My child is an incoming freshman at Duke. Does anyone have experience living in the substance free housing? My child prefers to not be near people drinking all the time, but they are concerned that the students in the substance free dorms won’t be the most social bunch. How bad do things get in the “normal” dorms? TIA!
This type of question regularly comes up.
No experience of Duke, but I can say that my child asked the same question of her own college before she started. She decided against sub free housing. She thought those students would be boring or too quiet.
She completed college and later said she should have gone with subfree housing. A lot of those people ended up being her friends. She didn’t enjoy her first year housing experience, partly because her roommate had a very different lifestyle. She said her dorm was a tamer one, but others were worse.
I’m sure it is different at all colleges, and it’s possible a lot of kids who choose subfree housing still go to parties. They just don’t want to be around substances in their living quarters.
You will probably get more feedback from current students if you post on Duke’s subreddit at reddit dot com.
I will note that Duke’s substance free housing means no alcohol, drugs, tobacco, etc. within the dorm. It doesn’t mean that students can’t partake outside the dorm.
Are there freshmen dorms that allow those substances?
Not that I know of, but students in the substance free housing agree to not use these things in their rooms. IMO it’s more of an honor code/rule following for those in substance free housing vs regular housing.
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There were reports in years past the the sub free dorm choice wasn’t always the kid’s choice, but sometimes the parents so the kid wasn’t on board (and my not have followed the rules).
My daughter’s roommate (in reg dorm) had all kinds of rules and my daughter went along with them - no drinking in room, no boys, no this or that. Daughter didn’t care, but it was the roommate who changed the rules after a while as daughter would just go to the guys’ floor and hang out there and roommate was left out. Their floor wasn’t wild anyway.
D’s dorms also had FIGs, Freshman interest groups. They could just be a fun interest like rock music or a major like psychology, and if a major the FIG had 2-3 classes together and then a seminar on the dorm floor (I think 1 credit?). D was really against doing that and she was so right! Her friends in the psychology FIG HATED it and transferred out if they could for second semester. Too much togetherness.