<p>Yes, a significant portion of McGill students do drink often, but not as large a portion as some students on this board have reported elsewhere on CC (I’ve read statements like, “everyone drinks and you’ll feel totally left out if you don’t” which are not even close to accuracy). Because the legal age is 18 in Quebec, the drinking culture at McGill is quite different from many US colleges. As well, because at McGill almost no one past first year lives in res, socializing is different than at US colleges where a sizable portion of students live in res past first year.</p>
<p>Is it the moderately buzzed social kind of drinking or get wasted kind of drinking? I don’t mind the former.</p>
<p>Guys to be honest I don’t think you should choose your college because some students like to party. I mean come on … Mcgill have more than 30000 students … Of course you will find students that will drink to be waisted and some other that just like to drink to socialize and go at the clubs … You will even find some people who can’t stand all the drinking stufff …</p>
<p>So I don’t think you should judge your future college with this kind of stufff … You will find every kind of person in every college …</p>
<p>ArtemisF is right. If you bother to look, you’ll find what (or whom) you’re looking for. I was never more than a moderate drinker, didn’t bother with Frosh and made tons of friends anyway (none of the heavy partying kind). My wife went to Frosh though she doesn’t drink, found it mostly boring and never saw the people she met in Frosh again (not particularly by choice). She still made plenty of friends too. Neither of us ever lived on campus. We have a friend who spent her first year in residence and hated it, was much happier when she moved away from campus. Again, there was no trouble socializing outside of rez. So don’t be afraid to go outside the rez/McGill bubble. Heck, go and visit Concordia from time to time, you can make friends there too.</p>
<p>It is true that you will find people who dont drink BUT i do think you should go in knowing what youre getting into. I mean, Playboy ranked McGill one of its biggest party schools in North America! Even if you try avoiding it, its hard. If youre at new rez for example, its a haven for partying, hard drugs, etc. You have to understand that Montreal itself is known as a very liberal city (unreal nightlife, strip clubs, casino, easygoing police, alcohol available everywhere). </p>
<p>I think basically, if you love partying, you can MAKE this a party school and have tons of fun. If youre not really into drinking, you simply dont need to and you can have a great social life with people who do or do not drink (people arent going to shun you if you choose to abstain). Just know though that most people do party.</p>
<p>@ArtemisF and Bobof – as I said earlier, I know there will be people who don’t drink. Even so, I think asking about the drinking culture can be important, as I think it can shed some light about what the overall student body is like and what they enjoy doing in their free time. I’m not going to turn down their offer of acceptance just because of alcohol or anything 
I’m just trying to get an idea of what the social life is like before I commit.</p>
<p>Here is an article re: campus drinking in general and McGill in particular. “Binge: What Your College Student Won’t Tell You” (Wiley, $33.99) by Barrett Seaman. </p>
<p>Drinking outside the box
A U.S. journalist finds McGill students have a mature attitude towards booze
Vanessa Farquharson</p>
<p>After years of reporting on the White House for Time magazine, Barrett Seaman decided to retire and head back to school. He ended up going to a dozen universities across North America, but he never enrolled in any courses. Instead, he hung out in residences, studying the students. </p>
<p>His findings, which mostly revolve around alcohol, drugs and sex, are collected in a book called Binge: What Your College Student Won’t Tell You (Wiley, $33.99). </p>
<p>“It was kinda like lying around and seeing the dark side of the moon from a different perspective,” says Seaman over the phone from New York. </p>
<p>“I never use the word ‘shocked’ in the book because I really wasn’t,” says Seaman. "But I was surprised at the intensity with which students drank. I drank in college and I still drink, but in the four years I was at Hamilton [College in Clinton, New York], there was only one instance where someone had to go to the hospital, and that was a big deal. </p>
<p>“Now it’s routine. In one weekend at Hamilton, seven students were hospitalized. Harvard had 44 go in two months. That’s a lot of people being taken to hospital for alcohol abuse.” </p>
<p>But not all universities had the same problems. McGill University, the one Canadian school Seaman visited because of its high enrollment of American students, left the most positive impression on him in terms of student drinking. </p>
<p>“If nothing else convinced me of the counterproductive effects of American drinking laws on college life,” he writes in Binge, “my experience at McGill University in Montreal did.” </p>
