There are many many many many many kids who absolutely love being at Emory. There are also haters. You’ll find that vibe at any school. Because the school lacks big D1 sports (and no football team RIP), the “school spirit” manifests itself differently - kids at Emory take a lot of pride in their on-campus involvements of Manu different sorts (like the Arts, academic clubs, Greek Life, community service, etc.). There are many different types at the school and the lack of big sports just means that people focus on other things. Wonderful Wednesdays are pretty hype, and the school has other fun traditions too like Coke Toast, Dooley’s Week, Homecoming, SongFest, etc., so I’d strongly refute the people who say we entirely lack school spirit. It’s just different.

I received a very generous merit scholarship to attend a Big 10 School and turned it down for Emory. Four years later, I’m very happy with the decision I made. I met people at Emory from all over the USA / world (and made great friendships with some of them), took classes with amazing professors who gave me personalized attention, greatly grew my confidence as a student through majoring in a STEM subject and minoring in a Language, and lastly I loved getting to know ATL as a city. With all that being said, you do have to know that Emory is an extremely academically rigorous school - you’re going to need to be studying a lot to get good grades in most majors - but that also means you’ll get a lot out of your experience. People are very collaborative at Emory which is great for your learning as well. Even as I’m in my last week of Emory classes ever (I’m honestly in denial), it’s still no cakewalk (and same for many of my Senior friends). Should’ve underloaded this last semester…Haha.

To your last point, if you don’t take advantage of everything that Emory has to offer, it’s not worth the price. Being very honest with you, there were points when I regretted not going to the Big 10 because of the social experience (and $$$ savings) - one can also get a fantastic education at their local state school. There are times when Emory got boring, stressful, and hard. However, Emory really came through for me in so many ways. If you are highly deliberate during your time at Emory / taking advantage of the extensive resources that the University has to offer, it’s 100% worth the price. You’ll also leave here so much better for it.

Best of luck as you make your College decision!

^^^There are also a ton of on-campus events every single week, and they really benefit in terms of variety from the fact that Emory students as a group are fairly diverse. The school also gives a lot of funding to student clubs / organizations, so many events are quite substantial. One of the most popular events at Emory is probably ICE Diwali - everyone tries to go at least once in their 4 years. Emory is a well endowed & well-run university on the whole and you’ll never be at a loss for things to do in terms of the campus life.