<p>I am soaking up many parental viewpoints, factoids, opinions, alcohol violation tales and tales of near misses today. I really appreciate this forum today, and just wanted to say so. When your child leaves for college, there are still teaching moments ahead and they continue to look to you for limits and lifestyle choices, although much of your work is done. Our family is not very religious, and although we are very moderate drinkers, today since I am upset about this boy’s death, I find myself a bit envious of parents I know whose children are non drinkers for rigid faith based reasons…but there are ample other ways to express values to your kids.<br>
I tend to agree with Northstarmom and others who have commented on how some people are simply more hardwired for addiction rushes and risks, and more likely to believe they are “smarter than the losers who become addicts.” I find her work experience/data with upper class white families to fit with some of the social networks I am in where it is the parents who set up drinking as the centerpoint for social life and popularity with their own teens. Honestly! We are gobsmacked by the number of families with two highly educated parents and good incomes in our neighborhood who SERVE alcohol at teen parties, and let me further state…they are really into being with the kids and partying with them (as if being popular with the teens really gives them some kind of boost, and As If the kids are going to drink while in high school, so they might as well do it with them.) They all have lame excuses and plans for kids not to drive etc, but it comes down to parents who are reliving high school and college social experiences with their kids. There was a family sued for serving just last year in a city where I used to reside…car accident from someone who didn’t follow the sleep over plan the parents concocted. With this kind of tacit approval, what the kids do out of sight is of course more intense than at these weird parent/teen parties. I agree…the kids are looking for Rites of Passage and are amping it up when there are not other ways of being recognized.
For those of you who can speak from experience about the perils of having a parent, sibling, older son etc caught up in alcohol abuse or any other addictions, your personal comments are very meaningful to me and shed light, and I thank you for sharing. Our Cornell student poster’s death has preoccupied many of us. I just hung up the phone from discussing his death at length with my son at Duke. One thing this experience shows me: denial and “hoping for the best” is the wrong parental path…we have to be crystal clear with our values.
And for butforthegraceof…good SN. Although my S has not been in any incident, I can recall folly from my own late teens that would have landed me in deep trouble…but I was never “caught.” Not the same thing as not at risk!</p>
<p>interesteddad- Just because Cornell knew about a drinking suspension doesn’t mean they could draw the conclusion that Lucifer was a “hard-core drunk”? Same with my young friend at Swat! It isn’t something that you put on your application. Someone has a tough teacher and gets a C in calculus- does this mean they can’t handle college work? They still have a good chance of getting into a highly selective college. (despite what we hear on this forum)</p>
<p>"b) If the colleges were to stop admitting high school drunks and make it clear they are doing so, it would send a clear message to high schoolers that there is penalty for being a drunk – i.e. not getting into a prestigious college. Would it save Lucifer? No, but it might same another type of high school kid from going down that road. "</p>
<p>I agree with you. If Cornell had rejected Lucifer or rescinded his acceptance and if the other top 20 schools that he was admitted to had done the same thing with him, that would have sent a very clear message to him that his drinking was causing him trouble.</p>
<p>For all we know, that may have been enough to have caused him to take a close look at his life and stop drinking. While many people think that alcoholics need to “hit bottom” to stop drinking, one sometimes can accelerate that process by bringing the bottom up to them. </p>
<p>If Lucifer had ended up at a college that he thought was inferior to what his talents entitled him to, perhaps he would have realized that his alcohol use was a problem. Even if due to adolescent hubris he didn’t realize that, his being a National Merit Scholar who didn’t go to a first tier college due to alcohol problems may have inspired other students to avoid underaged drinking.</p>
<p>Lucifer’s sad story may indeed inspire colleges to rethink their admissions policies. I am sure that some adcoms are following the story here, including his CC entries, and that their eyes may be opened now enough to realize that even if a kid is a National Merit scholar, top athlete, great grades, if they have an alcohol-related infraction on their record, admitting them could cause major trouble.</p>
<p>I imagine that most kids caught underage drinking probably have a long track record of doing that because the odds are so low of being caught. Consequently, being caught for that probably is a major red flag just like getting caught drunk driving is. Most drunk drivers are not caught. Usually a person who is convicted for drunk driving has driven drunk hundreds of times without being caught.</p>
