<p>Obstinate: first, you should always take anything in the Spectator with a grain of salt. It's usually overly inflammatory, and as someone who has been interviewed for articles in the Spectator, as with a lot of student publications on campus, quotes are often taken out of context, or background issues are poorly researched. </p>
<p>As far as the partying goes, it really depends on how self-confident you are. About 50% of my housemates don't drink by choice, and it's never a problem with them because they are secure enough to say "no, thanks" if someone offers them a drink. If you're someone who caves to peer pressure on a regular basis and wants to avoid drugs and alcohol because you can't trust yourself not to give into temptation, then you probably should reconsider Brown (or any mainstream college for that matter). Otherwise, after that initial offer (which IMO is a courtesy more than anything else), no one will pressure you to drink.</p>
<p>Yeah, I'm pretty secure about myself. Makes sense. Thanks!</p>
<p>RaboKarabekian and Old College Try:</p>
<p>One of you board mailed me and said that my position was sanctimonious. Another of you assumed that my initial question reflected a fear of "not trusting myself not to give into temptation." You both concluded that "perhaps I should reconsider Brown." Isn’t this conclusion the epitome of sanctimony? It is certainly mean spirited.</p>
<p>My distaste for the party atmosphere is based on my belief that drugs and alcohol poison both the body and soul. I've been around people who use drugs and alcohol and it saddens me that anyone -- let alone someone bright enough to attend Brown -- would choose to damage their bodies by drinking and taking drugs. Because it saddens me, I prefer not to be around those who party. It has nothing to do with "being secure with myself" or "fearing temptation." </p>
<p>One last question. Isn’t the legal age for drinking alcohol 21 years of age? And aren’t drugs illegal? Why does the Brown administration (or any other college administration) turn a blind eye to illegal activities on campus? That makes no sense to me.</p>
<p>Hope-- that's your decision. It's very hard for us to say much about how you're going to interact here, and more importantly, I've personally seen that this sort of thing changes drastically as students get older. People who were nuts about partying in high school are sometimes the most serious students and the most serious students in high school end up being crazy partiers. None of them would believe that they would change the way they feel about these things but it definitely happens.</p>
<p>People will be drinking. It's impossible to avoid the fact that people will be drinking-- but plenty of people will not be, plenty can be done without drinking, nothing you do when drikning can't be done sober, etc etc.</p>
<p>There's a huge social scene that doesn't at all have to do with alcohol, but you're going to see people in your dorm, around campus, etc, drinking.</p>
<p>If you want to be somewhere you won't even encounter someone taking part in this stuff then you're going to have to look at the religious schools. If you just want to make sure you won't feel left out or shut out of social life if you don't personally want ot drink, then Brown, and many many places, will be just fine.</p>
<p>Just my two cents:</p>
<p>In addition to your opposition to drinking/drugs that you have expressed, I think your religiousness (and also political conservatism?) would probably not make you a great fit for Brown. Correct me if I am wrong, but most Brown students are not extremely religious, and many do chose to drink/smoke and are very very liberal. (I'm not implying causation, it just seems to happen that way.)</p>
<p>A) You can drink a couple of beers and feel just fine. I like beer, well good beer at least, and when I drink it I usually drink it because it tastes good not because I want to get smashed. That's what vodka is for.</p>
<p>B) To those of you against drinking I'm curious how much you have drank in your life.</p>
<p>Curious side qustion: Do incoming freshmen fill out a questionaire for housing that eplicitly asks about alcohol and drug use... either personal use, or tolerance to others doing it? I am wondering how does an incoming frosh who is not a drinker or partier, but who has no issue being near/around drinking or partying in a loose social sense, can assure that they don't end up living with smoker who wants to make their double into party central? Or does this fall into the category of "hey it's college -- part of the experience".</p>
<p>Edit: By the way, before anybody starts in about looking it up: I got this far on the Brown website <a href="https://reslife.brown.edu/forms/new_student_questionnaire/index.html%5B/url%5D">https://reslife.brown.edu/forms/new_student_questionnaire/index.html</a> but the questionaire itself is apparently not up at the moment.</p>
<p>Well let's all remember what's been taught to us...</p>
<p>"HeyyyeyyyeEYEYyyyEYYYY... smoke weed everyday!"
