<p>My D is a freshman there. She says there are a lot of preps & expensive clothes but the truth is you will find that at any private school, and they tend to stand out more than the tees & jeans. Which there are also plenty of. They are not snobby about clothes though. It was just a shock coming from a public school where how many designer bags you had was not something anyone gave a damn about, though there were also a few girls who had them. </p>
<p>The rep is it is a bar school & it is true. They are very strict about no alcohol or drugs in their buildings so those who want to drink get fake iDs and go to bars in the area. The school tries to fight this, too. The reason for the strict policy is liability awareness — where we live there were several deaths in different nearby schools from freshmen basically drinking themselves to death, within a couple of years of each other. The parents sued the pants off the schools & other colleges took note. Besides the tragedy of losing the kids—universities can’t turn their heads the other way to this issue any more. If they don’t take more of a stand about binge drinking they will be paying so much for insurance they will not be able to fund scholarships or other things. </p>
<p>My daughter does not drink & does not go to bars. There is a program called Options which offers things to do on weekends that are interesting and alcohol free, but they don’t have enough of them. She had signed up for the Halloween one but it got snowed out–no fault of the school though. Freak blizzard in Oct & power losses all over the East Coast. </p>
<p>She says they have a lot of interesting lectures, concerts, etc on weeknights but she is loaded with homework during the week & wishes they would schedule some of them on weekends. </p>
<p>She has been making a lot of friends, they are friendly & open, including the drinking ones. The school is very big on social issues and since a lot of the students came from Catholic h.s. where the emphasis is also on social concerns & doing service, there is a lot of participation in such things at Loyola. No, they do not make anyone go to church.</p>
<p>If you like to work out & such there is a brand new athletic facilities building with lots of bells & whistles. </p>
<p>There are a lot of clubs and other things — if you don’t like the ones they have, you can also start a club or interest group on your own, if you have at least–5, I think–members. They have an active outdoors club which has a lot of hikes & camping weekends. There is also the city of Baltimore and all the things cities have – museums, restaurants, tourist attractions, historical sites, etc & DC is not that far away. </p>
<p>I hope this is helpful – you can do a little Googling & find out lots about Maryland, Baltimore etc.</p>