One of the unintended consequences of raising the drinking age to 21 has been the movement of “Friday/Saturday” night social life off campus, and IMO less safe party environment. This has also resulted in the reemergence of Greek life on campus. Prior to this, everything social was much more focused on the colleges. This is not to say that Greek life dominates the social scene. There are plenty of alternative social groups. S belongs to a frat (but one of those that is more diverse and reputationally is made up of “nice smart guys” - so he tells me). He also plays 2 club sports, participates in student government and co-leads a service organization. He was always this type, the very round social kid. Other students are more singularly focused and others have even more irons in the fire, but the point is Yale has the resources to give every student options in what they want to pursue and a large and diverse enough student population to create various critical masses.
I compare S’s group of friends with mine, and it is much more diverse. My circle of friends were almost all white middle and upper class. I had 2 gay friends, but I didn’t know they were gay until years later. At least 50% of S’s friends are non-white and his LGBTQ friends are openly so. He has some very wealthy friends and others on full aid.
One area that does not represent an improvement is a stifling of non-progressive points of view. My kids grew up in fly over land, and while my son would be considered liberal in his views here, he feels that he cannot freely express some opinions at school. We will talk about some stuff that goes on at campus and on campus SM that we both disagree with and I’ll ask him if he will respond. Too often it is “no, I’ll get blasted”. This is very different from my era when students proudly wore their political stripes and some of my best education was from free and respectful exchanges of views in the class rooms, dining halls and courtyard areas. This however not a problem unique to Yale.
D went to a NESCAC and it was definitely a different experience. Not better or worse. She was also a varsity athlete, so perhaps her more limited social group was a natural byproduct of her team pretty much sticking together. But walking through campus, it was pretty white. Socially, it was very much driven by Greek houses. D and her suitemates did not pledge, but they were a bit of their own contained social group and they had friends at the houses. Her other set of friends were fellow majors. D was never as social as S, so this more tightly knit environment was right for her.