I’m posting for my daughter, who is looking at colleges and not a partier at this point. She is interested in the type of education provided by a small LAC but concerned that the majority seem to be in very small towns without a lot to do. Are there colleges that are known for having school-sponsored weekend activities that don’t involve drinking? Thanks.
Most of them make an effort to bring people into campus for weekend events–lectures, performances and the like. You should check the bulletin boards on campus. My D graduated from Oberlin and there was always more to do than she had time for. It was usually cheap and easy to get to as well.
@Squirg Your daughter’s concerns are overblown. Yes many of the eastern schools are in small towns but there are lots of campus activities, more activities than you would think in the towns and kids do road trip. Many schools run buses to nearby cities, ski resorts, etc.
College students are fairly lazy once they make friends and settle in, so campus activities are attractive to them. They also have a fair amount of homework on the weekends, so they really don’t have that much time.
Some of the better known schools are not actually far from smaller cities. Middlebury is not far from the awesome city of Burlington. Bowdoin and Bates are close to Portland and Freeport, among other Maine sites. Holy Cross is in Worcester, Trinity in Hartford.
Williams, Bucknell, Colgate, Colby and Hamilton don’t have the same access but have pretty great campus social atmospheres.
Is she outdoorsy at all?
Depending on the LAC, getting off of campus can also be an option. School sponsored free transportation may be available to local malls, restaurants, theatres, etc.
She can also consider schools that have easy access to cities like Swarthmore and Haverford or women’s colleges like Barnard (in NYC!), Wellesley, and Bryn Mawr. Macalaster is in the the midwest but right in an area with plenty to do.
Also, if she doesn’t care for what’s being offered, at LACs its often fairly easy to orchestrate your own activities to be offered to the campus community and get funding from the school.
S2 has no desire to leave his small town LAC campus. He is busy, spends no money and pops is very happy. S1 is on a big city campus and lives beyond his means thanks to his student loans. The big city is no place for middle class kids who have to keep up with the prep school types (great kids … just tough to keep up with their restaurant/bar tabs). Soooo glad S1 is not at NYU!
My D is at Lafayette and has friends who don’t drink at all and are never bored. In addition, many colleges (including Lafayette) have substance free housing for freshman which would help her to find like minded friends.
Agreeing with all of the above. Even students that I know at LACs with easy access to great stuff find that there is so much going on on-campus that they don’t go into town/city more than a few times a term (not counting those IN cities, of course!).
You won’t find any LAC- or university- without some partying/drinking, but how dominant it is on campus is quite variable- and not too hard to figure out.
It depends a lot on what your D likes to do, but the CC community is pretty great at coming up with specific suggestions- at a range of selectivity- for most anything.
There are a few great LACs that are in suburbs with good transportation to a city (Wellesley, Haverford, Bryn Mawr to name a few). But there is usually plenty to occupy students on campus during weekends. There is generally plenty of interesting things to do on campus for the “non-partiers.”
I can only speak to my kid’s LAC. D spends 99% of her time on campus (she says), but town is right there to walk to (coffee, cafes, shops, etc) and there is free bus service to nearby towns, big box stores and a couple of malls. The outing club does something pretty much every weekend - climbing, hiking, rafting, skiing, and there are concerts and lectures. Also a great bike path adjacent to campus. And there are on-campus parties with and without alcohol.
Thank you all so much for taking the time to answer me… she’s not particularly outdoorsy, nor is she a “city girl.” She wants a co-ed school. I appreciate all of the suggestions-- she’s looked at quite a few of them. A couple (Bowdoin and Middlebury) would be major reaches. So glad to hear there are activities everywhere…
Check out Holy Cross in Massachusetts-school has no greek life and offers free bus service off campus and bus service to Boston. HC has fantastic alumni network.
I went to Williams, about as rural as it gets, and there were tons of school activities on- and off-campus that were not drinking oriented. I didn’t take advantage of them, haha, but they were there.
S liked being at a rural LAC - everyone (including a lot of the faculty) lived, worked and played on or near campus, rather than vanishing into the city on weekends. He regularly ran with one prof, babysat the kids of another, did fund-raising with a third. It’s part of the close relationships that develop in a small town. The admin also saw to it that there were plenty of activities and S found himself trying out things he’d never previously considered because friends were doing it.
And if your D wants to avoid the hard-drinking/partying crowd at any school, check into substance free housing. S lived in sub-free for all 4 years. What sub-free housing usually means is that they do not allow alcohol or other ‘mind-altering substances’ (except chocolate chip cookie dough) in the dorm. If you want to party, you go elsewhere. S chose this option because 1) he wanted to meet people for whom partying wasn’t their major form of socializing 2) if he did go to a party, he wanted to be able to leave it behind and go back to a clean, quiet dorm afterwards and 3) sub-free dorms are usually the nicest, newest ones on campus because they know the kids won’t be drinking and then playing frisbee or soccer in the hall.
They won’t?? Those seem like good, clean fun 
My D found plenty to do at Dickinson.
It’s up to the student to investigate the goings on at various campuses. Some schools in remote locations provide a calendar of events that is essentially jam-packed. I check the online calendar at Lake Jr.s small-town school every now and then and it is full of Friday night and weekend activities on campus. Believe me, it’s hard to reach Lake Jr. by phone on weekends because he is rarely standing still.