Hi! So up until recently I was considering big, selective schools like Penn and Northwestern. However, I recently visited Pomona College and am now very interested in the LACs. My only worry is that I do like to party… and I don’t want to miss out on that. Pomona had few parties while I was there and they seemed pretty small. Does anyone know if there are ever any big parties at Bowdoin (or other LACs)? Or even if Pomona does and I just missed them?
I’m really just looking for a place where people are smart, not too pre-professional, and know how to throw a good party on the weekends.
Intellectual schools also have parties; MIT and Caltech have parties. An intellectual party school is an oxymoron, as “party school” usually refers to an environment where partying is taken more seriously than academics and students get wasted on weekdays. It’s possible that within larger schools like Penn State, there is a distinct “party school” and “intellectual” subset. I’d suggest associating with the “intellectual” subset. There is always time for fun in college, but college is really about serious work, and so I’d suggest avoiding the “party school” mindset regardless of where you go.
Intellectual schools that have good parties on weekends are just that, intellectual schools. Dartmouth, Cornell and Penn come to mind, along with the NESCAC colleges.
Most of the NESCAC LAC’s are major purveyors of the “work hard, play hard” lifestyle. The non-partiers are the exceptions. Most of them (not all) don’t have frats anymore, but most just converted their former frat houses into school-owned but lightly supervised “social houses.” If you really want a party LAC that is also super intellectual consider Wesleyan. Again, all of them are pretty good for parties but Wesleyan is exceptionally so – and it still has a small frat presence as well. It’s also less than two hours by train to NYC. Colgate was another good suggestion above. All of these schools are hard to get into.
One rule of thumb that helps cut the field down a bit is the more remote the LAC’s location, the more likely it is to find the “work hard/play hard” mentality. There are always exceptions but it seems to help capture many (e.g., Colgate, Middlebury, Colby, Sewanee, Gettysburg, DePauw, Washington & Lee, etc.) of these schools.
Looking for LACs with a high level of fraternity membership can also be a useful indicator for finding party schools.
Based on your initial post, I am just not sure that you are really going to find what you may be seeking at a LAC or even at one of the smaller elite academic colleges. I can say from personal experience that JHU, where I attended, was highly frustrating on that front.
I would suggest that you can find the proper balance though at colleges like: Duke, Vanderbilt, USC, UCLA, Columbia, Brown, Georgetown & UC-Berkeley.
Think about schools with great sports programs and high academics. Cal, Michigan, UCLA, USC, Texas, UNC, Duke etc… Football Saturdays can be pretty crazy. At Michigan during my son’s orientation (perhaps not coincidentally at the Residential College) four students came back with MIPs.
I couldn’t agree more. Wesleyan is the only NESCAC where the ratio of visual and performing arts majors equals, or even exceeds a little bit, the number of varsity athletes. The combination has been a felicitous one over the years; a significant portion of the student population is down for a party on any given weekend and can back it up with the talent and technical know-how to bring it off. Recent changes in the fraternity system have rendered some major players (e.g., DKE, and Eclectic) missing in action, but, others (like the current Music House) show some promise. In addition, for dedicated foodies, the surrounding Middletown housing stock (or, “wood-frames” as they are known on campus), provide an ample supply of kitchens.
“Intellectual party school” is an oxymoron. There are a few students at almost every school who party to excess but generally there is an inverse relationship between partying and being intellectual. There is no school that I would call an “intellectual party school”.
I think you should defer college for a while until you mature. Don’t waste your parent’s money. Other posters should refrain from feeding into the massive substance abuse problem that exists at colleges and universities. Aren’t there any adults on this website?
Since some people never lose the partying mindset and some never had it to begin with, I don’t think you can frame it as a question of maturity. Is it maturity to feel uncomfortable in social situations? That’s why some people don’t party.
Anyway. It seems impossible to escape it, really. Almost everywhere has a party scene.
Seek and you shall find. If you want to find a party you will. Almost any school will have it. Pick the right top level school you like and then enjoy the parties.
Not only am I an adult but I’m a senior citizen and I don’t see anything wrong with getting out and shaking your booty every once in a while (or even regularly where available) to live music. It’s good exercise! Unfortunately, the verb, “to party” is often used synonymously with sitting around a dorm room and getting drunk and/or high. I don’t think that’s what the OP was asking about. “Pre-gaming” is another matter altogether.
I agree with @circuitrider This isn’t necessarily a substance abuse question, but more of a “will I be able to have some fun while getting a good education?” That’s a reasonable question to ask, and from my own experience several decades ago, I can tell you that the lack of any social life at a college can really hamper the entire undergraduate experience. 18 year olds aren’t robots.
With that said, there is no doubt that some of the self-proclaimed “work hard party hard” schools actually do not work that hard, not nearly as hard as they think, and they party much harder than they should. All of the very most elite academic schools have a large nerdiness factor, and no one who wants a good education should be surprised by that or discouraged by that.
Anecdotal story - when I was in college I was considering transferring. I spent several days visiting a friend at a highly ranked school famous for being “work hard party hard.” I attended his classes, participated in discussions, and saw the work the students were asked to produce. Frankly, it wasn’t impressive at all, and my friend was getting close to straight A’s without doing much of anything. Academically, that school was not nearly in the same league as the place I already was attending. But boy, the frat parties were something.
