<p>Interesteddad,
The word "fanciest" in your reply is the tip-off, methinks.</p>
<p>There appear, according to trends, studies, etc., two correlating factors to partying/drinking in college. One is frats: that has been discussed on other threads & in many articles.</p>
<p>The other factor is money. I don't know that any controlled studies for private U's have been done, but I can tell you that a recent one was done at UCBerkeley. They tracked (previously) high-achieving students from monied households in "fancy" school districts and found that these students dissipated their 4 yrs & barely got by with "C's." Studying was minimal & often last-minute. Their primary focus was social, not academic. Drink & drugs were high on the list. This is to be contrasted with low-income Caucasians & immigrants, who worked & achieved equally at Berkeley as they had before, rejecting partying: the work ethic was paramount in that group. They often also put off pairing romantically until after college graduation.</p>
<p>My own personal observations of the partying & academic-slacking syndrome is this (based on both dd's private schoolmates): The students from well-to-do homes WAY underperformed in elem & middle schools, often relying on parents' legacies, or their ability to test well, etc., to get them into excellent private high schools. Once in h.s., they did perform well enough to get into selective colleges of one sort or another. However, once in <em>college</em> they have so far reverted to their elem/middle school underperformance again. This tells me that the school name & the (bare) degree-as-a-ticket is more important to them and their families than the achievement, learning, & growth gained therein. It also tells me that they're more focused on gaming the system than contributing to those environments, at least academically. They understand, or have been told, that sheer legacies don't cut it unilaterally any more, so Daddy having gone to an Ivy League will not in itself admit them. (Have to work in h.s., therefore.) </p>
<p>This is just our experience as a family.</p>
<p>And edad, I totally am in a similar position with regard to D#2. The interesting thing is, we are anything but rich, but D#2 loves a party, & would be lured by that at any college or U in which the excitement is more social than academic. In D#2's case, I think the problem is that she IS extremely bright, & knows just how much she can "get by" with in order to be performing better than her peers. (She tracks how well her peers perform.) She understands that standing out can often earn one an "A" in a relative sense if not an absolute sense. She is not totally driven by such pragmatism & relativism (she also does have a great deal of internal drive & inborn competitiveness), but I have to admit that it is a personality factor. Surely she's not unique in that respect. Some students, particularly those who draw much of their identities from their peer relationships, will be drawn to partying when the temptation is near.</p>
<p>Bottom line: I think the tendency to party is a combination of environmental factors, such as the studies show, and personality factors, rather than some given environment at one college or another. I do think that the "reputation" of a college is important in college choice, in that a student & family have to investigate whether the primary motivation of a large portion of applicants is to party, rather than to study.</p>
<p>And some college students, as noted in the Fiske Guide and in The Insider's Guide, say that isolated campuses are particularly prone to the party syndrome (& drinking), because of absence of alternative distractions in and near campus.</p>