<p>Ok - I know this is the parent's area, and I thought this might be the best place to pose this question. (If you think it's better asked elsewhere, please give specifics...)</p>
<p>So, I hear the phrase "work hard, party hard" applied to lots of colleges. But what if a student is seeking a "Work hard, have lots of fun" atmosphere? -- but fun that does NOT involve ANY sort of drinking or drugs? </p>
<p>If I am just looking at the top tier colleges including all the Ivies and places like MIT, University of Chicago, etc., which schools that your own kids attend offer the MOST options for "non-partiers"? Dancing is fun, video games, ping-pong, and foosball are great, as are card games, theater productions, or movies, or comedy nights or interesting lectures, etc. I realize lots of colleges offer some of this stuff, but are there any top tiered colleges in which the majority of students do NOT drink?? </p>
<p>What colleges meet this definition of "fun" the most? </p>
<p>Also, if comparing Yale, Harvard, and Princeton, could you rank the "biggest drinking schools to the least" among them? </p>
<p>(Maybe throw any other college into that ranking you want!) :-)</p>
<p>Your first mistake is in looking at just Ivies and a handful of others, under some mistaken impression that you will get into multiples of them and then have the luxury of choice. </p>
<p>It’s very easy to sit and “rate” Y/H/P on any number of dimensions as though you’ll have acceptances from all 3. But it’s rather pointless. Broaden your scope a bit and then we can talk.</p>
<p>But in general - you can find a non-drinking/drug contingent anywhere. And if someone socializes in a different way - you don’t have to go to their parties. Why does it have to be a “majority” of students who are non-partiers?</p>
<p>Look at schools that don’t have a large “Greek” presence (fraternities/sororities) or better yet, have none at all. But that’s not going to be any of the schools that you listed. Rice comes to mind, which has no fraternities or sororities, but, beyond that, you’ll have to do your own research to find which of the Ivies has the smallest Greek presence.</p>
<p>And before someone yells at me for not stating the obvious . . . yes, it’s true that Princeton does not have fraternities or sororities on campus, but I’m guessing that if the question is about alcohol consumption, the eating clubs more than make up for that!</p>
<p>I don’t actually think any of the Ivies “fit” your description that well… but if your student is not a partier, they will probably find like-minded friends anywhere. My D2 when to an LAC with something of a partying reputation, and still came out of it (graduated this spring) as a kid who rarely went to a party with drinking and only had one drink if she went.</p>
<p>If you are female, you might consider all women’s schools. I think in general there is a bit less partying. And they DO say that University of Chicago is “where fun goes to die.” But I think they just mean you will work so hard that you will not have time to party… which is not exactly what you said you were looking for. :)</p>
<p>Your focus only on top universities/Ivies does indicate to me that you are not really looking for “fit” across the board. Ranking is REALLY not everything in a school (and in fact, many LACs or other universities rank above the Ivies in some categories anyway). For example, one of my kids wants to get a PhD in Physics. There are several LACs that you would not expect that rank in the top 10 for producing Physics PhD candidates per capita. If you have the statistics to get into an Ivy, you might also do well in getting merit aid at some of these other schools, if cost matters to you.</p>
<p>I met a women whose son just graduated from Princeton this past May, she was aghast by all the drinking that is done/“allowed”(her word, not mine) on campus. I think you will find partiers on every campus.</p>
<p>The “no-frats” method doesn’t always work. Colby in Maine, for example is a highly selective school that eliminated frats many years ago, yet is still known as a work hard, party hard school–there is lots of drinking.</p>
<p>Other than BYU or some of the extremely conservative christian colleges, drinking is a staple on college campuses. You just don’t have to participate if you don’t want to.</p>
<p>Hey, let’s be nice to Lifelearner. Maybe he/she was asking about the three Ivies to apply to just one as a reach. I think it’s great to think ahead about the college atmosphere and how to cope with all aspects.</p>
<p>A lot of colleges have substance-free dorms, so you might look into that.</p>
<p>Try Brigham Young, that would be ideal for a non-alcohol school.</p>
<p>In any case, you’ve mentioned UofC where “fun comes to die” is the “motto” for the school. But my DD had a lots of fun on campus, made a lots of friends, all non-drinking. She is loving every minute of attending.</p>
<p>Your kiddo will be able to find like minded friends at every college. All of the Ivies have students who drink and party…and students who don’t.</p>
<p>I was just going to say what Thumper already did. If you don’t like to drink, then you will find plenty of friends who don’t like to drink wherever you attend college. Not all college kids drink - some don’t because of religious reasons, others because they don’t like the taste or “outcome” of alcohol, etc. Just plan on joining some clubs that don’t revolve around alcohol. You’ll be fine.</p>
<p>I may be mistaken, but my feeling is the the west coast schools are slightly (and I mean slightly) less alcohol heavy than the east coast schools. Stanford, Pomona, UCLA come to mind as places where kids party, but the weather is so fabulous that there is more time spent outside doing other things much of the year. I doubt that there is a residential college in the country that isn’t religiously oriented where “most” students don’t drink or attend parties where there is drinking. Other drugs are easier to avoid at all campuses, even if they’re present, because of the legality issues. Dope won’t be as open or prevalent, but drinking is so mainstream that even if you’re underage, it’s available.</p>