<p>“The students at McGill took alcohol in stride,” he says. “It was there, it was available; they didn’t feel the need to drink as much as possible because they knew they could get it anywhere. I made a point of talking to the Americans there — I didn’t just want to say, ‘Canadians are better at this’ — and they would say how blown away they were by faculty handing them beers in the first week of school. So most would overindulge, along with the Canadians, but by the time mid-terms rolled around, they’d buckle down.” </p>
<p>Flo Tracy, who’s been McGill’s director of housing for 26 years and who spoke to Seaman during his stay there, says Quebec’s lower drinking age of 18, as opposed to the average of 21 in the U.S., is partly to credit for the healthier relationship her students have with alcohol. </p>
<p>“But,” she adds, “the big thing is that we create a safe space — a community where one doesn’t have to prove oneself as much.” </p>
<p>Recently, Tracy began training the dons and floor fellows who will be living with and monitoring September’s influx of new students. She brought pizza, pop and beer to about 50 people in the session. </p>
<p>“I had three cases of beer, and told them they could take what they wanted,” she recalls. “There was a whole case left over.” </p>
<p>Tracy says the secret to steering students away from alcoholism lies in understanding the psyche of an 18-year-old. </p>
<p>“Our basic management philosophy is respect,” she says. "We don’t have a lot of the ‘Thou shalt not’ rules. Balance is important. We know these students are not angels, they’re away from home for the first time and if there are rules they’re going to break them. </p>
<p>“Those of us in the senior positions actually understand the students — we live with them, move with them and support them. They have direct access to us, and a healthy respect for us. I won’t hesitate to put my foot down, but I’ll have a beer with them, too.” Seaman writes that McGill assumes its students are adults and treats them as such, whereas many U.S. universities, especially the Ivy League ones, will coddle students throughout their academic careers. And yet, there’s a mounting disconnect between faculty and students, to the point where many schools’ presidents have no idea how much drinking is actually happening. When they do act, it’s often through extreme and ineffective measures. </p>
<p>“Huge crackdowns, abolishing fraternities, enforcing dry zones — none of that works,” says Seaman, who remembers one dean who went to bed each night praying he wouldn’t wake up with a dead student on his hands. </p>
<p>But the other reason Seaman thinks McGill, and Canadian universities on the whole, see fewer incidences of alcohol abuse is because there isn’t such a prevalent all-or-nothing mentality. </p>
<p>“McGill students’ priorities are so different from those at American schools,” he says. “There are good athletic teams at McGill, but it’s not such a big deal. Intramural sports are a huge thing, but it’s the reverse in the U.S. Football games at McGill will often only be a third full; it’s not that they don’t care, it’s just not as important in their lives. But on a football Saturday at Wisconsin, people start drinking the day before.”</p>
<p>“The thing is, there are smart ways of drinking and there are stupid ways of drinking,” Seaman says. “If you can get more people drinking smartly, you’re going to have a safer campus.” </p>
<p>Reprinted with permission from the National Post, Tuesday, August</p>
<p>[Drinking</a> outside the box](<a href=“http://www.mcgill.ca/reporter/38/01/drinking/]Drinking”>http://www.mcgill.ca/reporter/38/01/drinking/)</p>
<p>@southeastmom: I don’t think anybody answered your questions so…
About the francophone students: I’m on the mac campus, so I might be wrong about the main campus, but from my experiences on both campuses, there’s plenty of mingling between both groups and they rarely really segregrate. </p>
<p>About IB: I know plenty of IB students, and they are classed as U1 instead of U0 students, and depending on the amount of credit and exemptions your son has, he shouldn’t have any issues with electives and such. I’m sure that Mcgill doesn’t force you to graduate in 3 years, and it’ll be as if he skipped freshman year of university. However, I recommend you to check to see his list of class exemptions to figure it out for yourself in late june. In Minerva, go to the registration menu and verify his curriculum. You can also have a look at his unofficial transcript, which will list his year, program, and any class exemptions. That should help him figure his status.</p>
<p>I also take IB, but does this mean that i have to go directly into second year?</p>
<p>I dont think ill be prepared for this at all. Also, what about rez? I thought rez was only for first year students?</p>
<p>We were told that you are expected to complete your degree in 120 credits, so if you bring a lot of AP or IB credits in, it will eat into your electives. Best thing is to take electives early, because once you reach 120 credits, you can only take courses in your major and you have to get some kind of extension. I’m talking about science, other facs may be different. I would not be worried about not being prepared, you won’t be taking any classes above your head. My son just wants more flexibility with electives, so he is heading to Pitt instead.
