<p>Sometime in the next 3 days my daughter has to choose between her top 2 schools that admitted her: Tufts and Wesleyan. There are things she likes about both, and things she likes about one but not about the other. For example, for Tufts, she likes the location/proximity to a big city (that's a bit of a drawback for Wesleyan) but on the other hand, she likes the fact that virtually ALL the classes at Wesleyan are small and you get to know your professors. Her main concern is the extent of heavy partying and drinking on the weekends. She did an overnight stay at Wesleyan, where all the students she met "pre-gamed" the party -- that is, got falling-down drunk before the party because alcohol wasn't served there. Then she did an overnight at Tufts, but it was on a weekday, so there was no party. She had a nice time on that sleepover but is worried that maybe if she'd been at Tufts on a weekend night, it would have been the same. She doesn't want to have to work at finding others who don't binge-drink or need to get drunk in order to have a good time Finding friends like that is a high priority for her. She's heard that at both schools, even in the substance-free dorms, there's a fair amount of drinking. She's looking for some candid assessments of both Tufts and Wesleyan when it comes to (a) getting to know professors and (b) avoiding living with heavy drinkers. As the decision deadline is coming up fast, we'd appreciate any and all help with this decision.</p>
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Certainly not at Tufts. The last time I visited Healthy Living on a Friday night, they were playing scrabble. It’s very cool actually.</p>
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I’m an Engineer so most of my classes tend to hover around 30 students, but every humanities class I’ve taken had less than 15. Getting to know your professors is very easy. In fact I’m planning to get both of my LoRs for law school from my Philosophy teachers, even though I know my Engineer professors much better.</p>
<p>^^ FWIW – The question of substance-free dorms came up in my conversation with some Tufts students at lunchtime, and I asked how anal are Tufts RAs about substance free living (I drink very infrequently and don’t smoke weed, etc, so was wondering if substance free may make sense for me) – i.e., does substance “free” really mean substance “lite” like it does at some other schools. They reiterated what Detail says – they were adament that substance free at Tufts means substance free. Period.</p>
<p>haha, my host for my overnight at tufts got placed into substance-free, not by choice.</p>
<p>he had 10+ bottles of liquor lined up on his desk, and rum in the fridge. he said as long as you aren’t disruptive or wondering around the common areas/halls drinking, the RA’s don’t get on your case.</p>
<p>Hmm… I read DukeofEarl’s post and was thinking, great, she can sign up for the substance-free dorm and know that they mean business. But then Skateboarder tells about an overnight that sounds like something my daughter already heard. I guess it depends on how aware the RA’s are, and how discreet the drinker can be. Still, this isn’t making the decision any easier. Thanks for the feedback, though!</p>
<p>I don’t think you can escape the drinking issue in college, unless your child attends Brigham Young or Bob Jones University, etc. I would imagine that a dorm reserved for healthy living would have minimal drinking, but to hope for none at all in any setting seems pointless. Why not just trust that your D will successfully navigate whatever drinking issues arise? After all, as an adult in the workforce, she will have to deal with colleagues who drink- maybe not at work (!), but surely at most social events.
My D attends a high school known for its drinking culture, and yet has learned over the course of four years how to negotiate a successful social life that includes parties, without having to join in the drinking- she simply avoids the events that are the most notorious and the crowd that seems to have the least control over their drinking (or their lives, for that matter). I also kept in mind the drinking issue when we looked at colleges, and Tufts, compared to some others (Boulder anyone?) seems more low-key. If anything, we know some kids who would choose other schools over Tufts (BC anyone?) so they can party more!</p>
<p>The decision is in: It’s Tufts. In the end D went with her gut, which was that the people she happened to meet at Tufts seemed friendlier and more welcoming than the people she happened to meet at Wesleyan. It did come down to a “luck of the draw” situation – although she recognizes that both are great schools and she’d probably be fine either way. As she said, it’s just too bad she couldn’t go to someplace with the size and small classes of Wesleyan, in the location of Tufts and with Tufts’ IR department – call it “Tesleyan” or “Wufts” !</p>
<p>I think she’ll be pleasantly surprised with class sizes. Intro to IR will be a 150+ student class, but if she gets Mufti or Greenhill as a prof, they’ll know her name anyway. The other three major Intro classes the Poli Sci department offers (the International Relations department isn’t a real thing, it’s just the Poli Sci department in masks, with some language and econ professors invited) will each have 50+ students, but the vast majority of classes she will take will have 12-30 students, and the professors will know her name, and know her quite well if she wants them to.</p>