-Book of Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre 4:20</p>
<p>There is a questionnaire Gabba that I seem to remember addressed those things (3.5 years ago now so hard to remember exactly what was on there).</p>
<p>It was stuff like, are you clean or messy, do you smoke, would you live with someone who did, etc.</p>
<p>My daughter chose sub free dorms for freshman year, just so as to not get stuck in a 'party central' situation. She doesn't have religious beliefs. The freshman sub free was in Perkins Hall freshman dorm, rooms are doubles. It was fine, but she didn't particularly click with the people on that floor. So she spent a lot of time hanging out with people on the floor above. Some of the sub-free kids did get along well and went on to pair up for rooms in another subfree dorm for sophmores and on.</p>
<p>Next year it was a suite with a shared common room, she liked that much better. I think after the first year she saw that it is easy to control who she was around. Then moved off campus the following years. Even her summer sublets didn't have any partier problem. Last year she was with swim team members in training.</p>
<p>This discussion, private messages I have received, and some recent research have surprised me. My initial question was intended to find out if Brown students partied more than other Ivy league students, which is a claim made to me by a third party. From what I can tell, the party life at Brown is more robust than at most other Ivy League campuses (only Dartmouth seems to come close to Brown). I cannot determine why this is true, but it does seem to be the majority consensus.</p>
<p>Dartmouth drinks a lot. I guess you can't buy alcohol in Hanover so the frat's have control on the drinking scene. I was just talking to some people the other day about Brown parties with two other transfers like myself and we all agreed that the parties here are somewhat tame and the other guys both agreed that Princeton was a big party school. One of these guys is from Jersey so he might have some knowledge.</p>
<p>Just keep in mind that it's all relative. The level of partying at elite schools is nothing compared to big state schools. I'm from KS and all I hear is about how both Manhattan, KS and Lawrence, KS are nothing but party towns. Especially the rural towns with universities where there is nothing to do but drink like Hays, KS.</p>
<p>A friend of mine who's a Dartmouth transfer claimed we have far, far fewer large, crazy, raucous parties. I believe that.</p>
<p>Brown tends to be more relaxed about partying, if that makes sense. We don't have many huge events, there's never a party that "everyone" is going to go to. It's far more the, 10 - 40 person sized party.</p>
<p>Anyone who is PMing you and telling you how hard Brown does or doesn't party I'd be suspicious of personally-- take the views of current students or parents of current students seriously, the rest is all conjecture.</p>
<p>Like I said not knowing you, and more importantly, not knowing how you're going to drastically change once you get into college it's hard for me to say whether we will cross your threshold for too nuts, but pretty much every school I've stayed overnight at with friends has had more of a typical party feel than Brown. That's why I think anyone can really be comfortable with our social scene-- it's so varied and so much of it is smaller networks of friends getting together that you'd be far from left out if you weren't going to this several-hundred-people-crammed-like-sardines party (I haven't been to a party like this at Brown ever).</p>
<p>You must have missed out on the off-campus, unofficial, transfer orientation parties. Held in typical College Hill sized home on 4th floor with 80 people. Just a tad tight. Never again have I seen another party like that, probably because they don't happen too often.</p>
<p>dude jason you didn't see the one held in my shoebox of an apartment this year! (transfer orientation)</p>
<p>Hope full: </p>
<p>I see where you are coming from entirely, and I agree that it has nothing to do with personal will power. Some people don't like to be around belligerent drunk-faces or babysit a friend who's had a few too many. But be careful not to strut your opinions on the issue, people may think you think you are superior -- which is probably where the nasty messages came from. </p>
<p>However, about the illegal thing, that's just a little bit naive. The reality is that there's proably enough pot smoking and underage drinking on ANY given campus on any given friday night that they would need to bring in the national guard to catch everyone. Better to just accept that it's going to happen and let it slide. If it becomes flagrant, then you act.</p>
<p>And one more</p>
<p>BWHAHAHAA</p>
<p>Brown is not a party school.</p>
<p>StillClaySoul: You the first one I've read who doesn't consider Brown to be a party school. Do you attend Brown? If not, what is the basis of your experience?</p>
<p>She is a transfer student who attended Tulane and then attended Brown who's currently at the University of Hawaii studying abroad.</p>
<p>I also don't think Brown is a party school at all, and neither does wolfmanjack. All three of us know that partying happens, but that hardly makes Brown a party school.</p>