<p>Can anyone tell me about these frat formals that happen? They apparently go out of town to have a dance/ drink and stay in hotels- My daughter dates a freshman- is there a chaperone- do underage drink? do boys/ girls stay in a room together?</p>
<p>Is your D a HS student or a college student?</p>
<p>Generally, they go for the weekend. There is little to no adult supervision for Frat events. The couples stay in rooms together. Most are two couples in a room with two double beds. There is generally drinking. With rooms, there is alcohol freely available to students, esp those underage. It is called pre-partying. Some party so hard they don’t make it to the “formal.” Some of the guys never intended to attend the dance anyway. </p>
<p>If you have a HS daughter, I would tread carefully.</p>
<p>Chaperone - no, it’s a private affair, not sponsored by school, and most of them are ver 18.
Underage drinking - most likely, but your daughter doesn’t have to participate.
boys/girls stay in a room together - yes, I would expect that, unless your daughter specifically says no and there is another girl to room with her.</p>
<p>I have daughter who is a senior. She is in a sorority and they have a lot of formals, but she has never stayed over night. I don’t think she would feel comfortable in stabying in the same room with her date unless they are dating.</p>
<p>Depending on the school, I can give yousome general info. I advise a sorority, so here’s what is normal:
-Kids get multiple hotel rooms close to or at the location of the the formal. If the date isn’t a regular boyfriend, some of the people will split up rooms according to gender. Otherwise, couples will get their own rooms.
-Chaperones will depend largely on the school. In general there is some drinking, though if they pick an establishment that has a bartender, the partygoers will need IDs in order to drink. Some people will “pre-party” with alcohol, but that can happen at a high school dance. In all my years (including my time in a sorority 20+ years ago), my group never got out of control. You will, no doubt, find stories on the internet of some high profile formals last year that were out of control, but I feel they made national news because they are the exception, not the norm.
Hope this helps. To put it in perspective, the people attending are treated like adults and generally act like it.</p>
<p>thanks for the info</p>
<p>I think that there are differences, depending upon school and/or sorority. My son is going to attend one of these and I asked him what is involved. He said that transportation is being provided (some type of charter bus), all costs are being paid for by the sorority, and no hotel rooms are involved.</p>
<p>I always like it when the organization picks a venue that is close by so the hotel room is not a factor. It saves on cost as well.</p>
<p>Been to a few of these, sometimes organized rooms with other girls, sometimes stayed in a room with another couple, but only where I knew the young man in question very well, either as a friend or boyfriend. </p>
<p>My advice is to find some other girls who are going to sort out a couple of rooms between them. Unfortunately, there are some idiots who think that because they are paying for everything they expect the girl to ‘put out’ - not many, but sadly a few. Not sharing a room prevents anything like confusion about this. I would also advise that your daughter should speak to the young man who asked her to establish some expectations for the weekend, not only around sleeping arrangements, but also about drinking, travel plans, could she make a contribution towards the cost in some way? I assume she knows the guy quite well? I would caution against going to a fraternity formal away, over night in hotels with a guy she doesn’t know too well, or without a groups of girls and some other guys she already knows too. I think she would feel more comfortable having others around her she knows and being with other girls makes all the getting ready fun too!</p>
<p>I was very surprised to learn after graduation that I was an alibi for a high school girl who dated one of my husband’s frat brothers. Her parents thanked me for providing the girl a place to stay when she came for the pledge formal weekends. I covered very well but she had never stayed with me once…</p>
<p>thanks- she has been dating him for quite awhile-I just worry about the drinking etc with no chaperones-if someone gets hurt/sick etc.she said there are some pledges that do not drink -It just amazes me that they can have alcohol when they are not of the age- how do the vendors get away with it? I’ve not been told of any for sure plans yet though-just wanted to have some kind of info when it came time to decide</p>
<p>“It just amazes me that they can have alcohol when they are not of the age- how do the vendors get away with it?”</p>
<p>Fake ID’s. </p>
<p>S’s experience was similar to #6. Transportation was provided to/from an out of town venue, about an hour away. No hotel rooms involved.</p>
<p>There are plenty of college kids that are 21 to buy the alcohol.</p>
<p>S has organized a couple of his frat’s formals. One was a dinner cruise that involved chartered buses both ways, preceded by a cocktail hour at the house (presumably the venue would not serve the underaged). One kid seriously overindulged before the cruise, and was not allowed on the boat. The other took place at the house. None involved hotel rooms. </p>
<p>I would be extremely leery of allowing a HS girl to spend the weekend with a BF at college. I’ve heard of too many bad outcomes.</p>
<p>^^I wasn’t going to comment because I don’t have any daughters but I agree with you Consolation. If I had a high school daughter we would probably say no. It’s only a year until she would be in college and we’d have no control but we’re more the “draw the line somewhere” type parents and for us it would be that she was in high school still.</p>
<p>We don’t have daughter’s either. We said no to our son when he wanted to go on a non-chaperoned student organized weekend while he was in hs. There wasn’t a GF involved at all, but we felt that much of this weekend might be about drinking. </p>
<p>We said no to our other son who wanted to go with a handful (perhaps 5) of only male high school students on a non-chaperoned ski weekend in New England. It would have been a 5-6 hour drive through snow and ice with a bunch of 17 year olds in the car (only newly licensed drivers). One of the boys has a family condo that they were going to use for housing.</p>
<p>I don’t regret our decisions.</p>
<p>My daughter is currently a junior in college. Last year she was invited to a frat formal in Las Vegas. When she made it clear what wasn’t going to happen, she was dis-invited. From the stories she heard quite a few boys had too much alcohol at the pre-party (including the guy who asked her) and didn’t make it to the dance. I was very uncomfortable about her going, so I was thrilled when she didn’t go.</p>
<p>^^What does dis-invited mean? That guy said, if I can’t take you, I will ask someone else? My guess is that your DD is now happy that she did not go.</p>
<p>“Dis-invited” means that the boy asked her to the formal, she said yes, but when than when she made it clear that she wasn’t going to sleep with him, he decided he wanted to take someone else (who might) and told her that he didn’t want to go with her after all. At the time she was upset, but later realized that it was for the best.</p>
<p>tx5athome, I misread your initial post. Being as a little slow on the uptake today, I did not “get it”. Well, his loss. Glad your DD realized that it was for the best.</p>
<p>txt5, I admire your DD for that! Good for her!</p>