Your son sounds a lot like many boys. There will be no shortage of guys wanting to play video games at a great number of schools. If he is not a collegiate athlete, there are many club sports to join. Once he gets rolling, he should find guys that do what he likes to do. As long as he is strong enough to say no when others might want him to go along to the party scene, those that are ‘left’ behind will often share some interests. Good luck, these things usually work out fine.
Be careful with sub-free dorms. At my uni, sub-free housing was where parents put their students when they wanted to be over-protective and those students were often the most wild of the school. They just didn’t drink in the dorms.
Just something to think about.
I agree with Ms. Gypsyeyes. The substance-free dorms may have as many chronic abusers as clean-cut kids attempting to avoid temptation. I know hundreds of people who lived in alcohol free dorms. That stopped almost no drinking. Ditto trying to be over-protective about sex. Raise them the best you can and they will find their niche.
Just want to reiterate a theme of @romanigypsyeyes anecdote–the OP’s son will soon discover there are plenty of girls–gamers and/or non-drinkers, who will be happy to share experiences.
My S lived in Queens Court – the substance free freshman dorm at Fordham. The good news is that QC is considered to be a kind of “cool” and “smart” dorm which has a ton of activities so students are definitely not looked down upon if they live there. In fact, the dorm is oversubscribed every year. The not as great news is that there are students who just want to live in the dorm and have no intention of abiding by the substance free policy as they promised. My S (who did not drink/party) used to half-joke that he lived on the alcoholic floor of the wellness dorm. Still, there was a far greater percentage of students who were no drinking/partying than any other dorm – he made wonderful friends there. Looking back I think we would all say that his living in Queens Court and meeting the friends he did played an positive role in his wonderful college experience.
My daughter is a non-partier at a big southern football flagship with a huge Greek system. She loves sports (playng and watching), video games, board games and just hanging out. She is not Greek, does not go to fraternity parties (or any big parties, for that matter), but has a perfectly fine social life. She hangs out with friends and plays video games. They rent kayaks from the school Rec Center and go boating, they play disk golf and intramural sports. They go out to eat. She’ll go to small parties at friends’ apartments where there might be alcohol but it is not abused. She’s in a professional fraternity that has social functions. She has friends and a social life . Her social life is very different from those of kids in the Greek system or who are into partying, but she’s fine with different. FWIW, I know kids at her school who are in the Greek system and do not drink, and they’re having a good time, too. Just because a school is big or reputed for partying does not mean there aren’t plenty of kids who don’t get drunk every weekend. You just have to find the kids who share your interests and your values.
Regarding substance free dorms - be sure to find out about what that means at each school. D1’s school had that but it didn’t mean students abstained altogether, just that they chose not to focus on it as much. Small school with heavy greek presence so tended to be kids who knew they had no interest in frats or srats.
Every school is a little different
Just to clarify, I don’t think that all sub-free dorms are like the ones that were at my uni. I’m just saying it’s something to figure out before deciding on sub-free at any particular university. I’d hate for a student who legitimately wants to be away from drinking to end up in one where it’s a bunch of partiers forced there by their parents.
My son is still in high school, but he sounds just like your son. The sensible kids are out there, but they tend not to be falling over drunk and getting noticed for all the wrong reasons. Good post, will keep it mind for when the time comes.
This is a little bit of a tangent, but whenever I hear college-bound seniors say they “don’t like to party” I feel like they have exactly one mental model of college parties, and it’s based on something they saw in Animal House or something. I went to a lot of parties in college (and graduate school) and have been to exactly zero Animal House-style frat parties. They were all different - definitely at some of them people got so drunk they couldn’t stand or think and started acting like fools, but I’ve also been to parties without alcohol, parties that focused on dancing primarily, parties where most people just walked around and socialized…there are lots of different kinds of parties. I suppose I considered myself as a “partier” in high school; I definitely wanted to go to a “party school”. I graduated with honors and I have a PhD.
I’m betting only a small minority of college students regularly attend the kinds of parties where multiple people get blacked out and can’t remember their name by midnight.
Of course there are lots of kids who are into those things but are not crazy, out-of-control partiers. (In fact, if your son was 10 years older, or if I were 10 years younger I’d say we could be friends, because I like all of those things.)
Most “known party schools” are large public universities or larger privates like University of Miami and Syracuse University. The interesting thing is that pretty much every single place I’ve seen listed as a “party school” is also a well-reputed research university with an excellent academic reputation - I’ve seen Michigan, Miami U (OH), UIUC, UT-Austin, and other like places on these lists. First of all, many of these schools are selective even within their own states - UT-Austin at this point is made up primarily of students who were in the top 10% of their graduating high school classes. Second of all, they range from pretty big to truly huge. Penn State, for example, has over 40,000 undergraduates - I’m pretty certain that not all 40,000 of them are going on benders every weekend (they would completely destroy State College).
Really what I think is happening is that a small fraction of these students (including a small fraction of the Greek students - not all of them are hard partiers either) are going out and partying really hard. That stuff is fun and makes for an interesting media sound bite or an entertaining movie, so the media focuses on that rather than when those same kids are studying or interning (which doesn’t make for as great a movie).
