Yes, true but during the freshman year you get assigned to dorms automatically and not by choice.
Also this is not the question of making or choosing friends. Not necessarily all the students that are partying are B or C average students.
The school environment does affect. Talking about UC B and UC SC, there is more probability that you child endup with a binge drinker at UC SC than at UC B.
Does that means there are not student at UC B that indulge in drinking or there are no student at UC SC who are into academics.
The point is there is more probability for a young freshman to get lost in partying at UC SC than at UC B.
It is a simple math, if you deny it than you can be called an ignorant and nothing else.</p>
<p>Yes. Stand at the front door of the library with a counter on a Friday or Saturday evening not during finals week. Count the number going in (I), and the number coming out (O). Look up the size of the student body (S). Then calculate the harmonic mean of these two ratios: I/(I+O) and I/S. This is the F-measure of student seriousness about academics. </p>
<p>The higher the number, the more sober the school.</p>
<p>To be very honest, this was something we never considered. We just figured that if our daughter was at an academic rigorous school, between schoolwork, ECs, and work, she wouldn’t have that much time to party. At the same time, I was the one that wanted her to be at a school where there was partying. I am a believer of work hard and party hard. Freshman year, I encouraged D1 to get out as much as possible, as long as she kept up with her schoolwork.</p>
<p>It has proven to be true about amount time for partying vs amount of schoolwork. Freshman year her course work was a lot easier, she went out 3-4 times a week. Last year, as a sophomore, all I heard was how hard her schoolwork was and how little time she had to get together with her friends. She only managed to go out once a week. Her sorority sisters were getting mad at her for not going to most mixers.</p>
<p>It was no different when she was in high school. D1’s friends were good looking, academically high achievers. Most of them drank at parties, some smoked pot, but a lot of them were very busy with intensive ECs (figure skater, year book/newspaper editor, soccer player, swimmer). If they could get together few times a month it would be a lot. Most of the time they went out to eat locally or in NYC rather than going to people’s house to drink.</p>
<p>When people are busy, they have less time to get in trouble.</p>
<p>I see what you’re saying but I would still argue there is not that much difference between college-bound students regardless of whether they are affluent or not. My point being that having money does not mean that a kid is more likely to party than one who does not. Most of these kids (in HS) aren’t out buying the booze - they’re getting if from their parent’s liquor cabinet or the parents are supplying it for them (happens a lot more than people think). Or if they are buying it, they’re funding it from their allowance or after school job.</p>
<p>I suspect if you take all the HS kids from across the country, doesn’t matter if they affluent, middle-class or poor. Whether they’re from a private school or public, whether they’re college-bound or not- you will not see much difference between how much partying is going on. That is why you see it in every college - young people like to drink. It’s not limited to any particular socioeconomic group. Of course, not all of them drink and not all of the drinkers are binge drinkers but it’s still a problem on most campuses.</p>
<p>I do think the overall culture of a college is an important consideration and the heavy drinking reputation of our state school was one of many reasons my daughter did not initially want to attend. Luckily, things have turned out better than she expected, and she was able to find some others like herself. She does love to party, and by that I mean dancing or seeing bands in the local music scene. There are plenty of drinkers around at most parties she attends, but she has not personally been pressured to drink. In contrast, for some reason the pot-heads often try to get her to join in.</p>
<p>I know students at schools all over the country who were miserable because of the excessive drinking around them. I know kids who have transferred out of Notre Dame, Harvey Mudd, and Princeton solely because of the drinking. These are all bright students who were excelling academically but simply could not stand the noise and the vomit, urine and even feces in the hallways. I also know other kids who attended these same schools and were very happy, so I think it was mostly a case of being stuck in the wrong freshman dorm, but my point is that it can and does happen anywhere.</p>
<p>Something has changed in a generation – the frequency and amount of alcohol consumption goes way beyond what I or any of my friends remember from our college days. I have no idea what the drinking age was in the town where I went to college. I never drank and it was completeley a non-issue. I remember Friday and Saturday nights in the library and it was completely full.</p>
<p>To the parent describing drinking every Friday and Saturday night at MIT – that sounds much like my daughter’s campus, a well-known drinking school and I do consider that excessive. There are certainly kids starting even earlier on Wednesday and Thursday night, but the vast majority are getting plastered only on weekend nights, and that is my definition of a party school.</p>
<p>I know several students, all of whom do not drink or use drugs, who are very happy at University of Chicago and Brandeis. There are of course drinkers at these schools like everywhere else, but all of the students I know tell me that it is not part of the overall campus culture as it seems to be at so many other schools.</p>
<p>I think you are right, anneroku, about the culture of the college. If each school is different and has a different college culture, the average frequency and amount of (massive) alcohol consumption has got to be one factor.</p>
<p>Even if there is no pressure to drink, at schools with high-frequency and binge drinking cultures, the quality of the education must suffer (if you are drunk you are not studing, if you are hung-over you are barely participating). Social life may be generally mediocre for non-drinkers.</p>
<p>I’m very concerned that my DD, who doesn’t drink, may land in a school she will be very unhappy with. They don’t discuss these issues in college marketing material.</p>
<p>MWestMom, the problem is that while your D may not drink now, it’s hard to resist when all your friends are doing it. I never had a drop of alcohol before college (or smoked anything!). I lasted until Halloween of my sophomore year, and then had some spiked punch at a party. After that first drink, I never looked back! I drank way too much, although I had no problem stopping in grad school.</p>
