<p>Momsdream:</p>
<p>As a bit of practical advice. Like many schools with a major Greek presence, Penn appears to have fairly significant rates of “binge drinking”. The only stat I saw was 49%, which would put it at the dividing line between Wechsler’s “moderate binge” and “heavy binge” school ranges – about like Dartmouth.</p>
<p>If my son or daughter expressed an interest in sub-free housing at a school with those “stats”, I would be very supportive – let me rephrase that…very encouraging – of that option, especially for freshman year.</p>
<p>I feel hopelessly unqualified to offer any advice to an Af-Am parent on the issue of de facto racial segregation in campus housing (the Af-Am Film program is thinly veiled theme house option). However, I would point out the statistics show Af-Am students nationally binge drink at a rate about half that of white students. So, my natural “white folk” inclination agaist segregated housing may be tempered by pragmatic considerations if I were faced with giving advice as a parent.</p>
<p>One a tangentially related topic: As a parent, I would be very reluctant to endorse fraternity or sorority membership. Fortunately, I don’t have to cross that bridge. However, I suspect that I would ultimately be unwilling to pay for college if son or daughter insisted on “going Greek”. I feel pretty strongly about that issue.</p>