<p>butforthegraceofgod~</p>
<p>Thank you for your enlightening and heartfelt post. I think a parent would have to be in MAJOR denial to think that this <em>COULD NEVER</em> happen to him/her. Thankfully, I am not partial to denial as a defense mechanism. I have educated, supported, and talked endlessly to my children, have given consistent messages (which have included abiding by the law in our home by NOT offering alcohol to our underage kids), and have generally set a good example of very moderate alcohol consumption. That said, I would NEVER claim that any of my children is above making a teenage (or young adult) mistake or just plain POOR decision. Never.</p>
<p>interesteddad~
At the risk of being booed off this thread, I must agree with you here…this is basically what I was saying in an earlier post. There is a tacit approval for this sort of risky and damaging behavior demonstrated by many parents and schools alike. And then we sit and shake our heads when tragedy strikes…</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>MOWC, I agree with you. </p>
<p>ID, how is an admissions department to determine who are the ‘high school drunks’? Is it only those who have received suspensions? How about all those kids who never get caught? There was an interesting show last week on one of the news magazines about college drinking. Several grads were interviewed. They were talking about their college days where they spent a large percentage of the time drinking heavily. One girl, in particular, spoke about how it didn’t affect her academics, at all. She was honor roll, Dean’s List, 4.0 gpa graduate from a very selective college, as were all of those interviewed. I found it interesting that they were so surprised that they had kept their behavior from their families for their four years of college because they were able to perform academically, drunk or not.</p>
<p>“I imagine that most kids caught underage drinking probably have a long track record of doing that because the odds are so low of being caught. Consequently, being caught for that probably is a major red flag…”</p>
<p>I strongly disagree with that. Kids at boarding school get busted for alcohol all the time- and might not have a “long track record”. A wonderful young man who was a senior at possibly THE top boarding school in the NE just got thrown out in December of his senior year for an alcohol violation involving a fake ID. Stupid, yes. Poor judgment, yes. Should he or will he be denied admission to selective colleges? No. Being caught for a high school alcohol violation is like being caught for speeding. Oops, you got caught. Yes, in Lucifer’s case there was a big problem. That is not the case with MOST kids who violate their school’s alcohol policy.</p>
<p>That was Lucifer’s argument (or part of it) – that he took 14 APs in HS, got into Cornell, was going to triple major, yada yada yada. Alcohol wasn’t holding him back at all.</p>
<p>Certainly schools can’t know everyone who has a drinking problem – just like they can’t know everyone who cheated in HS, for example. However, if the kid was suspended for cheating, that would probably hurt his admissions chances somewhat, don’t you think? Even if “everybody does it.”</p>
<p>so is this any drinking problem we are discussing or just underage drinking?? You can leave the US and drink many places legally. Does that count in this admissions game???</p>
<p>A distinction should be made between alcoholism and alcohol abuse. I would guess, based on Lucifer’s posts in which he describes his tolerance, the rush he got from his first shot, and the degree to which he obviously valued/needed drinking, etc. that he may have suffered from the disease of alcoholism or that he was on his way there.</p>
<p>I would hope that one lesson readers here can take away, is that students with a family member with a history of alcoholism are at increased risk themselves of becoming alcoholics should they drink. For them, it may well be the wiser choice to avoid drinking altogether and to choose college environments that are less dominated by alcohol, eg without fraternities and sororities.</p>
<p>Also, alcohol is known to increase the risk of breast cancer in women, and women with a family history of breast cancer should be aware of this.</p>
<p>Descriptions of alcoholism and alcohol abuse are copied below from the website of: </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/OtherAlcoholInformation/alcoholismFacts.aspx[/url]”>http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/OtherAlcoholInformation/alcoholismFacts.aspx</a></p>
<p>What Is Alcoholism?</p>
<p>Alcoholism, also known as “alcohol dependence,” is a disease that includes four symptoms:</p>
<pre><code>* Craving: A strong need, or compulsion, to drink.
- Loss of control: The inability to limit one’s drinking on any given occasion.
- Physical dependence: Withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea, sweating, shakiness, and anxiety, occur when alcohol use is stopped after a period of heavy drinking.
- Tolerance: The need to drink greater amounts of alcohol in order to “get high.”
