<p>By percapita I mean, how prevalent in the daily life of a typical student. For example, at my son’s school with 50K students, there are a lot of parties and clubs. But there are 50K students all packed in a college town, so obviously there is more going on by sheer numbers; however an abstainer can easily find thousands of students just like him or herself as well because of the numbers.</p>
<p>Shoot, my younger son has seen absolutely no evidence alcohol at all in the honors dorm, although I’m sure he could walk a half mile up the street and find some partying. </p>
<p>I hate to always use the example of high school, because it sounds silly, but for lack of anything better, here’s my analogy- when my kids were at the small private hs, it seemed like about half the kids were pretty big partiers. At the local public high school, it seemed like there was more partying (by “volume”), but actually a lower percentage of kids actually partook (this is all heresay, based on my kids’ perception- but they are probably the best source :)) Numbers = visibility.</p>
<p>I’ve got to give a shout out to UF, though- even though it’s on the lists- the Gator Nation is strong and vibrant, and doing great things in the world!</p>
<p>Typical student: in most of the schools on that list, more than 50% of students (and a substantially higher percentage of whites, and of males) binged at least once in the past two weeks. They ARE the typical students, if by typical you mean “median”. For this “median” student, alcohol - either that which s/he uses him/herself or the experience of those students around them, plays a huge role. Doesn’t mean that the 20% of abstainers don’t abstain, (though they may experience drunken people, property destruction, and rape of their friends), nor that the smallish percentage of moderate drinkers are more than moderate drinkers.</p>
<p>Jrpar: there is no contradiction there at all, just as there is no link between alcoholism and intelligence. Alcoholics are not stupid; just alcoholics.</p>
<p>I’m responding to the obvious- that “fraternities, parties, and clubbing” is necessarily weighted toward big public universities, because a larger pool means a larger presence. A mom told me a few months back that her son did not want to go to a college where there was a big fraternity presence, so he wasn’t interested in the state U (where almost 90% of students are NOT in frats); instead he was interested in Vanderbilt. I couldn’t understand the logic- if he wanted to feel comfortable not being Greek, it didn’t make sense to go somewhere with an upwards of 50% greek population. Yes, <em>more</em> students at the state U were greek, but more students were not greek as well. I’m using the same logic with partying.</p>
<p>I do agree with the gravity of the situation of binging in general and I hope I’m not coming across like I’m minimizing it. It’s just that I’ve known plenty of students who are not binging at big colleges.</p>
<p>I understand that mini - but it is interesting that schools meet the criteria do so well on the classroom experience ranking. It suggests to me that you can’t assume what the oncampus experience will be like by simply sorting schools by those criteria.</p>
<p>omgosh eadad…are we talking UT-Austin?..lol! I know they are unhappy with the distinction which has been an issue since the '60s. Even then, I distinctly remember my parents driving up to Austin to ‘straighten out’ my father’s much younger brother who was having way too much fun at school…lol! There are several other Texas schools who have worn the party school label too…(SW)Texas State and SMU are a couple that come to mind. </p>
<p>I don’t know what UT is to do though… I mean what CAN you do with 6th Street in your back yard? ;)</p>
<p>“I understand that mini - but it is interesting that schools meet the criteria do so well on the classroom experience ranking. It suggests to me that you can’t assume what the oncampus experience will be like by simply sorting schools by those criteria.”</p>
<p>Oh, yes you can. You can’t assume what the CLASSROOM experience will be, but you can very much assume what the “oncampus experience” will be. (You can find it false, of course, but I have to tell you (and I do this for a living), I haven’t run into a single school in ten years with 7 or 8 of the 8 characteristics that didn’t have above average (sometimes way above average) binge and heavy drinking rates. I HAVE run into schools without those characteristics that had high rates as well. There are schools that pride themselves on their “work hard, play hard” reputation.</p>
<p>Amazing, my alma mater–Humboldt State, didn’t make the list.</p>
<p>So why do most people think it’s a party school? (Has someone finally figured out that the full-out partiers are either on academic probation or drop-outs who never leave the area? Amazing!)</p>
<p>Wechsler, Harvard School of Public Health. The eight characteristics are: rural; higher than average family income; coed; residential/4-year; non-religious; white(r than average); heavy spectator sports interest on campus; significant fraternity/sorority presence.</p>
<p>While alcohol use leans slightly toward the northeast and upper midwest, and marijuana use toward the west, the data over the past 10 years indicate that, in the main (with exceptions of course) high alcohol use and high marijuana (and other drug) use track each other fairly closely. (Source: National Institute of Drug Abuse, "Monitoring the Future - 2006).)</p>