<p>My brother, who was an engineering student back in the late 60s, is always reminding my son about how he had an O-chem lab at 8 a.m. Saturday mornings. </p>
<p>Of course, he also had to walk up hill to and from class in the snow. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Wow, never heard of schools with no Fri. classes. S’s large state u. has them. He isn’t finished with classes until 2:30 on Fridays, ah the dreaded physics lab.</p>
<p>“My brother, who was an engineering student back in the late 60s, is always reminding my son about how he had an O-chem lab at 8 a.m. Saturday mornings.”</p>
<p>Where I was, it was freshman biology (the premed weedout.) They took attendance and counted it (and didn’t inform students that they were doing so.) Graded on a steep curve. At the end of the year, the 110 premeds were down to 35. And I wasn’t one. Silly me!</p>
<p>Columbia, I think, is a school with a no-Friday-class policy. I suspect it’s less a drinking accommodation and more an internship accommodation.</p>
<p>There are a lot of colleges with few or no Friday classes. I doubt there is a strong correlation with alcohol use and mini’s “prestigious tavern” concept. This is probably more common for research U’s and allows uninterrupted time for research - - and meetings - - and three day weekends. Regardless of the reasons, this is not helpful for undergrads and can make it difficult to schedule courses.</p>
<p>Of the total student population, what percentage do you think are interns? ;)</p>
<p>(Earlham has Wednesdays off for all-campus convocations; American staggers days off for internships. But Fridays? it would be the worst day of the week to be an intern, the precise day of the week you’d be likely to learn least.)</p>
<p>“I doubt there is a strong correlation with alcohol use and mini’s “prestigious tavern” concept.”</p>
<p>The one prestigious college guy I actually spoke to about that says it was explicitly for this purpose. The faculty was tired of having hungover students in their classrooms on Friday morning, or not showing up at all, and “prestige” program with the “honor” system was not about to start taking attendance. Could be different elsewhere, though.</p>
<p>Anyhow, to add to ID’s list of how to check alcohol culture at a college, I strongly recommend Thursday night stayovers. They will tell you a lot.</p>
<p>Rileydog, I’m just now reading this thread and caught your post #62; in theory, the presence of a “house mother” etc. might make some sense. But at my daughter’s college, the marketing hype about the “residential style-dorms” - meaning that one professor, their spouse and family live in a dorm with the students - sounded appealing on surface, but in reality whoever were the adults on site in this residential system seemed to drink right along with the students. And in some cases I suspect they provided some of the alcohol. </p>
<p>My daughter begged to be allowed to live off campus for sanity, health (food) and to be able to get enough sleep. After visiting a few times during freshman year and examining the environment, I agreed. </p>
<p>In a similar example, prior to the holidays she was in a professor’s home, babysitting their nine month old son while the professor and his wife were at some function. Midway through the evening, D is changing the baby’s diaper, her cell phone rings; it was a head coach caller her to invite her to a party in progress. She explained that she could not come, she was babysitting. The coach’s drunken response? “Bring the baby, come over and party with us”. </p>
<p>It’s one thing when students go out and get access to alcohol on their own. It’s something else entirely when the “adults” that are in range promote a culture of alcohol abuse. And it absolutely outraged me when I learned of the coach’s suggestion to bring the professor’s baby to what was cleary a drunk fest.</p>
<p>Last year son had chem lab on Friday’s from 2-6–really hated that as if he was going anywhere for weekend, he couldn’t get away before 7pm.</p>
<p>My son’s calculus class on Fridays is noon-1pm, so if he were leaving town, he could get away by 3 or so (which is when the dorm is going skiing). So far, S hasn’t had much difficulty scheduling classes, but does have a pretty heavy day on Mondays & Thursdays (noon-8pm). Tuesdays & Fridays he only has one class & Wednesday he has two classes with a big break between them. He’s happy with his schedule.</p>
<p>I agree with mini’s recommendation for a Thursday evening visit. If that is not possible, consider Friday night as a substitute.</p>
<p>Actually, I suspect it’s WEDNESDAY night that separates the men from the boys, as it were, party-wise. I suspect you’ll find Thursday night action everywhere that isn’t dry, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday . . . you need a strong party-culture base to maintain party presence on those nights.</p>