Oh, and yes you can stay in rez. All students from Quebec actually start in 2nd year (or U1) as they all go to a junior college before then. Typically they graduate in 3 years. So in Quebec, starting in U1 is actually the norm. Year 0 is for US students and internationals not from IB.</p>
<p>does anyone know what percentage of students attend frosh week? because i’m not into all the drinking games. what do you do if you don’t want to attend frosh?</p>
<p>There will be non-drinking activities–particularly during the day. e.g. frisbee, flag football, hike up the mountain, tour of . . … I know of students that checked into their dorms and then left town for frosh week. It is certainly not mandatory and many find that they never see the people again that they met during frosh week.</p>
<p>I’m not into drinking either and I just did the non drinking activities at Frosh. Frosh is pretty much just a schedule of activities and you pick and choose whatever you want to do 
You’re free to wander around the city and do whatever you want during that week if I’m correct.</p>
<p>I do believe there’s an alternative Frosh (you’ll have to look it up, I think it’s run by QPIRG) for those who want something else than mostly drinking. Frosh is in no way mandatory, I personally skipped it (why waste 60$ on this?) and never regretted it. Starting in U1 is what the “locals” (in-province students) do, that’s 2/3 of the student population, so that’s also no big deal.</p>
<p>thanks for all 3 of those helpful answers!</p>
<p>pretty random question but seriously, how big/dreadful is the hill? like mountain size? and how bad does it get in the winter with the ice and everything?</p>
<p>I’ve once went up the hill in summer and it was pretty tall (well, relatively speaking, since I’m so used to flat lands). I’m not that athletic (actually, I am a complete couch-potato) so it took a lot of effort for me, but for a moderately healthy person it’s not that bad, 2-3 flights or stairs or so? And it’s only going up that’s bad, which you would conceivably only do once (or twice at most) per day, so I don’t think it will be much of a problem.</p>
<p>The place I went up had stairs with railings, so ice/snow shouldn’t be a problem if it’s cleared (I don’t know if it is but I would assume so).</p>
<p>TimTim: you must be talking about Mount Royal. I think undeuxtrois is asking about the hill to Douglas, Molson etc. where there aren’t stairs.</p>
<p>undeuxtrois: The hill is not mountain-size and is not dreadful. If you are in really bad shape, you might be a bit short of breath if you walk it briskly. </p>
<p>During winter they tend to be good about keeping the ice off; if they didn’t, it would be nearly impossible to walk up the hill. I went up the hill early on a Saturday morning after overnight freezing rain during reading week (one of the least likely times to de-ice the sidewalks because no one else was around at that time of the morning), and the sidewalk had been thoroughly de-iced already (unlike some sidewalks away from McGill that were on horizontal streets).</p>
<p>I wasn’t talking about Mount Royal (at least I don’t think so?), although I have no idea what hill I went up, it was to the back of the medical building and there was a road and other buildings when I went up. The stairs were pretty hidden though.</p>
<p>okay thats comforting, thank you!</p>