<p>My parents never had a clue that I drank at all. If you asked them, they would swear I was one of those kids who was NOT a drinker!</p>
I never said drinking every Friday/Saturday at MIT, partying is not drinking at least according to DD. It means a nice dinner at a good restaurant, a movie or concert or going shopping. It seems the sorority she joined also have mixers at good upscale restaurants.</p>
<p>I really don’t think that students need to study the whole time over the weekend. Everyone need recreation to wind down. Going to dancing or for a good meal at a good restaurant should be cherished as a part of college life.</p>
<p>I agree with the indicators JHS first posted and Cardinal Fang expanded upon</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>except for the co-ed indicator - which I think you can throw out as the vast vast majority of schools are co-ed and thus this is a useless factor</p>
<p>Of the factors listed, I would say</p>
<p>Strong fraternity/sorority presence is easily the biggest indicator followed by
Strong spectator sport scene
Not affiliated with a religion
Rural, isolated campuses</p>
<p>Well just like the Princeton Review’s list of Party schools, they publish a list of stone cold sober schools. Same caveats apply but it is at least a start</p>
<p>Top 20 Stone-Cold Sober Schools
Brigham Young University
Wheaton College
United States Coast Guard Academy
College of the Ozarks
Wesleyan College
United States Air Force Academy
United States Naval Academy
Wellesley College
Thomas Aquinas College
Calvin College
Grove City College
United States Military Academy
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering
City University of New York
Marywood University
Mills College
Berea College
California State University - Stanislaus
Agnes Scott College
Simmons College</p>
<p>Which is exactly what I think when parents on cc insist their child would never… <insert whatever=“” behavior=“” here=“”>. I will also say however that I don’t know if it’s better to know and not really be able to say and do much about it or not know at all.</insert></p>
<p>I live in a city with two colleges. Every weekend we locals expect excessive parting on both campuses. However, one school is know as a party school and the other a serious/nerd school. Over the years it is clear that the primary difference between the two schools is the rigor of the academic program and focus of the students. You sit in a restaurant or stand in the check out line and you soon realize that the difference. College A, the party school, you frequently here the students refer to thier classes as lame and it seems as though the conversations focus on the next opportunity to party. College B, students are interested in parties but typically the conversations focus on their schedule and creating opportunities to party. You often here students turndown an invitation to a party to complete an assignment or prepare for an exam. The message work trumps partying.
Based on what I have witnessed (as a students and resident of a college town) campus culture has a strong impact on the extent to which a ‘we’ learn how manages the conflicting demands of the college experience. I attended a T10 LAC with a reputation for having wild parties almost every weekend. However, there were two things that I think made a difference. We looked forward to our parties and having a good time but in general our work was our first priority. We lived in a supportive community.<br>
When a fellow students was in trouble we reached out to help them. By the way creating a supportive environment does not require a dry campus or even a restrictive alcohol policy.</p>
<p>Just last night a coworker was reminiscing about a huge party thrown at her Caltech house. Enormous decorating effort, even more enormous amount of alcohol. Things got worse when the busload of Harvey Mudd students arrived. South Pasadena residents complained to the campus police, who didn’t pass on the complaints to the students. So the residents called the city police, who showed up in force. The Caltech administration was not pleased, but seemed to accept the “really, it wasn’t us, it was the Mudders” explanation.</p>
<p>Caltech certainly isn’t a party school, and that sort of party isn’t the rule at Caltech. Yet that kind of party does take place, with varying degrees of frequency, at pretty much every school.</p>
<p>This is a nuance that is really important. It really bothers me that we all now use “party” or that a school is “social” as code words for overuse of alcohol and/or recreational drugs. There can be relatively dry parties, or at least parties where people are buzzed but not sloppy drunk. And, as POIH points out, being social can mean going out and doing various things that have nothing to do with academics. As opposed to schools where people really don’t take breaks from academics or base their entire social life on what happens in the dorm.</p>
<p>I was trying to make the same point before with my contradancing line: No one objects to his children having fun, blowing off steam, socializing, and maybe meeting potential sex partners. But I don’t think anyone is really confused by the use of “party” as an intransitive verb referring to somewhat-more-than-moderate alcohol and/or drug use.</p>
<p>As for those buzzed-but-not-sloppy-drunk parties, I think it depends on the kid, the local culture, and a few random elements. I have never seen a party where everyone was sloppy drunk, or even most of the people. Sloppy drunks are generally the tip of the iceberg. The party where one or two kids got completely wasted, and puked in the corridor, or even got sent to the ER for alcohol poisoning? That’s the party where dozens of kids had a great time, danced a bit, and maybe even got to make out with someone, all without lasting damage to persons or property.</p>
<p>At some level, “parties” themselves are perhaps not even part of the problem. Parties are social; they imply some joy, actual fun. They also provide some level of social control – you get to be a sloppy drunk at a party only by screwing up, and generally the other people at the party let you know that.</p>
<p>When we talk about “party schools,” we mean schools with a lot of binge drinking. As much as one might dislike the euphemism, that ship has sailed.</p>
<p>And parties themselves are often not the venue for the binge drinking nowadays. I’m told that binge drinkers often “pre-game” before a party or football game by drinking enough shots to get themselves drunk before they even go to the social event.</p>
<p>By the way, the definition of binge drinking commonly used in the literature is four drinks in two hours for women or five drinks for men. For most people, that’s not vomiting level.</p>