<p>I think that compared to other schools, Bowdoin has a fairly strong drinking culture. Bowdoin is pretty isolated, so the main social activity on the weekend is drinking. That being said, I don’t know the statistics on alcohol poisonings–I personally don’t (think) I know anyone who’s had to be hospitalized and I have only heard of one or two cases of it, but I’m sure there are more. I don’t think it’s a huge thing though. As far as peer pressure is concerned, if you don’t live in a chem-free dorm, I think you’ll find that most of your floormates do drink, and will drink pretty much every weekend. I guess that can be pretty isolating if those people are your friends and you don’t want to go out with them because they’ll be drinking and you won’t be. The solution, of course, would be to choose to live in a chem-free dorm. And parties can be anything, really. As a freshman you’ll probably end up going to a lot of social house parties–themed campus wide parties. And random people/houses throw parties all the time and depending on who you know, you’ll end up going to a whole bunch of stuff like that too. I mean, a party’s a party–alcohol and drunk people.</p>