<p>I’m an upperclassman at Brown and although I love this school for 1000 reasons- the parties suck.
Let’s consider the options: Usually there are one to two frat parties a weekend on a good night(sometimes none) and these frat parties have a limit of 150-200 students each. This is not a lot for a student body of 6000, so usually most people get turned away. Further, there are dorm and house parties. Yet, house parties usually get broken up at 12 and dorm parties can hardly fit more than 30 people, which I don’t think qualifies as a party. Lastly, we have downtown Providence. I am older than 21, so I could go to clubs downtown. However, the clubs downtown either suck or there are no Brown students. The only “club” people go to is “Fishco” and this is more like a Frat-Party with more expensive drinks. If you ask yourself what all the students do at night… They either study (I know sooo many people who go out like twice a SEMESTER), they smoke up or they play some beer-pong in their rooms- nothing I would consider a good night-out.
I don’t have any comparison to other Ivies, but the party life at Brown is simply shameful. If I had to choose Brown again and people told me the truth about Brown’s nightlife, I don’t know if I would end up here. I like to work hard, I like to play hard and if I can’t do the latter I feel deprived of a well rounded College experience Brown is so well known for.</p>
<p>This is a great advertisement for going to Brown! It is a school that is known for intense, serious, curious, interested, self-motivated students! It is a place where kids can have a lot of fun when they want to. It is much better to be known as being less of a party school and more of a school school. Thanks for posting this!</p>
<p>This is silly. But GCB maybe?</p>
<p>I think some prospective students might find this thread helpful. Anybody who thinks college is all work and no play is either deceiving themselves or a serious stick in the mud. For better or worse, parties are an integral part of the average student’s life.</p>
<p>Hey SoWhat? that’s the best news I heard all day. As the parent of a freshman-- thanks!!</p>
<p>Parents, don’t send your kids to Dartmouth. They drink in a bad and sloppy way, not in a fun way.</p>
<p>The secret is to find all the LGBT parties.</p>
<p>And that is exactly why my daughter loved Brown. Although she occasionally enjoyed a party at zete or the coop house I do know.</p>
<p>You know how people say that “everybody fits into Brown” or “everybody will find a niche”. I feel this is mostly true for socially awkward or stuck-up people. Yet, if you are a balanced 18-22 year old that likes to work AND play hard, you are going to find it difficult to get the 2nd.
I believe this is anything but good advertising and something prospective students should consider before going here, keeping in mind that other Ivys might not have more nightlife (as the same type of student goes here), but at least some have a great cities nearby. Personally I blame the Ivy admission process for this, as you almost have to be a perfect student to get into an Ivy-college and even more so if you think about Medical or Business school. Besides studying, volunteering is highly valued by the admission committee because they think this is what makes a person “balanced”. Well, if you ask me a balanced person is someone who has a beer with friends every now and then and knows how to let go during the weekend. It is by the way statistically proven that these kind of people succeed in the real world much more than the super-nerds. (The average CEO has an average of B-)
So other than volunteering hours and the intel-victory I’d find it great if students had to submit one facebook-party pick. We could call this initiative: “initiative for PERSONAL enrichment” </p>
<p>Somehow I find parent’s worries about drinking in College ridiculous as I am sure that students who are smart enough to get into Brown will not end up EMSed all the time. Also I believe parents should trust in their years of parenting and that their kids will make good decisions. All I am saying is that if your kid really want to drink all night and do coke he/she could do that even at BYU and no paranoid parent can stop him/her.</p>
<p>Btw: If you really want to keep your kid from doing drugs/cocaine- don’t let them go to I-banking or Consulting. But wait, isn’t that the whole point going to an Ivy, getting $$$ for 16 hour days? I wonder what people think how people can keep up with that workload…
The same applies to college(though not to that extent). Studious ivy-students are just as likely to do drugs as kids from state schools! The difference, they are not party but STUDY drugs. I know for a fact that students do cocaine to boost their studying an the Dartmouth/Princeton coke scandal is only the tip of the iceberg. </p>
