<p>How is the drinking at Davidson? Is there a lot of underaged drinking? How about binge drinking? How are kids treated that don't drink?</p>
<p>Thank you!!</p>
<p>
[quote]
**13. Alcohol and Parties</p>
<p>Martin Court staff and Davidson College Police are required to see that the Davidson College Alcohol Policy is followed accordingly in the apartments.</p>
<p>A. Common containers of alcohol, including, but not limited to, kegs, party balls, punch bowls, Jell-O, pony kegs, beer balls, trashcans, ice luges and funnels are not allowed in or around apartments. There will be no warnings for violations of this rule. Violations could result in fines and Code of Responsibility charges. </p>
<p>B. Alcohol is allowed in apartments and on patio areas (by legal aged residents), but is strictly prohibited on the grounds of Martin Court, whether it is in stairwells or open courtyards. Martin Court is not an open consumption area. Residents caught walking around the grounds of Martin Court with an open container of alcohol (regardless of the type of container that it is in) could face Code of Responsibility charges. </p>
<p>C. All parties must be registered with the Martin Court Area Coordinator or in MCF 204 during office hours. Weekday parties must be registered 24 hours in advance of the party and Noon on Thursday for weekend parties. For further details, refer to the Red Book on the process of registering parties. </p>
<p>D. Hosts of drinking games have a special obligation to insure that all participants are of legal age. Party hosts and their roommates will be placed on social probation for the remainder of the semester in which underage guests play drinking games at their party, , and a letter will be sent home to your parents. For a second offense of hosting a drinking game with underage participants, party hosts and their roommates will be evicted from college housing without refund.</p>
<p>E. All underage drinkers are subject to Code of Responsibility charges. Underage drinkers participating in drinking games will incur double the applicable sanction (e.g. $50 fine for first offense).
[/quote]
**</p>
<p>Drinking definitely occurs here, just like on any other campus. I don't necessarily think it is worse, but not really any better either. The campus claims to strictly enfoce the drinking policy, but in reality it is fairly laxly enforced. In general, they seem to recognize that underage drinking will occur, and they kind of attempt to just let it happen, but in the safest way possible. People do get in trouble for drinking in their room if it causes a disturbance, but they don't really monitor underage drinking on the court. As a student who doesn't drink, I haven't felt any prejudices or anything like that. In general, students are very respectful of other people's decisions to drink or not to drink. There are always people at the court who aren't drunk, and for people who have no desire to go to the court, the Union almost always has some sort of fun activity on the weekends. Or, there are plenty of places to go just off campus as well.</p>
<p>This is a really important question that you raise. I wish I could give you a fittingly accurate and honest response, but I do not drink either so I suppose this will be a bit tainted.
I think the "like any other campus but safer" really does apply here because of Davidson's small size. Its a lot easier to detect problems quickly and to watch out for your friends / have people watch out for you when you are surrounded by people you know well. Its really kind of a great set up that we have, it really only goes on for the public to see on the court which means if thats not your thing you just don't go there, and its relativly easy to avoid esp. freshman year (if you aren't pledging since freshman live up the hill).
Sub free housing is only a little awkward the first two weeks of school, then people realize it doesn't matter at all. Once people get to know each other by more then room numbers, noone is judged by being on sub free, in fact, they are generally admired / envyed because they can get work done, and socially strangers feel they can trust people on sub free so they actually make more friends then you would expect.
So I think the statistics that were tabulated this year came down to about 1/3 of students don't drink or drink very rarely (social/formal situations within there own home drinking wine or so being the exeption)
1/3 drink between 1 and 4 servings of alcohol a week (so people who drink one or two in a night at the court on a friday or saturday and depending on their workload might return and do the same thing the next night). That leaves 1/3 who drink 5 or more servings of alcohol a week (so yeah, our hard core partyers, people who generally allready did this in high school, steping it up just a notch).
So it was a mom who originally brought this up, if you know your kid well enough to say he/she is not going to drink at colllege, Davidson is a very nice place where he/she will feel far less pressure to drink than you fear, and a great place to have a social life which doesn't include getting drunk. On the flip side, Davidson isn't a place where people go to kick the habit either if they like to drink, they will most likely responsively. It certaintly happens here, but perhaps in a much safer manner compared to the horror stories at other schools such as the Dartmouth incident of two years ago.<br>
Good night,
Orangelights</p>
<p>Thank you for taking the time to respondly so thoughtfully. I think it's hard for kids who don't want to drink to find a college where they will feel comfortable. My daughter's biggest concern is living with the kids. She thinks going to school with kids who drink is one thing but living with them would be a nightmare.</p>
<p>Thanks again!!</p>
<p>Thank you for responding to my post. It does help to get a better feel for the school's culture to hear from the students attending.</p>
<p>Thanks again!!</p>
<p>my boyfriend got taken to the hospital for alcohole posisin his 2nd week there.... good luck... theres a lot of drinking and coke use to according to him....</p>