<p>Drinking is going to happen anywhere. Either let it affect you, or don’t. I go to a school very much known for its party/Greek scene, and yet I have plenty of friends who choose not to partake in that aspect of college life and are still more than satisfied with living here.</p>
<p>As an aside to the OP, when I was in high school, Mamaroneck was the place to for drinking parties in those private communities out on the water. Anyway…</p>
<p>I am not a big drinker. Quality > Quantity for me. Most college and high school students are the opposite because they just purchase what is cheapest - they usually don’t have a say, anyway - and they are only drinking to get drunk so they don’t care about anything else. This culture exists at every college campus. Even the “dry” ones aren’t completely dry.</p>
<p>Okay, some dry schools are actually dry with few individual exceptions - say, the service academies, BYU - but most schools that claim to be dry just claim to be dry so that they can market it to parents. Sure, the “campus” may be dry, but the Greek system and most students do not live on campus, so they are exempt. So the only people who are actually subject to this are people living in dorms - mostly freshmen - who just go off-campus anyway. Good example of this is Mizzou. It is a dry campus and it is a huge party school with a fairly prominent Greek scene. </p>
<p>Bottom line is, it is up to the individual student to decide if they want to be apart of the drinking culture, not the parent. If the student wants to drink, no matter where they are, they will find a way. A very easy and accessible way, at that. Most people do.</p>
<p>My daughter and I just checked out University of New England in Maine. The two students we talked to (limited sample) said there was a lot to do on weekends on campus, but not a lot of partying. Most of the parties with alcohol are off campus because the seniors (over 21 crowd) live off campus. That makes everyone on campus under drinking age. Seemed like a very mellow, down to earth school, at first glance.</p>