<p>As many of you know, I sought heavily to avoid heavy drinking "party schools" in my college search and went off rather reluctantly thinking that my midsized state u would be all alcohol all the time while my friends at SLACs would not encounter much drunken partying. To make a long story short, boy was I wrong. While there certainly is drinking at my UM, I have never felt any pressure at all to drink and find that there is almost never a dearth of things to do--and I even went Greek! (all the soriority houses are dry, by the way). Friend #1 goes to small, mid-selectivity LAC that is perhaps known for a pot scene but not a drinking scene.Also not a drinker, she's had real trouble with the drinking scene at her school, even though she lives in a subfree dorm. Alcoholic drink recipes are published in the school paper and she says the dominant topic of conversation is how drunk everyone got or is going to get. Friend #2 goes to highly selective LAC known for intense academics and often recommended on CC as school for people who want to avoid drinking-heavy party schools. Her facebook page is rife with references to heavy drinking partying. I know all this is ancedote and that some schools and some Greek systems are more party hardy than others, but I guess my points are 1) Don't leap to conclusions about schools based solely on reputation, 2) Greek does not always equal alcoholic, not Greek does not always equal sober, 3) Don't assume your kid does/doesn't drink based solely on the school they go to.</p>
<p>Thanks for the insight, wolfpiper.</p>
<p>Nice to hear from you wolfpiper. Sounds as if your sorority is working out for you? I'm pretty sure every one of the small LACs my son has applied to will have some degree of a drinking, partying culture. I'm going to encourage him to get involved in a few ECs ASAP as a way to meet people outside of the partying framework. Glad to hear you've been able to avoid it and still find friends.</p>
<p>Good post wolfpiper. My guess is that this is one of the benefits of a larger school. Bigger selection of friends, bigger selection of activities!</p>
<p>At a 10,000-kid school, even if 90% of the students drink, there are still 1,000 who don't.</p>
<p>That's quite a large pool from which to select your friends.</p>
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...went off rather reluctantly thinking that my midsized state u would be all alcohol all the time while my friends at SLACs would not encounter much drunken partying.
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<p>I've never heard anyone here suggest that public universities have more drinking than small LACs. There are public universities (like Penn State) that have incredibily high binge drinking rates, but others that do not. Similarly, there are LACs with high binge drinking rates and others with low binge drinking rates.</p>
<p>Remember, we are talking about the difference between 30% of the campus binge drinking (low) in the prior 2 weeks versus 60% of the campus (high), not the difference between 0% and 100%.</p>
<p>D went to a large U with a stellar party rep.Wasnt a heavy drinker at all.
She jokingly told us that some kids pick the sub free dorm in order to party elsewhere and know their dorm bathrooms and floors will be nice and clean b/c the partying is done elsewhere.Then you come back there to sleep it off.</p>
<p>cathymee, that is not necessarily a joke. Some kids actually do that.</p>
<p>My D quickly identified the dorm that was known as "party dorm" and also decided that she did not want to go to that dorm because she wanted to be able to study when she wanted, and figured that she did not need to "party" where she lived. I was happy that she thought of that.</p>
<p>True, id. I guess the distinction I was trying to make was not so much between state schools (thoughthey do seem to have higher degrees of party reps) and SLACs, but rather between schools with such reps and schools without them. Note, too, that I did say there's drinking at my school--I'm not blind. deaf, and dumb--but that I haven't felt at all pressured to partake or excluded my choice not to.</p>
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At a 10,000-kid school, even if 90% of the students drink, there are still 1,000 who don't.</p>
<p>That's quite a large pool from which to select your friends.
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<p>also, just because someone drinks and you don't, doesn't mean you shouldn't be friends wit them. =)</p>
<p>^^^ You are right, and you might be that sober driver who saves your friends' lives. The only issue to be careful of is the drunken big guy overpowering the tiny young lady (even sober, he may be hard to fight off). I bring this up because my D knows several girls whose older sisters have warned them of the prevelance of campus date rape (large publics in this case, but I am certain that it happens everywhere if it happens there).</p>
<p>Plus, drunken idiots do provide hours of amusement to sober folk :)!</p>
<p>Wolfpiper, schools are not party schools per se. Kids are the ones who give in to the distractions of partying. You can find at almost any school groups that are studious and groups that take their academics far too lightly.</p>
<p>I will say this: almost every adult that I have met,who didn't take school seriously, regrets it during the remainder of their lifetime.</p>
<p>"She jokingly told us that some kids pick the sub free dorm in order to party elsewhere and know their dorm bathrooms and floors will be nice and clean b/c the partying is done elsewhere.Then you come back there to sleep it off."</p>
<p>My alma mater doesn't have substance-free dorms, and no frats or sororities:</p>
<p>"I live in a bubble where throwing TVs out of windows, relieving oneself on the floor, recklessly sleeping around and driving while intoxicated are not out of the ordinary. Honestly, in what world is this okay? Where am I? I am at college. Williams College."</p>
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Plus, drunken idiots do provide hours of amusement to sober folk !
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<p>I agree. More specifically, about 10 hours of amusement: after that it gets old and you start to really wish that there was something to do in the evenings that didn't involve everyone in the room but you being drunk. My school's not really a party school and at this point my peers are more likely to hang out at a local bar/tavern type place for a few hours than go to a house party, but there has still always been an underlying element of 'having fun means getting drunk'. I haven't really been pressured to drink that much or excluded from things because of it, and people will say they don't care, but that doesn't mean I don't end up feeling severely left out/out of place because of it. Just because a non-drinker can tag along with your friends while they get drunk and not have them harass you for not drinking doesn't mean that they actually want to spend every weekend doing that.</p>
<p>I kind of figured that the 'party school' label would be self-perpetuating. The people that see college as an opportunity to get drunk as much as possible will seek out the supposed party schools, and turn it into a party school if it really wasn't one to begin with. I don't think there's any such thing as the opposite of a party school, except perhaps for commuter schools where no one sticks around after class hours anyway.</p>
<p>I have worked at a small Catholic women's college, a mid-sized Catholic university, a small alternative school, and a large state U ... my daughter attended a very selective private women's college. They were all party schools. Alcohol is everywhere. The way to resolve the situation is to find the friends who do not choose this lifestyle ... and, in many cases, the residence halls where alcohol is not the predominant social influence. Most schools have quiet halls, substance free halls, or halls which have a reputation for being tamer. The answer? Choose a college based on what it has to offer academically and then select a living situation which supports the appropriate lifestyle.</p>
<p>WRT all schools being party schools -- I agree, you can't pick a school expecting to avoid it. I advocate teaching kids to make responsible choices about drinking, and about being around people who are drinking. So, even if my son doesn't drink, it's still important to know what to do if he's with someone who passes out, or things like that.</p>
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At a 10,000-kid school, even if 90% of the students drink, there are still 1,000 who don't.</p>
<p>That's quite a large pool from which to select your friends.
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<p>And 9,000 you automatically reject because of an ussually benign lifestyle choice.</p>
<p>That was my post cwatson, and I wasn't saying that I would automatically reject the drinkers.</p>
<p>I was thinking more that it can be considerably more fun to share an alcohol-free activity with other people who aren't drinking than to stand around with a Coke in your hand at a party where drinking alcohol is the main entertainment.</p>
<p>I don't know what kind of "parties" you went to but standing around with a coke or a drink was not the main activity. You have a couple and start looking for somebody to chat up. You start dancing and then if things are going well you get to makeout a bit. If things really go well you leave together. Drinking was just a means to an end.</p>