<p>Well I am rather for mini’s suggestion that there be more transparency in campus culture and let the free market sort it all out. The colleges could include their real admissions criteria and pricing while they are at it as well survey data on political affiliations and opinions of faculty and administrators, sources of funding, and where the money is expended. Not really holding my breath waiting for that to happen though.</p>
<p>No, none of that transparency is likely. It is not likely that information on alcohol and drug abuse will be readily released, nor would I trust the data. I still think our power as consumers is the most effective influence.</p>
<p>But the problem is as a consumer you don’t have enough information t make an informed choice…and of course demand is such at the presumedly better schools that they choose you rather than you choose them.</p>
<p>We all seem to allow ourselves to be victims when it comes to the really elite schools. Actually, even some of the Ivies, like Cornell, barely make a 30% admission rate and a 50% yield. Beyond the top 10 or 20 most selective schools, the situation changes rapidly.</p>
<p>You don’t need any information, to ask admissions officers and residence life staff about alcohol and drug policies, how they are enforced, and how infractions are handled. Watch them squirm when you ask how they handle drunks returning from off campus parties. Ask about the qualifications, selection and training of RA’s.</p>
<p>My daughter goes to a very small Christian College with zero tolerance for alcohol. She had a friend suspended for a quarter after being caught with some beer. At her school the peer pressure is against the kids that drink and those kids are looked down on. She has said more than once how freeing it is to not have to deal with the downside of alcohol at all, it’s just not an issue.</p>
<p>My son’s school is not dry but the freshman dorms are. He said the RA’s don’t allow any alcohol of any kind and that he had never even been offered a beer. He does know people that do drink but said it’s not overwhelming, and not a challenge to find things to do on weekends that don’t involve drinking.</p>
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<p>I haven’t had much trouble discerning admissions criteria.</p>
<p>Detailed financial information is available for all colleges, often from their websites. It’s really not that difficult to find revenue and expense spreadsheets.</p>
<p>Do you really think that colleges should force their professors to publicly state their political party registration? That seems like an extreme violation of basic American freedoms.</p>
<p>"I suspect you’ll find Thursday night action everywhere that isn’t dry, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday . . . you need a strong party-culture base to maintain party presence on those nights.</p>
<p>From our experience, and in looking at relatively similar colleges (mostly prestige LACs), Thursday nights were the breaker.</p>
<p>“That seems like an extreme violation of basic American freedoms.”</p>
<p>(I think our common alma mater feels the same way when it comes to alcohol consumption! 
And I suspect, for many students, they like it that way. But I get an awful lot of e-mails from parents, some of whom have been on this list, who bemoan the fact that “they didn’t know”, once their kid gets there.)</p>
<p>Detailed disaggregated admissions data and pricing data are very difficult to come by from both public and private schools and now that we have holistic admission reviews even more difficult to interpret.</p>
<p>As for funding and expenditures detailed breakdowns are also very difficult to come by. Try and figure out what a typical D1 schools spends on atheletics sometime.</p>
<p>“Do you really think that colleges should force their professors to publicly state their political party registration? That seems like an extreme violation of basic American freedoms.”</p>
<p>Yes I do. I don’t think you need to know Professor X is a Republican and Professor Y is VP of the local chapter of the ACLU and Professor Z belongs to CAIR but if 8 of 10 Political Science professrs were holocaust deniers I might question how balanced their scholorship and teaching were with respect to the Arab Israeli conflict. We live in an age where even theoretically hard sciences like evolutionary biology and meteorology have become politicized.</p>
<p>Binge drinking data is much easier to come by. Just ask the federally recognized campus alcohol/drug coordinator (often a dean). It is public information.</p>