</code></pre>
<p>People who are not alcoholic sometimes do not understand why an alcoholic can’t just “use a little willpower” to stop drinking. However, alcoholism has little to do with willpower. Alcoholics are in the grip of a powerful “craving,” or uncontrollable need, for alcohol that overrides their ability to stop drinking. This need can be as strong as the need for food or water.</p>
<p>Although some people are able to recover from alcoholism without help, the majority of alcoholics need assistance. With treatment and support, many individuals are able to stop drinking and rebuild their lives.</p>
<p>Many people wonder why some individuals can use alcohol without problems but others cannot. One important reason has to do with genetics. Scientists have found that having an alcoholic family member makes it more likely that if you choose to drink you too may develop alcoholism. Genes, however, are not the whole story. In fact, scientists now believe that certain factors in a person’s environment influence whether a person with a genetic risk for alcoholism ever develops the disease. A person’s risk for developing alcoholism can increase based on the person’s environment, including where and how he or she lives; family, friends, and culture; peer pressure; and even how easy it is to get alcohol.</p>
<p>What Is Alcohol Abuse?</p>
<p>Alcohol abuse differs from alcoholism in that it does not include an extremely strong craving for alcohol, loss of control over drinking, or physical dependence. Alcohol abuse is defined as a pattern of drinking that results in one or more of the following situations within a 12-month period:</p>
<pre><code>* Failure to fulfill major work, school, or home responsibilities;
- Drinking in situations that are physically dangerous, such as while driving a car or operating machinery;
- Having recurring alcohol-related legal problems, such as being arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or for physically hurting someone while drunk; and
- Continued drinking despite having ongoing relationship problems that are caused or worsened by the drinking.
</code></pre>
<p>Although alcohol abuse is basically different from alcoholism, many effects of alcohol abuse are also experienced by alcoholics.</p>
<p>I agree with AlwaysAMom…it is one thing if there are big flags in the recs about a student’s ongoing behavior. But one suspension for getting caught drinking at a party does not in itself indicate a problem drinker. Lots of kids drink (I am NOT condoning this!) and some get caught and some don’t. The ones who did not get caught are not that different than the ones who got this one blemish on their record. I do not think you can determine from one disciplinary action the total picture. But if the kid had many marks on his record or recs that mention some reservations about the student, different story. </p>
<p>As well, college DO look at suspensions and even ask that these be listed. Kids with blemished records likely have worse odds of admissions than kids with the purest of records. Some still get in but their road to admissions has a mark against them. The nature of the infraction or the frequency, I’m sure, is weighed by admissions offices. I imagine one incident of getting caught with a drink at a party is not going to be hugely detrimental on the record given the hordes of applicants who have done this but the colleges don’t have a record of it. More severe infractions or ongoing ones, I am sure have kept some students out of the acceptance piles. I recall MomofWildChild and Jamimom posting in the past that their boys did not have a completely clean record (I’m not talking alcohol as I honestly do not know what infractions of which they speak but only that they have each relayed their sons from time to time getting into some trouble) but each landed at an Ivy. I think admissions offices weigh the infractions. And I do think kids with clean records stand a better chance. But I also don’t think colleges know EVERYTHING there is to know about a kid and so one incident of getting caught drinking at a party is not necesarily going to keep them out of college. In this case, the college may not have known the extent of the students’ problems or issues unless they were written up more extensively. Overall, I do think kids with a totally clean slate stand a better chance at selective admissions than those with something that mars their record. But I also think a C here or one disciplinary action there doesn’t necessarily knock them out of the admit pile. I don’t think it is fair to conclude that this student was a “known drunk” by admission offices. I don’t know him but I don’t think you can fault admissions here. If I had read a stellar record and saw one infraction, I might pause but if nothing else was mentioned by anyone, I would not then conclude “problem kid”. I would think this kid made a mistake and was caught and that there were 100 others at school who also did it and were not caught. I would look at his record closely, more so than someone with a clean slate but I would look at the whole picture. I doubt Cornell knew much more about any alcohol issues the young man MAY have had other than that one infraction. Therefore, I doubt they viewed his app as “kid at risk”. I’m sure a kid with lots of marks on his record and mention in his recs and GC report, would be a bigger issue. That student would likely not get admitted unless some observed retribution and improvements had been made.</p>
<p>Some links to check out and pass along.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.alcoholscreening.org/[/url]”>http://www.alcoholscreening.org/</a>
<a href=“http://depts.washington.edu/mcsurvey/bal/index.php[/url]”>http://depts.washington.edu/mcsurvey/bal/index.php</a></p>
<p>Remember that a lot depends on how the student handles the explanation of the disciplinary offense. If Lucifer wrote a heartfelt essay (even if it was totally fake) about how much he learned and how he never touched another drop of alcohol and went around to youth groups lecturing about his experience, the Cornell admissions folks might have been quite impressed.