<p>[Creative</a> Dartmouth Fratboys Snort Coke off of Their Brothers’ Photographed Faces, Urinate on Their Socks, Destroy Their Tables; Police Confused > cocaine, composites, dartcoke, Dartmouth, fraternities, greek life, SAE, sigma alpha epsilon, this](<a href=“http://www.ivygateblog.com/2010/05/creative-dartmouth-fratboys-snort-coke-off-of-their-brothers-photographed-faces-urinate-on-their-socks-destroy-their-tables-police-confused/]Creative”>http://www.ivygateblog.com/2010/05/creative-dartmouth-fratboys-snort-coke-off-of-their-brothers-photographed-faces-urinate-on-their-socks-destroy-their-tables-police-confused/)</p>
<p>[Princetonian</a> Greek Life Insular, Abusive, Whiter Than Switzerland > fraternities, greek life, Princeton, youth’s folly | IvyGate](<a href=“http://www.ivygateblog.com/2010/04/princetonian-exclusive-greek-life-insular-abusive-whiter-than-switzerland/]Princetonian”>http://www.ivygateblog.com/2010/04/princetonian-exclusive-greek-life-insular-abusive-whiter-than-switzerland/)</p>
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<p>No.</p>
<p>Just back from Parents Weekend. Spoke to many seniors, and other students, too. Not one is going into i-banking or consulting. Oh, forgot – there was one freshman.</p>
<p>Maybe you need to branch out and meet other people.</p>
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<p>Also not true. I strongly believe that Brown is not for everyone. I hope that everyone who goes there can find “their people,” but unfortunately that doesn’t always happen.</p>
<p>I find this conversation funny. Like the other parents who posted here, I’m glad to hear that Brown isn’t a party school the way you want it to be. If you had done your research ahead of time, you would have realized that before you applied. Some kids want to go to huge party schools. Others are perfectly happy to hang out with friends and go to small parties. </p>
<p>OTOH, I know Brown students who get drunk on a regular basis – happened when I was there, happens now. And not just on Friday and Saturday nights.</p>
<p>Sorry, parents - SoWhat is so wrong.</p>
<p>My perspective is precisely the opposite from SoWhat’s. Not in that I think partying is bad, or that work-hard-play-hard is bad, or anything like that; rather, I think Brown is a party school, and that was one of my favorite things about the place. After 3 years drinking (legally) and clubbing in Europe in high school, I would have been miserable if it had been any other way. I bragged about Brown’s social scene to friends at other schools. I complained when I visited people at other schools. I gush to prospective students (although it has to be rather toned-down with interviewees) about how good the scene is. Brown’s party culture was a big part of what made it great to me.</p>
<p>So, how do reconcile my view and SoWhat’s? I think it’s all about one particular type of social scene that Brown can’t provide.</p>
<p>Here’s what was available to me on a typical weekend at Brown: 1 or 2 frat parties with very cheap, free-flowing beer and lots of people dancing; a program house or co-ed frat party, usually slightly more upscale; FishCo (Wednesday, not the weekend, but whatever); 1-3 friends’ house parties; somewhere to play beirut (beer pong); group of friends hanging out at one of the on-campus bars (Spats, Liquid/Old English Something-or-Other, GCB); group of friends hanging out in a dorm room, talking about ‘nerdy’ things; sitting in Jo’s and watching people filter in from all of the above.</p>
<p>Here’s what isn’t really part of the scene: Clubbing out in the city; doing coke off hookers while salivating about one’s future as an I-Banker.</p>
<p>It would appear that SoWhat is one of the few people who will only be satisfied with that last slice of the pie, which just isn’t part of the Brown world. And that’s fine - understandable even. Flirting and grinding with people who are not part of their school’s bubble, out in the ‘real world’, is an important part of life for a lot of people, and to be honest, those people should be looking elsewhere. In the Ivy League, that means Columbia or Penn - maybe Harvard, too.</p>
<p>Look: Brown is a campus school. Most of the fun happens on-campus, or very near campus, with people from the school. (Parents: you should be happy that your kids are at Brown not because they won’t be partying (if they want to, they will), but because their partying will be taking place in a very safe sphere.) If that turns you off, go elsewhere.</p>
<p>I partied extremely hard at Brown, and loved every moment of it.</p>
<p>@firedrain: This is not true. McK came to campus and 260 out of 1500 seniors applied. There are a loooot of people going into consulting or I-banking. </p>
<p>@mgcsinc: I like your post. Brown students are one of the happiest in the nation and most students must feel like you. Yet, I just wanted to express that MOST people who are used to European-style clubbing won’t be happy with the party-scene. Because there is no clubbing atmosphere anywhere near campus. Frat parties are minor and usually only frequented by freshman. I chose Brown for the open curriculum and figured that there must be good parties if there are 6000 students on one spot.
