<p>Does anyone have any information about these types of dorms? Are you setting yourself up to be ostracized?</p>
<p>Please ask for “substance free”…“substance abuse” is quite the opposite of what you intend!</p>
<p>LOLLLL I meant substance free!!!</p>
<p>: ). I do not believe you will be ostracized. There are many types of people on campus and it is more important to stick to your values. You will find lots of like-minded students and you will also be able to socialize with everyone to a point…and then, gratefully, head back to your “substance free” dorm.</p>
<p>These will be different situations at different colleges. At my daughter’s college it was just a floor in a regular dorm building. She made friends on another floor because she didn’t click with the people in the subfree dorm. It was not a problem, though. Most of those kids became great friends and went on to room together in other subfree housing. Mine just went to regular dorms. You will make plenty of friends outside your dorm situation. Going subfree for my daughter was just a way to test the waters when being in a new situation, but she found it wasn’t necessary in the end.</p>
<p>I insisted that my son spend freshman year in substance-free because of past behavior issues. He didn’t make any friends in that dorm, but was definitely not ostracized by other students (he made many friends elsewhere).</p>
<p>Our daughter chose to start out in a substance-free section of her dorm, and it worked out fine. At her college (Hampshire), sub-free residents needed to complete and sign a contract that required them to not be in possession, or under the influence, of alcohol or controlled substances while on the floor. Most other students were quite accepting of her choice, and never pressed her to partake. Also, she could still ‘experiment’ as long as she did not return until she was no longer under the influence.</p>
<p>The last few posts, if you read them carefully and think about them, tell you some important things about the dynamics of substance-free housing:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Many of the students in substance-free housing are there because their parents made them choose it, not because they wanted to be there. That is a frequent criticism of substance-free housing. At some colleges, it can make substance-free housing into an unpleasant joke; at others, it doesn’t seem to matter much at all.</p></li>
<li><p>Many students in substance-free housing in fact wind up using substances. Both the ones to which paragraph #1 referred, and students who thought they wanted to be substance-free but then had doubts, or changed their minds. (Both uncertainty and mind-changing happen frequently when 18-year-olds go to college.) In fact, substance-free housing is not always substance free, and rarely truly unaffected by substance use elsewhere. Good for Hampshire if it is successful in getting students who experiment with substance use elsewhere to stay away from their rooms until they sober up, but not every college pulls that off.</p></li>
<li><p>Substance-free housing would probably be nicer if all the substance-free kids lived there, but lots of substance-free kids choose to live elsewhere because they don’t want to be labeled or ostracized or to restrict their friendships to other completely substance-free students. None of those things generally happens to sub-free residents, but fear that they might happen keeps lots of kids away, even if they generally choose to abstain from drinking or other forms of substance use. </p></li>
<li><p>I think substance-abuse housing is more marketing sizzle than anything else. Parents like the idea. Some students who are apprehensive about social aspects of college like the idea. I have yet to meet anyone who has voluntarily stayed in substance-free housing more than a single academic year, even though almost everyone who wanted to be there in the first place liked it fine. It’s just that with a little experience and a little self-confidence, the “substance-free” rules turned out to be relatively unimportant among the factors that make for a good dorm and good roommates.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Substance free housing is helpful for some students who are in recovery. That is the only reason I can think of for requesting it.</p>
<p>My oldest daughter attended an lac with several theme dorms. We were concerned about noise disrupting her ability to study/ sleep.
She vacillated between the " quiet dorm" which required " quiet" after 10 pm, and the " sub free dorm" which banned all substances 24/7. ( alcohol, cigarettes, pot…)
We decided that the sub- free dorm was likely to be quieter because it seemed much easier to disallow any alcohol at any time even when student were of age, than to get people to quiet down every night after 10 pm.
