Preppy comes up a lot for many colleges. You might find these links interesting:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1639226-decoding-preppy.html
and a BC take: http://bcsartorialist.■■■■■■■■■■/
As for drinking/party schools, BC has a long way to go to top this list. For example:
http://www.universityprimetime.com/top-100-party-schools-america-ranked-2/
https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-party-schools/
Our experiences with the dorm life has been very good. Mine have lived on upper first year and then on lower for the remaining years and very happy at that. Never at Newton, though. Where did you hear that the housing at BC is bad? I find that vague comments can be misleading as too often such comments are not from direct experiences. 