lisakopes183

what is the party scene like?
are people drinking ALL the time?

what kind of people go to lawrence? the sterotyprical blonde southern girl who parties all day?
the tree hugger?
none of the above???

IzzyD

I'm not going to Lawrence next year, but I did visit and so am marginally qualified to answer your question. As with any liberal-arts school (as with any college, really), there was definitely the usual drinking and drug use, but it didn't seem to be the standard Friday night activity at Lawrence from what I could tell. People went to concerts or movies or dinner--one floor had an ice-cream social--or just hung out in their rooms and listened to music. It's definitely a left-leaning school, but Greek life is, surprisingly, a larger part of the social scene than I would have expected. I don't think it's fair to say that there's a stereotypical Lawrence student--there were plenty of jocks and musicians and artists and whatever--but I did notice that students there tended to dress up more/take more pride in their appearance than at other liberal arts schools I visited such as Carleton or Oberlin. Assuming you're serious about the school, visiting and seeing the place and its residents for yourself is probably the best thing for you to do.

iamnotspock59

Can you, or anyone else in the know, expand on this answer? I am naive to residential college life, but an interested party on partying.

What is considered usual drinking and drug use? MJ? LSD? Heroin? Miller lite? hard liquor?

also: to what extent does LU administration monitor underage alcohol use on LU premises?

Not at all,
a little bit,
as needed in response to a call,
blankets the premises - their presence is understood to be very close by the students?

dyserenity

Some people drink on the weekend. There are a lot of kids out Friday night, just relaxing after having class all week. There are a lot of different kinds of parties going on: movie marathons, people going down to Shark's to play pool, frat parties (which are nothing like the stereotype. Phi Tau, one of our frats, has theme parties every six weeks or so where everyone dresses up and has a great time. These don't usually have alcohol. They also have an impressive selection of movies and TV shows that run in the lounge.) and theme house parties (SoundBoard, one of the theme houses last year, would have dance parties often. Those were a lot of fun). There is some drug use at Lawrence, as with most colleges. The main ones I heard about were pot and very occasionally mushrooms. Lawrence itself puts stuff on Fridays. We've have concerts, movie showings and I think even a few lecturers on Fridays.

Security monitors any reports of students drinking. They're hired to keep us safe, and that basically means they will only call the cops if necessary, though they will write you up (you can eventually get thrown out of the dorms if you're written up often enough). Mostly they'll make sure you're okay and then tell you to knock whatever you're doing that's stupid off. They'll yell at people for drinking in public (hallways, common areas, outside), as that's against school policy, but they don't usually break up parties because of alcohol. It's usually because of noise. When I've been with people who are drinking, they usually make sure that there won't be any reason for any neighbors to call security. There aren't many wild, screaming, run-around-nekkid parties here. Most of it is chill, laid-back, hey let's watch this movie and have a few drinks type of drinking.

Kohler is the dorm you don't want to be caught with alcohol in. It's a much bigger deal there, as that dorm is sub-free.