Our high school sends a lot of kids to ND, so we hear the chatter when they are back in town. We’ve heard that enforcement is looser in men’s halls but still more strictly enforced in women’s halls. Technically, violation of parietals can be disciplined with expulsion from Residence Life – not from the university but from living on campus, which can sting because residence hall life is such a central part of student identity. Again, third hand, but we’ve heard there is plenty of sexual activity on campus and in the residence halls and, as others before me have noted, sex can happen during day time hours, not just after parietals. Bottom line, parietals are real, there is sex, but probably less than at the typical top 20 private universities.
Current sophomore male here
Parietals are very very lax imo. What people don’t really understand is that in guy’s dorms they WILL NOT come into your room, so if you two are in there before parietals starts (12am on sun-thurs and 2am on friday and saturday) you will be 100% fine. Girls dorms is stricter but not impossible to get away with. With regards to the “expulsion from Residence Life” comment, that is only for extreme repeat offenders. One of my friends was caught 4 times in a month and was required to go into a meeting and listen to why the office of community standards said what they were doing was wrong, but was given no formal punishment. Honestly it is really difficult to be caught for parietals in a mens dorm and the only way it will happen is if you are exceptionally careless.
@owleyes, re getting kicked out of halls – that is why I said it is technically a disciplinary measure that can be taken. From talking with older alums, it sounds like getting kicked out of the dorms is something that used to be done more often whereas now, talking to more recent alum and current students, while technically a possibility, it sounds uncommon.
@Coloradomama to answer your question as it was stated, Never ever would 2 people who were going to have sex not because they thought “oh, what about parietals…”. While what @Midwestmomofboys says is correct in terms of the technicality of the rules, she somewhat understates the actuality of what goes on day to day. In practice I would say that parietals is practically nonexistant in mens dorms (ranging from literally impossible to get in trouble in dorms like O’Neil/Fisher/Alumni/Stanford/Zahm to virtually impossible in dorms like Keenan/Seigfreid/Morrissey), and in womens dorm’s you have ~20% chance of being caught, mostly dependent on the dorm and who is on duty that night. If you are worrying about parietals affecting your college experience, I would say that there is 0% chance of that in terms of disciplinary action, however I would say that the very culture of parietals strains gender relations to some extent, which I suppose is something you might want to keep in mind when making a college decision, however I don’t really think its a huge deal.
I have 2 daughters at ND and they both say that parietals are pretty easy to get around, and they are not aware of anyone being kicked off campus for a violation of them. They also said that they do not strain gender relations at all.