I don’t think it’s a simple cause and effect of “younger drinking age in UK” leads to rowdier drunk young people. I saw similar (very poor) behavior in Ireland, also with a youngish drinking age, but almost none in Austria and Czech republic (even lower IIRC). It’s cultural to a large degree, and what is expected and tolerated.
If it is culturally based (what is expected and tolerated), I’d say the US is more likely to end up like the UK rather than Austria and Czech Republic.
If the game was to slam a bunch of shots and then rush the doorcheck before they were visibly intoxicated, I guarantee you that other students at a dry event are going to out them in the next 20 minutes and they are going to be expelled, lose their door fee and get a referral for a violation.
In response to the Denison comments, I’m a recent grad and can speak to the drinking there. Yes, there is quite a lot of drinking, but Denison has really changed over the years. I’d say about 1/3 of the student body drinks heavily, 1/3 moderately, and 1/3 very little to not at all. Definitely no more drinking than other similar schools, such as Kenyon. I didn’t drink at all my first year and I have friends who didn’t drink at all during their entire time at Denison without ever feeling pressured or like their social life was lacking, though I’m sure it depends somewhat on your friends.
Someone said that they have stopped recommending Denison due to the health hazards relating to drinking. Definitely not my experience on campus.
When I was in high school the drinking age was 18 and lots of high school students would hang out in bars with fake IDs. As far as i am aware, this doesn’t happen nearly as much as it used to. And the high school students could legally buy liquor for 14 year olds. No thanks.
^^My D is a sophomore at Denison. She doesn’t drink. At all. Denison is a very good fit for her, and she loves it.
Drugs, alcohol, rape, political correctness run amok, censorship, wild parties, rape and false accusations of rape … … quarter-a-million dollar education 
Sad times …
I had perfectly happy college experience myself. Feel sad for my children.
@californiaaa,
These things all happened back in the day. In fact I think there may be less now. It’s just that in the pre-internet days we didn’t hear about them 5 minutes after they happened.
Psssst … They had drugs and alcohol and wild parties in our day too. There’s even a rumor that there was sex in those days, believe it or not.
Plus ça change …
Is it much worse or is she perceiving it as worse because she’s actually old enough to go to a pub and experience the behaviors and she’s attending to it more now? I didn’t study in England, but I studied abroad in three other European countries (mainly Amsterdam in the Netherlands, with excursions to Berlin and Madrid). The drinking there didn’t seem any worse (or better) than the drinking at my own college (an HBCU).
College students are gonna drink. The focus, IMO, should be on teaching them how to drink responsibly and stopping them from bingeing or engaging in really dangerous activities when they are drinking (like mixing drinking with pledging activities - which isn’t limited to Greeks, mind you - or driving).
A couple years ago our family went to Dublin, and on a weekend evening (not late-- say 7 pm) there were literally falling down drunk people, both young men and young women, everywhere in the “bar” area. It was really quite disturbing.
The UNited Kingdom and Ireland are different from the rest of Europe about drinking. There’s a cultural issue about drinking as much as you can before the pubs close, plus the newer issue of “lad behavior”.
I know Denison has cracked down on it’s fraternities and sororities and I believe none are residential now. I also sense that they type of student who attends Denison has changed. I believe they have become more selective and do a better job of offering financial aid to good students. Denison used to (30 years ago when I lived in the area) have the reputation locally of being where rich Yuppie kids went when they couldn’t get into a better school. I believe they have a much better reputation now and get spoken in the same sentence with Oberlin and Kenyon. They still have had a couple of deaths related to alcohol in the last couple of years.
Plenty of drugs and alcohol and at least one of my friends was a victim of date rape even back when I was in school.
It’s actually worse in England.
[Daily Mail: Britain has the biggest alcohol problem](Britain has the biggest alcohol problem while Australians take the most drugs: Study reveals the world's vices by country for the first time | Daily Mail Online)
Anecdotally, a lot of people who live in or visit England decry what @donnaleighg says: rampant public drunkenness, much more than is seen here.
We know what works, but I don’t know which colleges have really instituted full blown social norm programs.
One thing that worked well in France was to introduce wine at the dinner table to young teens (the bottom of a glass during a family dinner, for instance; a fourth of a glass of champagne for a celebration). They learned not to associate “drinking alcohol” with “binge drinking”, “getting drunk”, and “partying”. This has changed due to (1) such a “teaching” is no longer as common (2) popular American movies made it seem “normal”, “cool”, and “student behavior” to get drunk. The drunken excesses of some business schools “integration weekends” (where hazing and sexual assaults are common) have made the news to such an extent that the high school/student magazine l’Etudiant now has a regular September advice column dedicated to handling the dreaded “wei”.
My daughter, whom I mentioned in an earlier post, spent the summer in England and is now studying in France. While rampant youth drunkenness isn’t as severe as it is in England and the US, they’re not immune to it. One of the kids in her host family (a 17 year old boy) is on a tight leash after his parents had to pick him up from a hospital after he was treated for alcohol poisoning. If he has a hangover after partying with his friends, the other kids in the family are encouraged to be loud outside his bedroom door. Gotta love French parents.
Much as we’d like to believe that exposing children to sensible drinking at home is effective, it’s my understanding that all the studies show the opposite. I think the kind of drinking your peers are up to is really what matters in the end. When I was in college I spent a summer with teens from all over Europe at a Goethe Institute. I remember plenty of drinking songs that seemed to involved guzzling beer and tipping the mug over your head to show you’d drunk it all and other silliness. Oktoberfest is pretty famous for people puking on the sidelines. Rides plus beer? Who thought that one up!
Yes, there was an alcohol related death at Denison a few years ago. I wasn’t on campus at the time, but from what I’ve heard, it was devastating and brought the entire community together. I think that has also forced the students reevaluate their attitude towards alcohol. When I was a prospie, drinking and drug use actually seemed more prevalent to me at Kenyon, though I’d guess it’s about the same at both schools
Also I choose Denison over both Kenyon and Oberlin with no regrets. If Weinberg (the new president) gets his way, Denison will be commonly thought of as on par with both of those schools within the following years. Denison’s quality is superior to its reputation, but hopefully the reputation will catch up soon.