<p>well speaking as someone who acknowledges that some students are likely to use "substances" while at college atleast occasionally- a very simple way of explaining the difference between colleges could be that some seem more like "pot" colleges ( Berkeley,Reed, Bard, Brown) and some are more "alcohol" colleges, ( Dartmouth, Colgate,Williams,Cornell)</p>
<p>Not that everyone does so- but that is one way I think about the difference. </p>
<p>On a whole, some schools seems to have a more affluent, more conservative student body, ( for an LAC)-, they are more likely to have Greeks ( Colgate and Bucknell for example), while schools like Reed and Carleton do not.
But from what I have heard , just because the student bodies at these types of schools vary, that does not mean that the * professors* at colleges like Colgate and Bucknell are necessarily more conservative, or even middle of the road.
My very conservative niece who attended Colgate and stayed to graduate summacumlaude, complained quite a bit about the perspective of her profs,feeling that they spoke too much about a "world view".</p>
<p>( She majored in classics & chose not to attend the University of Washington, because one of their offerings was "women in antiquity", everyone * knows* there * weren't* any women in antiquity ;) )</p>