<p>I agree with shennie. As a student, I haven’t smoked or been drunk at Oberlin at all yet. The partiers may be louder, but there are a lot of people that don’t participate or do things in moderation or loosened up somewhat. There isn’t really pressure either way and I think that the people you end up hanging out with tend to have the same attitudes. You can totally avoid Oberlin’s party scene if you want, and all the parties I’ve been to haven’t been that great (granted, it’s only been a few). I do know that every year (I think) an upperclassmen throws a party for first years and lots of people did go though I didn’t. I highly doubt that on the first night itself tons of new underage freshmen are going to be able to acquire alcohol, plus everyone’s parents are still around and you have hall meetings and all that the first day. Actually I’ve been somewhat monitoring the oberlin 2011 group on facebook and there are some false assumptions here and there, so don’t worry too much. But anyway, yay for coming to oberlin! i’m excited to meet all the new first-years next fall. Also, I’m not sure how many freshmen usually live in the substance-free housing, so definitely try and go out to other dorms the first few days to meet people there too (the freshmen dorm barrows is across the quad from barnard).</p>