<p>I've heard people in Maine refer to UMass-Amherst as zooMass, meaning that there is a lot of partying.</p>
<p>Is this an accurate characterization?</p>
<p>Well the Princeton Review calls it the #7 biggest party school, and one of my friends belongs to a group on Facebook called "UMass Amherst: Partying Harder than Your School Since 1863." Not to mention that ZooMass (people here call it that too) was where they were turning over all the cars and junk during the '04 ALCS (thank God the Sox won, or we'd have seen some REAL rioting). </p>
<p>However, I know plenty of people who go there (as your middle class Massachusetts resident typically does) and while some of them are huge partiers/drinkers/etc., not all are. It's like any large group of people thrown together: some are going to be one way, others another. The alkies tend to dominate the appearance from outside just because they're noisier.</p>
<p>Im from a public school in central mass and we all call our states flagship school Zoomass, it is a good school academically, but it is huge and a well established school for partiers</p>
<p>Bottom line is this, if you want to study and not party, nobody is going to force you to party.
It is a great value for MA residents.</p>
<p>I've heard that Oral Roberts University and Brigham Young University don't allow partying. I defy you to find any large public university that does not have large gatherings of students on weekends consuming alcohol.</p>
<p>As a parent of a current student who is in the Commonwealth College (Comm.Coll.) he says most of the partying is in the high rise dorms. That is not to say that the comm. college dorms do not have parties ,I suspect though they are of the milder variety. UMASS/Amherst has a tremendous amount of resources to offer a student. If you are a go getter you will gain valuable experience that many students who attend UMASS just ignore. But be forewarned ,like all large schools you must battle your way through classes and be the squeaky wheel at times with counselors and the administration. </p>
<p>If your plans are to attend an IVY league grad school the opportunities UMASS offers are excellent...why? the grad schools take a certain number of state school students and if you achieved high status and displayed leadership at a large school like UMASS, the Ivy’s seems to respect such experience. To me the college admissions game is very strategic. How and where you position yourself toward your long term goals is very important. Alwyas increase your probabilty of success at times by not following the crowd.</p>
<p>Regarding the school being Zoo Mass...you gain a super college town in Amherst and the five college system is excellent and in a sense you will have the best of both worlds- a hip LAC type of town yet attend a school that cost half the price of the top LAC's. Yes it is a large school, but somehow has much smaller college feel....oh and his friends from those high priced LAC's visit on the weekends as UMASS attracts the best bands around. Try to get Greenday to perform at a 1,000 student college- won't happen. It does at UMASS/Amherst.</p>
<p>The zooMass moniker has been around for decades. I don't think UMass students party more than students at any other large university (Michigan, Wisconsin, UCLA, Ohio State, etc.). But people look for it and when they see it, they say, "See told you so! It's zooMass!" </p>
<p>As songman says, students in Commonwealth College, the honors college, get a superb education as do all other students who want to. Nobody forces you to party. </p>
<p>Sorry, though, songman, you are wrong that Ivy League grad schools accept a certain number of publc university undergrads. There are no quotas when it comes to grad schools and some of the best grad programs in the country are actually at public universities, including some at UMass Amherst.</p>
<p>Umass is definitely a party school, most parties being typical from your frat parties to your indoor z-room parties. If you want to be able to study, dont move to SW then.</p>
<p>Benny- it was not my intention to imply that there are quotas at IVY grad schools to include the high achiever state school grads. However, can you explain why numerous undergrads from the HYP's never seem to get accepted at their alma mater grad school and there are numerous state school grads that do get accepted? Besides no one can convince me that college is not a business. By claiming applicant diversity they satisfy their need to increase/diversify the future contributor pool. Yes you may say I am cynical, but look at the endowments of some of the HYP schools :looks like applicant diversity has paid off.</p>
Umass class of 84 here,
To my knowledge ZooMass nickname came about mid to late 70s. Drinking age was 18 but a decent photo ID got you a case or keg at any of the local Packies and got you into bars like the Pub, Time-out, Drake’s or even pitchers at the Blue Wall in the campus center. Matter of fact, during my freshman year, we always had a keg on our 19th floor JA dorm (SW towers).
While I can only attest to my 4 year stay, complete with multiple Tower wars, crazy Halloween week, snowball fights, 10 keger block parties in Pufton & Brandywine, Spring Concerts, out of hand St. Paddy’s parties, Lax blowouts, etc. I was told back then that it was nothing compared to the crazy 70s , no matter how hard we tried to out do the myth, and we tried very hard.
30+ years later I think I am still banned by D.H. Jones from renting any property in a 10 mile radius… Ha!
@songman Grad schools are sometimes reluctant to accept candidates with undergraduate degrees from the same university because it makes more sense intellectually to go to a different institution with different faculty to learn different approaches. The same principle applies for PhDs who are seeking academic positions - they rarely hire their own, at least not initially, to avoid breeding insularity.
^^^
Responding to a nine-year old post?