<p>It isn’t just about not going to drinking parties. One thing about campuses with a heavy drinking/partying culture is that many such students tend to make on-campus life miserable for others outside of those parties as well. Heard so many horror stories about such students making excess noise after hours, harassing non-partiers, leaving unsightly signs of their drinking excesses, causing disturbances on and off campus, vandalizing property, and more. </p>
<p>Heck I got a taste of it living in the Boston area when I’ve seen all of the above. Sometimes to the point I had to flag down/call the cops on a bunch of drunken undergrads who were trying to start fights with random passerby near my friend’s neighborhood. </p>
<p>Never saw any of that BS at my LAC. Then again, Oberlin students of the mid-late '90s preferred weed and mellow psychedelics. IME, however, students with those vices tend to stay out of your way minding their own business and don’t take it personally if you’re not interested in joining them in their vices. The same can’t be said of many heavy drinkers…especially those who are 18-25.</p>
<p>Chicago probably comes the closest. The other option for the OP are the big unis. They have so many kids that the non-partiers tend to have more mass than in a smaller college setting. I can only speak for the midwest but some of the good LACs have pretty serious students and there are not wasted Wednesday’s or thirsty Thursdays since the academics take a high priority. And yes, the major “outdoors” colleges have less drinking…not the “rural” colleges of the NE but the schools in the rest of the country where kids spend their free time, hiking, biking, skiing, camping etc. etc. There’s drinking everywhere but if you ask “what do you do for fun” and the answer is hiking, biking, skiing, camping chances are there are still parties but they are secondary. The most important question for kids to ask kids at college is “what do you do for fun?”</p>
<p>Some colleges have pockets of the community where binge drinking is extreme, so it’s hard to characterize them using only a binary designation, (i.e., drinking/non-drinking.)</p>
<p>Dartmouth has a lot of fun stuff to do. There are a lot of outdoor activities like hiking as well as their own ski mountain. However, in the frats at least they are known for their drinking culture–Animal House was based on Dartmouth. I don’t think that would necessarily affect someone who was not into that, though.</p>
<p>Among the ivies, my impression is that the drug use is most prevalent at Brown.</p>
<p>From what I heard as a student at MIT, the Harvard parties tend to be pretty tame. Most of the time, people have a few friends over and drink. It seems like Princeton is a bit crazier–the eating clubs seem like a big deal there. I think Yale is pretty tame as well. No idea about Columbia or UPenn. I never hear about Cornell as having wild parties, but it’s a bit bigger than other ivies, so you would probably having an easier time finding a group of people with similar interests.</p>
<p>My son’s a current freshman at MIT. What’s kind of cool about MIT is the way their dorms have a certain “culture”. I’m sure there’s drinking in his dorm but, at least in his little corner, the kids are just plain fun (ping pong, football, playing tricks on each other, etc), and no drinking is going on. He has already learned which dorms to avoid, or which floors of which dorms to avoid. I’m not naive, though, in thinking my son won’t have to deal with it and make decisions about it.</p>
<p>Princeton was another school to which he was accepted and we both understood that, yes, there’s lots of drinking, but one can certainly avoid that (as his two friends on campus did) and still have a great time.</p>
<p>Yale is supposed to be a school with lots of fun activities, but again, as most everyone has testified, most top school have lots of drinking and fairly widespread drug use.</p>
<p>PS. I’m a Christian and a conservative one at that, but I think my son made a good choice in deciding on MIT. He seems to be having a really good time.</p>
<p>Both of mine are at work hard/party hard. One works hard and parties hard- and is a nice kid, with lots of friends who don’t drink. The other is work hard/go to the library most of the weekend . Nice kid, with lots of friends, some drink, some don’t. Both are active in many extracurriulars where drinking doesn’t occur.</p>
<p>I think you’d have to do a bit more research into colleges to see the range of activities available to kids like you. It’s not like schools are isolated and if it weren’t for dorm or frat parties, there’d be zip going on. Good luck.</p>
<p>I suppose thy don’t drink at the more sheltered religious schools.</p>
<p>Harvard has finals clubs, where a lot of the partying goes on. In the dorms, it is more a matter of having a few friends over. There are tutors, dean and masters in the houses. At Brown, there is less of a supervisory presence in dorms,overall.</p>
<p>A couple of my kids don’t drink much at all due to medications. They still hang out with people who are drinking. If you segregate yourself from everyone who drinks, you may miss out on some great people.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen/heard, however, most of the hard partying takes place in off-campus apartments or downtown in the Village, Lower East Side, or trendy parts of Brooklyn.* </p>
<p>This is mainly due to better partying/clubbing/drinking venues and to avoid scrutiny from dorm RAs, campus police, etc. Incidentally, this is one key reason why many Columbia/Barnard undergrads opt to move off-campus after 1-2 years. </p>
<p>Also, the partying is among a sizable subset of the College students and almost nil among the SEAS students. That is, unless they’re absolute engineering/STEM savants or they aren’t terribly concerned about risking mediocre/failing grades. </p>
<ul>
<li>Saw many Columbia/Barnard undergrads at various bars, friends’ apartment parties, and other venues in those areas as a result of happenstance.</li>
</ul>