I Chose Grinnell because . . . FILL IN BOXES

parent2009
Mon, 08 May 2006 09:16:39 +0000

I’ll admit to being perplexed every time I read a post from a parent who presumably came to age in the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s talking about alcohol being uniquely pervasive at a particular college. Unless you’re going to BYU or Grove City you’re kidding yourself if you think there won’t be a lot of alcohol being consumed by a lot of students at virtually every college. The real question is whether a particular school has more of a partying than academic atmosphere. Clearly Grinnell falls into the latter category.

Our daughter is just finishing up her first year at Grinnell. She and most of her friends don’t drink and have managed to fit into the social scene just fine. Grinnell is a haven for intelligent, highly motivated, and deep thinking kids who more often than not aren’t quite in the mainstream. It’s hardly the frat-boy beer pounding school that you’ve described. It sounds to me that you’re daughter may have simply had bad luck during her visit and generalized from that.