<p>I know every college has drinking going on....</p>
<p>But I have heard from some of my friends that HC is a big drinking school, and most of the social life revolves around drinking....</p>
<p>Can anyone comment on this?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>My friend's son was appalled at the amount of drinking that goes on at HC. He is a non-drinker (a top athlete who really takes care of his body), and as a freshman he felt overwhelmed by the number of people getting drunk nearly every night.</p>
<p>But he stuck it out because he loved everything else about the school -- solid academics, caring professors, the Jesuit focus on service, proximity to Boston. He eventually found other students who felt just like him and his social life greatly improved after that. He graduated last year.</p>
<p>thanks for the comment worried mom!</p>
<p>There is one substance free dorm on campus as well.</p>
<p>Substance-Free</a> Housing | College of the Holy Cross
It doesn't look like they have actual dorms/floors for first year, but try to cluster them together. I don't know why that is, usually there are enough for 1 floor.
My son when looking, and now with my daughters, wanted that very much. It helped a lot with being able to study and not having drunk roommates, vomit or other issues to contend with. It wasn't perfect but much less than the other dorms.</p>
<p>They had to change the substance free housing situation for freshmen because of the new program Montserrat which has you housed with your cluster. It is now mostly sub free by room, and I think there might also be portions of halls with sub free.</p>
<p>Oh, thank you for explaining that...how does Montserrat work?</p>
<p>Montserrat is HC's new mandatory freshmen seminar program. There are five "clusters" (Natural World, the Self, Core Human Questions, the Divine, and Global Society) and there are about 10 seminar topics within each cluster and each seminar has about 16 students. You choose ten seminar topics and are randomly assigned to one of those ten and the cluster that that seminar is in. You are then housed with your cluster and have various cluster activities. This is Montserrat's first year so we will see if this format sticks but that is how it works for now.</p>