My son was suspended for 3 weeks and then expelled from a school in March of 10th grade. It didn’t involve drugs, alcohol or academic dishonesty. He went into a tailspin and lots more stuff happened. He basically lost a year, came back full force with a repeat junior year at his current school and matured a lot. He was able to show all of this in his essay explaining his disciplinary problems. We were told by one highly selective college admissions dean (a school to which he wound up not applying) that this was actually a PLUS. It really made him stand out, and it was sort of a “been there, done that” deal where they felt they could count on him not to “go wild” in college. I won’t go into it all here, but I can see where many situations could lead to the same positive results.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is exactly what I mean by colleges not really being serious about doing something about their drinking problems. Yes, the suspension you mention should impact college acceptances at a college that has the luxury of picking from among a mountain of superb applications. Why would you accept a known high school drinker (what, he just had the ID made that afternoon to get into R-rated movies)? </p>
<p>If students at a particular boarding school “get busted for alcohol all the time”, then why on god’s green earth do colleges not only continue accepting students from that high school, but give them preferential admissions consideration? </p>
<p>I would recommend that colleges start tracking their campus drunks, including their admissions profiles. I strongly suspect that they would find some clear correlations with particular high schools and admissions profiles. Now, if the admissions dean were to call the headmaster at said boarding school and say, “we have determined that 3 out of every 10 students from your school have been campus drunks at our college, so we are going to cut back on our acceptances for a few years and give you a chance to deal with the situation”, I suspect that it wouldn’t take long for a message about the consequences of drunkeness to spread through the hallowed halls of said boarding school.</p>
<p>Again, studies show a very strong correlation between high school drunkeness and college drunkeness. Not in all cases, of course, but it is serious issue because, as mini has pointed out, problem drinking on a campus breeds more problem drinking. In other words, if you could remove the core of students who come to college as high school drunks, you reduce the odds of other students becoming drunks in college. You reduce the culture of drunkeness.</p>
<p>Why don’t the colleges want to consider this? Easy. The high school drunks they admit tend to come from the customer base colleges most want to attract: white wealthy from high socio-economic suburban and prep schools, i.e. full-pay, high-stat customers. So, the colleges not only ignore the issue of admitting high school drunks, but market their drinking cultures and exclusive social drinking clubs to attract these customers. That’s why I don’t have much sympathy for college administrators when they go through the public charade of hand-wringing over alcohol abuse. They have a problem that could be, in part, addressed by their own admissions offices and, in part, addressed by getting rid of exclusive social drinking clubs. But, they don’t.</p>
<p>InterestedDad, you keep referring to “high school drunks” and I think there is a distinction between a kid who has lots of flags on his record with recs that discuss “drunken problem behavior” from a kid with ONE infraction on his record getting caught who then received a suspension. Colleges look at that too but I am simply saying that you can’t jump from one disciplinary suspension at school to “drunken kid”. I think those with suspensions are scruntinized carefully, but sometimes it is one infraction and if the student can write honestly about what he has done to improve or change since that transgression and other adults also write positively of that student, some colleges would admit that kind of student. So, in this discussion, we were talking a a boy who MAY have had drinking problems prior to college but for all we know, his application ONLY mentions being caught with a drink at a party one time, something hordes of students likely have done, some caught, some not. Clearly someone with a clean record is an easier admit. But someone with one suspension or infraction is not necessarily knocked out of the pool either.</p>
<p>I’d like to post a link to CollegeConfidential’s Round Table discussion with several admissions officers at various colleges, including selective ones, regarding high school suspensions and admissions. As well, Sally Rubenstone, Senior Counselor at CC, who writes the Ask the Dean columns and gets this question OFTEN, also contributes advice on the chances of admissions and how to handle reporting suspensions. You can see by these articles that the degree of the infraction plays a part, as well as how it is handled. I think making a jump from a kid with one infraction to “high school drunk” is not fair. By the same token, those with infractions will be scrutinized and some won’t make it in but some, depending on how it was handled and written about and how other adults speak of the student, can help mitigate the damage, depending on the circumstances of the infraction and situation that followed. </p>
<p>Here you go:
<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/experts/index.htm[/url]”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/experts/index.htm</a></p>
<p>“If students at a particular boarding school “get busted for alcohol all the time””</p>