Yet, the party scene is very small and people who want to have the college experience that include huge parties might be best off not to come here. It might be something that applies to all prestigious US institutions (I visited Yale and it is even worse…) Having said that, a guy like me probably shouldn’t study at ivy league at all and I urge other people who think about ivy-league to consider this too. Ivy-league might be the one place in the world where people that are not “nerds”(and I don’t mean that in a demeaning way) feel/are out of place.</p>
<p>As far as the money grubbing jobs go: From my experience many people apply to those jobs just…because. I know people who applied and weren’t even sure why never would have been happy in consulting/i-banking. Applying doesn’t mean you’re choosing a career. Many of those applying are from COE, Econ, Applied Math. Add those department #'s up. Plus, with the job market the way it is people are just looking for work - period. </p>
<p>"Ivy-league might be the one place in the world where people that are not “nerds”(and I don’t mean that in a demeaning way) feel/are out of place. "</p>
<p>I actually found that most people at Brown weren’t nerds (as in glasses/awkward/WoW/D&D, etc). A surprisingly low percentage actually, but that’s a result of the admission office doing their job.</p>
<p>"Well, if you ask me a balanced person is someone who has a beer with friends every now and then and knows how to let go during the weekend. It is by the way statistically proven that these kind of people succeed in the real world much more than the super-nerds. "</p>
<p>You are making some real postulations there aren’t you!</p>
<p>Overall I’m surprised at how terrible you are making it sound. It doesn’t say much for your adaptability.</p>
<p>SoWhat: that means that 1,260 seniors did not apply. A vast majority. And I’ll bet that many who applied really don’t want to do that work, but are anxious about finding a job, any job, so applied. </p>
<p>Look, I know many students are interested in banking, finance and consulting. Let’s just not exaggerate and say that everyone is.</p>
<p>Question: Do most US students who apply to college list “European style clubbing” as one of their priorities for college? Do most students even know what that means?</p>
<p>I liked mgcsinc post, too. Because I think it is a realistic depiction of the social life at Brown. Of course there is partying and drinking at college – I may be a parent, but I don’t live with my head in the ground.</p>
<p>@SoWhat: I’m glad I was able to tease things out a bit, in a way you agree with. In response to your comments:</p>
<p>Re: “European-style” clubbing - I found a lot more of that (or rather, what I think of as "European-style clubbing) at Brown than I ever could in mega-clubs in major US cities. I lived from the ages of 15-18 in Brussels, and the atmosphere that I found at Brown’s frat and theme house (Machado / Buxton) parties is rather close to the small clubs I used to frequent there. I often find American clubs too quiet, too sane, too spacious, too well-lit, and too sober (unsurprising, given how many people have to drive home). So, once again, I loved Brown because it gave me exactly what, from your perspective, it doesn’t have. But, I’d bet you have a different concept of “European-style clubbing” than I do.</p>
<p>Re: “huge parties” - I disagree. There are plenty of places with bigger clubs than at Brown, but bigger parties? I’ve visited friends at a lot of schools, and parties seem to come in the same shape and size everywhere: dorm room, house, frat, and big student group (e.g., SexPowerGod). If anything, the presence of an open frat party every weekend seems to give Brown the edge when it comes to big parties.</p>
<p>Re: “nerds” - I emphatically, whole-heartedly disagree. Most people I knew at Brown we’re people that no one would describe as ‘nerds’, except maybe in that weird sitcom way of describing anyone with a desire to talk about vaguely intelligent things a ‘nerd’. Brown is not UChicago or a small super-intellectual LAC - there are plenty of people who by outward appearances seem like ‘jocks’ and ‘ditzes’. Perhaps you lump them in the ‘nerd’ category as well, because they spend their time talking about interesting things? I don’t know. What I do know is that I loved having the frat-boys around precisely because they threw good parties and added some non-nerdyness to the mix. I think it only takes one trip outside during Spring Weekend to see that they don’t seem too uncomfortable at Brown.</p>
<p>I hate to revive an old thread, but do you find the opinions in this thread still applicable 4 years later? Are there any “clubby” parties or an EDM scene? Or does partying mostly mean frat parties</p>
<p>This thread is four years old. The scene both at Brown and in Providence has changed drastically.</p>
<p>Greek life is less than 10% of the Brown population, so no, frat parties are definitely not the only option on weekend nights.</p>
<p>Even 4 years ago they weren’t the only option. Sure, they are the biggest/most visible parties on a given weekend but even as someone who was in a frat I would never say it was the only option. I do believe that the greek population has grown in the last few years, it’s more like 12% of the student body :)</p>
<p>I still don’t quite grasp what the OP was looking for that he claims wasn’t there unless he means the mega club. Providence does not have megaclubs. It has a fair share that I went to a couple times but honestly the parties on campus are better and cheaper. I’d just listen to @mgcsinc.</p>