<p>I suggest classes with Greenhill, Art, Devigne (he bears an eerily resemblance to Lewis Black, both in appearance and temperament), and Glaser for poli sci, Norman for econ (he’s Scottish! and awesome!), and, if your daughter’s language is Spanish Haltom, Detweiller if it’s French
Greenhill just wrote me a job recommendation so glowing it blinded me, Art gave me a summer job and helped me get my research published, Haltom once offered, unprompted, to drive me two hours to attend a funeral I had no way of getting to.</p>
<p>Tell her if she likes a prof, go to their office hours and make friends.</p>
<p>I have passed along your suggestions, and she was happy to have this advice. Thanks!</p>
<p>I’m a pre-frosh at Tufts and was a bit worried after finding out that most of my intro classes would be fairly large lectures. However, I talked to quite a few current students and many mentioned that the numbers drastically become smaller as you age. Plus, TAs are supposed to be excellent, especially if your daughter is considering IR, so most TAs will be students at the excellent Fletcher grad school. In terms of research, Tufts beats out Wesleyan by a mile so she can always meet professors that way.</p>
<p>I know you already made your decision (and it’s a good one!) but hope that this reassured you a bit. I was in the same boat as your daughter (CMC instead of Wesleyan though) and I’m confident that I made the right decision.</p>
<p>I was in between these two school as well. During Wes Fest, found that at Wesleyan, there was MUCH higher drug usage (and we’re talking harder stuff like LSD) in comparison to my visits to Tufts. I, personally, felt out of place. The student body at Weselyan, in my opinion–from my moments at Wes Fest–was, albeit smart, a little too hippie-ish and “out there.” There were girls who didn’t shave their armpits, a guy who brought a rat, shirtless people, bell-bottoms, and almost naked students. I’m not a prude in any way, and I’m all up for a party, but it was just a little like going back to the 70’s and adding a little bit of crazy. I have some friends who go to Wesleyan, but, for me, the student body in general was a little uncomfortable for me to be around. I hope I didn’t offend anyone! Just my thoughts.</p>
<p>So what, pray tell, do Tufts kids do for fun? You make it sound like h.s., just bigger.</p>
<p>There really isn’t conspicuous use of drugs harder than alcohol and weed. If you need acid, coke, or speed to have fun, Tufts is not the school for you.</p>
<p>^^^Unfortunately, the Tufts Health Service disagrees with you. It reports >16% of surveyed students using psychedelic mushrooms “at least a few times a year”; >8% abuse cocaine; nearly 4% have used ecstasy; >2% use LSD. </p>
<p>FWIW, if even only 2% of Tufts u/gs use LSD, that still translates to a number equal to half of ALL the people Milquetoast saw at Wesleyan on one weekend:
<a href=“Health & Wellness | AS&E Students”>Health & Wellness | AS&E Students;
<p>Oh yeah, mushrooms. Forgot about those. I don’t really consider them harder than weed.</p>
<p>Anyway, I didn’t say no one uses coke, I said there was no <em>conspicuous</em> use of coke. I chose my words carefully.
Also, frequency becomes an issue. If 100% of the student body <em>has</em> used LSD, but each one only has used once, that’s still a relatively low incidence of use.</p>
<p>^And conversely, if one person is using 100% of the time that’s still just one person. :)</p>
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Wrong. If you read the article, it actually says surveyed drug users. So the non-drug users would be left out of the statistics.</p>
<p>For clarification, it also says “over half (54.5%) of respondents stating they have used various substances while at Tufts.”</p>
<p>There’s also a table at the end breaking down drug use to “pre Tufts and at Tufts”, “at Tufts”, “pre Tufts”, and never; 48% of students have never used Marijuana, and roughly 1/3 of all students who’ve used it did so before coming here. 90% have never used shrooms, with more than half of those that have reporting that they started before coming here. About 95% haven’t used cocaine, once again with >50% of those that have starting before arriving at college.</p>
<p>Detail - you’re correct, the paragraph that begins, “Drug use appears moderately common amongst Tufts upper-classsmen” does morph into a discussion of “Tufts upper-classmen drug users”. My apologies.</p>
<p>However, what’s interesting, and hebrewhammer touches on it, is that in that same paragraph where it mentions that 54% of all Tufts students have used drugs while at Tufts, only 43.6 have tried marijuana. To be even more specific, they count tobacco as a drug – but, that’s only 31% of all Tufts students. That leaves at least 10% of all sampled Tufts students who admit to trying drugs – beyond pot and tobacco – while at Tufts.</p>
<p>Why are you assuming that the marijuana users and the tobacco users overlap perfectly? Does the survey make that explicit?</p>