She made many friends freshman yr in the subfree dorm and many chose to continue to select those dorms, soph & jr yr. Senior yr she chose to live in a townhouse owned by the school.</p>
<p>Students that would ostracize others because of their choice of living conditions, IMO, are not the sort of people you want for friends anyway.</p>
<p>Schools where alcohol is the dominant drug seem much noisier than schools where pot is more prevalent. (& less safe IMO, especially for women)
I believe that youngests school leans toward the second category, she also lived off campus after freshman year.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how students who simply choose to remain drug free feel about rooming with those who’ve had substance abuse issues in the past and choose to live in a sub free hall to try to minimize temptations?</p>
<p>My kids aren’t judgy.</p>
<p>Thanks Emeraldkity.</p>
<p>New threads pop up all the time from students who don’t drink and aren’t interested in being around partying students but who don’t want to go to a strict religiously-affiliated college. I hear that often from students at our high school. There are obviously many students who want to have that substance-free atmosphere.</p>
<p>Some of these students, however, don’t know about substance-free housing. Housing departments often won’t promote those options because some parents and students will respond, “I thought ALL housing was substance-free.” Housing reps don’t want to be stuck explaining that well, yes, technically all housing is substance-free but the college doesn’t enforce those rules very well in other dorms. They also don’t want to leave the impression that alcohol and drugs are so pervasive on campus that students have to be in substance-free housing to get away from that atmosphere.</p>
<p>When my daughter was looking at colleges, she asked about substance-free housing. One college kept insisting that ALL their housing was substance-free – like they had no idea what she was talking about. When I finally said, “Surely you’ve heard of designated substance-free housing where the students sign contracts not to use drugs or alcohol,” the housing rep hemmed and hawed and finally said, “No, we don’t have anything like that.”</p>
<p>If colleges all had substance-free housing, and actively promoted it, I think they would find many students wanting to get in.</p>
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<p>Yes, everyone in the dorm must wear a Scarlett Letter while on campus. - jk</p>
<p>It is my understanding that the Dorm is substance free. That doesn’t mean the kids can’t partake somewhere else.</p>
<p>If there is an entire dorm that is substance free, it implies that there is a large enough cadre of kids that want that option. As such, ostracism should not be an issue.</p>
<p>If the kid’s friends want to drink, and your kid doesn’t, that will cause the problem, not which dorm the kid lives in.</p>
<p>My son and I visited a young friend living in a sub-free dorm at Penn. It was lovely, the people we met were lovely, and as far as I know, she chose to live there in subsequent years. She had plenty of friends and yes, I think it was a bit quieter but the kids were still into having fun and seemed really nice.</p>
<p>My son and his friends chose the sub-free dorm for their upcoming Junior year. I think there are 6-8 of them sharing a suite. They’re looking forward to having the suite together and since none of them are interested in binge drinking/drugs, it was an easy choice. Turns out there is a housing shortage, especially for Juniors, so they feel lucky that they got in. My understanding is that the college allows that dorm to host more campus activities to encourage those kids to find alternative ways to have fun and invite other students to join in.</p>
<p>A higher profile for sub-free dorms might help social norming and reduce the alcohol problems on some campuses. We live in a University town and my daughter had seen and heard plenty about Greek-fueled drinking culture she didnt like. She loved her sub-free housing mostly kids who just didnt want to deal with the hassle of loud, stupid-acting drunk hallmates or step over vomit in the mornings. If there was a student there in recovery, she never heard about it, but good for them. Just found lively dorm mates who knew how to have fun without needing alcohol. Probably a bit more mature than the norm. Lots of international kids who didnt want the stereotypic partying they had heard about in US colleges. (Some drank in their home countries but not like they do here.) She still made plenty of friendships with kids that drank and she lived elsewhere after her first year but always chose party-light dorms. Her sister also opted for sub-free, even as an upper classman. At that level there was sometimes drinking in her house, but more at the level of a glass of wine with a movie-night. They loved the home environment that was cleaner, quieter, and no damage fees. Party elsewhere.</p>