<p>I wonder why the drug dealers chose the substance-free floors/dorms. I assume there’s some strategy to it, but it’s not immediately obvious to me! Thinking “no one will ever suspect” seems a bit naive.</p>
<p>Maybe the dealers figure less chance of their merchandise being stolen? Our S ended up in a quiet dorm, not the loud freshman partying dorm. It worked well for him. Always nice to be able to get away from the rowdies whenever you’re not in the mood. Our kiddo enjoys his quiet time–a lot.</p>
<p>My son is not a partier but didn’t want to go to “rehab” in his words. He was able to check a box off on the housing form that he wanted a roommate who agreed to not drink/do drugs in the room. It was phrased a bit more pc than that, but essentially he chose a sub free room, not dorm. It worked, his roomie isn’t a partier that he knows of and it was a good match for them.</p>
<p>In my (humble) experience as a college freshmen, most people in the substence-free dorms fit into three catagories:</p>
<p>1) Those who actually want to not drink/ do drugs. These are the people who it was meant for.</p>
<p>2)Those that it was part of the deal. Mommy and daddy would only pay for college if they were in the substance free dorms. Often times these are people who were caught drinking/doing drugs previously, and this was part of their punishment. Some of these will stay sobar and abide by the rules of the dorm… Many won’t, and in fact can be the worst out of all the partiers/druggies.</p>
<p>3)Kids who didn’t do anything during high school, and decided to choose sunstence free housing because it was all that was left, or they thought it didn’t matter. Again, some will continue to not drink, but many are likely to be drawn into the party scene.</p>
<p>^^^ Maybe #2 is the reason the drug dealers choose sub-free…</p>
<p>At my alma mater, the biggest advantages were that people who partied did so elsewhere, and were required to come back sober (or at least sufficiently coherent so that they could pretend to be sober). It was quiet, conducive to studying, and had a noticeable dearth of people throwing up in the bathroom on Thursday nights.</p>
<p>mathmomvt, ShawSon told me about the drug dealers. He thought it was because the dorm was an untapped market more than clever cover. They go after Davinitall groups 2 and 3. But that’s just speculation from the shawbridge family. </p>
<p>Davinitall, there are a couple of other groups and the one in particular are kids who are happy to drink every once in a while but would prefer that the main activity be elsewhere so they don’t have people tripping/puking over themselves in the entry ways to their dorms.</p>
<p>My kid opted for the sub-free dorm his freshman year. He really loved it and met the people who would be his best friends throughout college. </p>
<p>His best friend from high school was a year ahead of him and when he went off to college his mind was just blown by the staggering amount of drinking. This kid was no teetotaler himself, but the scope of the bringe drinking was just something he found very alienating. Based on his experience my son chose the sub-free hall at his school. It ended up being a happy experience and the community of kids there became super close. There was also a lot of international students were there, interestingly, which gave my son some wonderful opportunities to make friends with people from all over the world.</p>
<p>Also, my kid was on a varsity sports team --huge drinkers-- and the sub-free hall gave him some space from all that.</p>
<p>I think it’s going to depend heavily upon each individual student. Some kids would not like the label and some wouldn’t care what people thought because they might put the grades first. Every parent would want the substance free housing I imagine, but kids are unique and want different things.</p>
<p>It’s not like forcing a kid into substance-free housing is going to prevent them from abusing drugs and alchohol – as others have stated, they may have to do it elsewhere, but that’s not a huge barrier to overcome. </p>
<p>I would only want it for my kid if it was a more comfortable/pleasant experience for him.</p>
<p>I knew kids who wouldn’t be caught dead at a drinking party, and I knew kids who wouldn’t be caught dead with said kids. Depends who they hang around.</p>
<p>Have your kids ASK someone on that campus. Every tour I’ve been on (and that’s quite a few with the 3 kids) it varies campus from campus what “substance free housing” really means. Shawbridge did a pretty good job, but a kid on one campus we visited said their ‘sub-free housing’ was for (g) kids who wanted to come home from a party to a clean, quiet dorm. As a generality I agree that a goodly chunk are there because their parents made them chose substance free.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not such a bad thing ;-)</p>
<p>^^ I thought that might be nice also AND it’s one of the reasons the only year I lived in an actual dorm back in the old days I chose an all female dorm.</p>
<p>To me, a college student, a substance-free room represents the principle of not ****ting where I eat. Work hard, party hard, and rest well, but do them separately.</p>
<p>I would think it depends on the school. If it is full of nerds to begin with you probably don’t need it. But if the school is a big party school it might be better.</p>
<p>My daughter enjoyed living in a sub-free dorm her freshman year, and would have done so her sophomore year but did not get a room in the lottery. </p>
<p>Here is one difference between a sub-free dorm and a regular dorm: in a sub-free dorm, students cannot continually use illegal substances without consequences, thereby reducing the imposition on others; in a regular dorm, enforcement of rules can vary depending on the willingness of the RA to deal with the resulting problems, and colleges cannot remove from the dorms every student who gets drunk and infringes the rights of others.</p>
<p>I think it was my daughters sophomore year, I went down to visit & money was very tight so I took the train and didn’t rent a car & stayed at a hostel roughly in the same part of town. ( and used the shower in her dorm even though the bathrooms were coed- the one at the hostel was gross):p</p>
<p>The housekeeper in Ds dorm, was more like a " house Mother". She made fresh coffee & sometimes cookies, picked up their socks and even pushed her car on me to go shopping.
She was very grateful for the sub- free dorm.
She didn’t have to clean up any puke! ( although I did not realize how seriously they took the sub free. I planned to cook for her floor & decided on clam spaghetti. My version contains a short cup of white wine, so I ended up using the kitchen at the Chinese house instead)</p>
<p>Since my daughters are 8 years apart, the youngest was fairly young when her sister started college, but I felt quite comfortable with her staying in her sisters room. At another school, or even another dorm, that might not have been appropriate.</p>
<p>I lived in sub-free my freshman year and would highly recommend it to any student who comes into college never having partaken in those sorts of things. It prevents the overwhelming rush of OMG NO PARENTS BOOZE DRUGS EVERYWHERE and allows a student to have more control over their substance experience. For me I stayed dry first semester and found other things to do (my dorm as well as other nearby dorms gave plenty of sub-free options), and then second semester I started dipping my toes into the college party experience and as long as I wasn’t coming back to my room disruptively intoxicated and wasn’t drinking in my room, it was okay. I really liked having that separation between home and party. I moved to a different building this year because now that I drink more frequently I didn’t want to risk getting kicked out of the building for having a bottle of wine in my room. But I don’t regret living there at all! It was the perfect choice for me.</p>
<p>No one really judges at my school. The sub-free dorm is a little less social, but I made up for it.</p>
<p>My sons are at 2 different state schools. My older one lived in the “substance free” housing for the last four years. He is graduating this May. He didn’t chose to live in the substance free dorm his freshman year but was just assigned there. His state school has a pretty lax attitude towards drinking so partying in the regular dorms especially the freshman dorms is wild. He chose the substance free dorms for the rest of his time because it was relatively quieter (though substances are stilled used in the dorm but not with approval of residence life). Son would be considered Nerdy: physics major/math minor, honor student, but he and his friends still ‘party’ but not as raucously as some others.</p>
<p>The younger one who is a music ed major at a different school has not lived in substance free dorms. However, his school takes a very tough stance on underage drinking and substance abuse so things are not a s wild in the regular dorms at his college. The college police patrol regularly and will even pick up underage kids who were drinking off campus and walking back to the dorms. </p>
<p>It will depend on the school’s individual policies and how they enforce it whether or not the substance free dorms are necessary.</p>