<p>bacardi: It’s OK if you like Duke. Lots of people, I included, like Duke. And Duke’s party reputation relative to Chicago isn’t exactly a turn-off to most students, obviously including you.</p>
<p>The Rolling Stone story is, what?, two years old? When it came out, I talked about it with my daughter, then a college first-year. She thought it was distorted and sensationalistic, of course, but said there was a fair amount in it that rang true to the experience of lots of her friends. All of them are still in college now, so it can’t be THAT outdated.</p>
<p>Chicago does, of course, have a segment of students who participate in “traditional social life”. (I think, parsing through your double negatives, that I’m disagreeing with you.) It’s just not as dominant as it is elsewhere, and that tends to be fine with them and fine with everyone else. When my son decided to go to Chicago, one of the things he said was that he wanted to party, but appreciated that the party scene at Chicago didn’t eat up anyone’s life, which wasn’t true of some other places. </p>
<p>He’s right to be concerned. I saw some lives eaten up in my day. It’s tough to recognize when you’re 18, not tough at all when you’re 25 or 30 and looking back. Some people come out of it just fine, others . . . don’t. Or don’t for a long time. (By the way, it’s not even true that it doesn’t happen at Chicago. My older child has seen some tragic stuff there on the edges of her social circle.)</p>
<p>You may want to consider for a moment who is more isolated from the “real world” – the kids at Duke, or those at Chicago? The kinds of behavior the article describes do not constitute a sustainable life style. The real world (or at least the professional, high-end, well-paid and responsible part of the real world – i.e., not “The Real World”) is actually pretty intolerant of sexual power plays, gender stereotyping, and drinking culture. Even the frat boys at Duke – and, yes, I know all Duke students aren’t like that, but I personally know some who are – don’t think they can continue to behave that way forever. They know perfectly well they are in a kind of privileged bubble that insulates them from most of the adverse consequences of their actions, unless they get hit by a perfect storm of bad luck, and that eventually a change is gonna come. By the time they graduate, or shortly afterward, most of them are ready for that change anyway. No one said they were dumb.</p>