<p>I don’t drink or smoke and I feel that I’ve harassed people on CC pretty thoroughly about this issue, so I can give you a very educated answer despite being a prefrosh like you. Here is what I have found out:
There are plenty of people who don’t drink or smoke, and it is definitely not necessary to live in a sub-free dorm to find them. Something unique about Wes (compared to other schools I looked at, such as Haverford) is that there is no social divide between drinkers/partiers and nondrinkers/nonpartiers. Neither is really looked down upon at all, and people have friends with different social habits. You won’t be forced into a “bubble” just because you don’t drink and it really won’t limit you socially at all. You can go to parties without drinking and still have a great time, if that’s what you want to do, and there are tons of sub-free activities too. One advantage of Wesleyan being an artsy school is that there are many plays, concerts, comedy shows, dance performances, film screenings (a free film is shown every night Thursday-Sunday, which is very popular) to attend, all of which will be sub-free. The Center for Fine Arts also gets a ridiculous amount of visiting performers (professional performers) due to its proximity to New York and Boston. Students get really reduced rates for tickets to the Center for Fine Arts shows. Also, the many themed program houses on campus are required (I think) to sponsor a certain quota of events during the year, all of which will also be sub-free, and the student board which runs the student center sponsors a bunch of awesome-looking subfree events like an Iron Chef competition, De-Stress Parties during final exam season (with chocolate and yoga and stuff), open mic nights, etc. And of course there are many well-attended lectures and speakers like at any college… So there is definitely a lot of stuff going on outside the “drunk party” norm.
I have talked to subfree people at Wesleyan, Vassar, and Haverford (I don’t know if those are places you’re looking at or not), and the people from Wesleyan were by far the most enthusiastic about how being subfree does not limit you socially and how there are so many things to do on campus that it’s really not an issue at all. As long as you’re not opposed to others doing it, you’ll be good.
The people who do partake in the getting drunk do so usually starting on Thursday night, since most people have no classes on Friday. So the “weekend”, in that sense, is Thursday-Friday-Saturday – most people take Sunday to study.
Here are some other forums in which people have discussed this, which I think you would find useful:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/wesleyan-university/586491-transfer-wesleyan.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/wesleyan-university/586491-transfer-wesleyan.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/wesleyan-university/586135-does-everyone-wes-party.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/wesleyan-university/586135-does-everyone-wes-party.html</a>
So yeah. The way I looked at it was: There are going to be drinkers and non-drinkers at every school, so the question is where are both communities more integrated, and where can non-drinkers have a fulfilling social life and not be limited by their lifestyle? And Wes fits the bill.
Feel free to message me if you’d like 
Hope to see you in the fall!</p>