My daughter refuses to attend frat parties- thankfully they are off campus and she never sees them. Julliet is right in that there are different types of parties. As much as a non-partier that my kid is, she will attend and enjoy these other parties. She has been to " cocktail parties" hosted by seniors who are in a club she is in. There is some alcohol present but not everybody drinks and she has witnessed responsible drinking. She has been to school sponsored parties held on and off campus where there is no alcohol.
My daughter is very much into the sports teams- as a fan and not an athlete. Between the sports and clubs she keeps herself as busy as she wants to be, without ever attending a party or event that makes her uncomfortable.
From what my D has shared with us, the party scene at her school doesn’t dominate or, at least, isn’t a constant presence. Beginning of the semester, the last day of classes, and around breaks is where it will be the most lit. Once classes are in full swing, and definitely once first midterms are upon them, the scene dwindles to only the hardcore. Even the hardcore get sober real quick after the first midterm grade slaps them upside the head.
D is super social, doesn’t drink, and has no problem finding people to hang with at any time. As an aside, her hall has a standing gaming group. Right now, it is I think Fallout and Black Ops Zombies. People just post to the hall group if anyone is up for playing, and someone is ALWAYS up for it. Very diverse group, too, from classic gaming nerds to sorority girls.
She often comments that what she loves about her school is that people accept you for you.
Her biggest gripe is that the Thursday night partiers stumble in a bit too loudly for the folks that have a Friday 8AM.
My son was not a big partier in HS or college. He surrounded himself with kids who shared his interests. He loved complex games – Settlers of Catan, Diplomacy, poker – and sports though he was never a great athlete – football in the snow, frisbee golf, ultimate frisbee, … . His games group included two kids currently getting math PhDs at top 10 grad schools after graduating from Ivies (and one was a former state chess champion) and his best friend who is now running the company that they co-founded while in college. We also sent him on Outward Bound, which started a love of backpacking.
In college (on the East Coast, he went to a few parties although there were quite a few to be had. In the first two years, he joined the Debate Team (which actually had a bunch of serious partiers). He recruited at least one (non-drinking) friend to join the debate team. But, he didn’t really enjoy the partying. At my suggestion, he played intramural basketball (doesn’t hurt that he grew to 6’4" with broad shoulders, which combined with a keen sense of strategy makes up for a general lack of athletic talent. He then found a girlfriend for much of the last couple of years of college. They didn’t go to parties much, but spent a lot of time together. Every summer he and best friend would take a several week backpacking trip someplace (usually the West) on a trip that he planned. He loved his undergraduate years.
Now he’s in grad school on the West Coast. His first year was in a engineering program focused on big data. His second year has been with MBAs. The engineers are not big partiers – and he met his GF through them (she was a grad student then and was friends with his engineering crowd – but some of them including GF love games. Some of the MBAs are very serious partiers and he doesn’t partake that much. But, he will organize backpacking trips with friends from both groups. He’s doing spring break in Hawaii with the engineers. As always, he is working intensely but I think he would say he is having a good time and is not partying lots.
I think the lessons here involve being proactive – finding like-minded folks and proactively organizing the group and its events (games, backpacking, intramural teams, etc.) OP, is this helpful?
IME, when HS seniors, parents, or others are concerned about a college’s reputation as a party school or not liking to party, it’s more often a shorthand commentary on their lack of desire to participate or be around a critical mass of students who enjoy the campus culture of heavy drinking especially at parties.
Even if one doesn’t like to party and avoids heavy drinking parties, folks who express such concerns do so because they aren’t eager to be among/having to deal with living in close proximity with classmates who embrace a given party school campus culture of heavy drinking.
Some of the negative experiences several HS classmates and friends had to put up with at the party schools they initially attended before transferring out or my own experiences dealing with undergrads from such nearby schools after college in my own neighborhood and those of some friends while living in the Boston area:
Lack of respect for quiet hours at night.
Having to step around vomit laden sidewalks, walk/hallways, bathrooms, etc.
Dealing with rowdy angry drunks prone to violence (Had to call in the cops a few times on a few undergrads from nearby colleges who were picking fights with random passersby…and then continued to do so with the cops who showed up).
Vandalism and damage from rowdy drunks against dorms, furniture, personal property, etc.
This was not only a common concern among non-partier students I’ve talked to who attended such campuses, but also some former colleagues who were unfortunate enough to own houses/buildings near/adjacent to one college well known for its party/heavy drinking big sports culture. Lost count of how many times they’ve complained about having their cars/homes vandalized with graffiti or finding shattered beer bottles around their cars and houses/buildings. Complaining to the college admins resulted in little more than a polite “We’ll look into it” lipservice.
I myself and a few post-college friends also had similar experiences as our neighborhoods are close enough that some such partier undergrads would extend their vandalistic tendencies towards our and neighboring buildings, cars, and outdoor fixtures. The local cops in my and friends’ neighborhoods dealt with so many such cases over the years they were familiar not only with which colleges these vandalistic partiers came from, but often which fraternities as well.
EXACTLY.