<p>Not a particular boarding school- ALL boarding schools. And that is just because the kids LIVE there! There is just as much drinking going on amongst private day school kids and public school kids. They just don’t get suspended from school as often because they don’t live at their schools.</p>
<p>What a college admissions staff needs to determine is if a kid is going to present a problem, or if they will contribute positively to the community. I maintain that getting suspended once for drinking in high school is no indication that a kid will present a problem at college. If there is evidence of serious lapses of judgment later in the high school career, which could easily be the case with the student I referenced, then it might be decided that the kid is going to present a problem.</p>
<p>I wish there were a way for the authorities to discipline high-school drunks, but I don’t see how it can be done when kids live at home. The kids just get caught too rarely for high-school discipline records, or police records (even assuming such could be made available to colleges), reliably to show a pattern of behavior. The fact is, in our wealthy suburban commuter town, alcohol-related suspensions and arrests, in my estimation, account for less than one percent of the number of person-days of underage drinking. Maybe things are different elsewhere, but around here, at least, kids just don’t get caught very often.</p>
<p>IMO, only parents can do something about the (nonboarding school) high-school aspect of this problem.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Soozievt:</p>
<p>Do you think that either of our daughters would have been accepted to their schools if one had a high-school suspension for cheating and the other a suspension for stealing? I don’t.</p>
<p>So, what the colleges are, in effect, doing is tacitly acknowleging that underage drinking violations are OK. Again, we aren’t talking about a kid that used a drinking violation as a springboard to a strong EC participation in MADD. Obviously, there is some discretion for unusual rehabilitative circumstances. But, the number of high school drunks these uber-selective colleges are admitting tells me that they simply don’t care. I don’t believe that it is because the admissions offices are incompetent.</p>
<p>When we ask ourselves, “what can we do to curb dangerous drinking”, the first step is for students, parents, colleges, and college-affiliated social organizations to actually send a message that destructive drinking behavior is not normal and not acceptable. Today, we are sending the opposite message.</p>
<p>Perhaps a good place to start would be requiring all colleges and universities to publish their surveyed binge-drinking and alcohol-hospitalization rates, so that consumers can make informed choices. I bet that if there were readily available national statistics, many colleges would suddenly get a whole lot more interested in curbing the problem. Position college drunkenness as a measure of “quality” that contributes to “rankings” and watch the fur fly. The majority of accomplished high school seniors, and their parents paying $40,000 a year, are not interested in going to college with Otis the town drunk and walking through vomit to brush their teeth on Friday morning.</p>
<p>interesteddad, you continue to miss the point several of us are trying to make.</p>
<p>“the number of high school drunks these uber-selective colleges are admitting…”</p>
<p>HOW in the world can you justify that label? A suspension for drinking could involve nothing more than having a glass of spiked punch! Is this a “high school drunk”? Can you show us proof that these selective schools are admitting known drunks? What IS a high school drunk? Is it someone who has too much beer on the AP German trip to Germany? Is it someone who has a DWI? Who made YOU God?<br>
I’m sure plenty of high school drinkers attend state universities, too. I know the kids I met at IU were no strangers to alcohol, and that was many years ago.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Because that’s what students (be they high-school or college) who drink to the point of vomiting or blacking out or relying on their friends to watch out for them on a regular basis are. Drunks. As in, Otis the Town Drunk.</p>
<p>Let’s stop using dainty euphemisms and tacitly endorsing the behavior with rationalizations such as “everybody does it” and “kids will be kids”. The lack of negative social stigma for this kind of behavior is a big part of the problem. In fact, it is often the case that the students who do NOT behave like Otis the Town Drunk are ones who receive the negative social stigma, as in labels such as “geek” or “GDI”.</p>
<p>“who drink to the point of vomiting or blacking out or relying on their friends to watch out for them on a regular basis are…”</p>
<p>OK- that is a drunk. What makes you think every kid with a drinking suspension has exhibited this behavior? You were inferring that it is the suspension that should be a deal-breaker for admission to the selective colleges.<br>
How does a college identify the student (drunk) you are describing? Should they hire PIs to follow around each applicant? As we have learned from this thread, some kids do that sort of thing in high school (Lucifer, for example) and are NOT likely to discontinue it in college. However, there are plenty of kids who did not drink in high school who go hog-wild once they hit the college campus. </p>
<p>If a college KNOWS an applicant drinks to the point of vomiting or blacking out or relying on their friends to watch out for them on a regular basis, I doubt that student will be admitted. If they know a student has a suspension from school for violation of an alcohol policy and there are no other red flags in the recs, that student has a good chance of admission.
You seem very resentful about this. I just don’t get it.</p>