Doschicos, that article is more than a little misleading. Just because a college doesn’t issue you a gross of condoms when you check into your freshman dorm, it doesn’t necessarily mean the school is going to need a STD treatment center the size of the Mayo Clinic.
I think there is pretty strong evidence and research that proves a connection between an environment where access to info and resources and open dialogue is available and a healthier environment re: STD prevention, etc. It’s not a stretch. From the campus newspaper, it’s obvious that some ND students feel the same way. Just because you have parietals and ban sex between non married students, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Even for Catholics.
http://dulac.nd.edu/community-standards/standards/sexual-activity/
Speaking of marijuana violations, the other thing for parents/students to be aware of is that marijuana laws now vary widely from state to state. In Indiana (which in many ways is culturally more Southern than Midwestern) there has been no decriminalisation of marijuana; possession of over 30g is a felony. By comparison, smoking marijuana is legal in DC, although not allowed in public places.
Gee, @doschicos, for someone who hates Notre Dame you sure spend a lot of time reading the Notre Dame Observer! By your logic, liberal, permissive schools such as Smith and Carleton (examples pulled from the stories here) would virtually be STD free because access and information to birth control (unlike Notre Dame) is amply provided. But we know from the shower postings and from the tour guide that this is not true. Apparently there are big STD problems on these campuses. I’m sure there’s STDs at Notre Dame, too, but I’d be willing to bet that it’s no where near as epidemic as these other schools.
It seems silly to harangue a college–particularly a Cathoilic college–for instituting living rules that reflect its philosophy.
@chillkitty , please chill. The whole point of this thread is to complain about schools people don’t like. You can’t refute anything anyone says; it’s their opinion. On this thread it’s perfectly legit to harangue any school for anything. (This is probably an excellent time to mention that my daughter disliked BC because she saw priests on campus.)
@Old_parent , you’re gonna have to give me a raise soon!
@Lindagaf. You’ve earned that raise! All I know about Catholicism I learned from my friends that were kicked out of Catholic School and historian Elaine Pagels. While I’d love to discuss politics, religion, and sex, I don’t want this thread to devolve. We should be throwing ivy covered bricks at colleges, not at each other.
Back to colleges… I have a bone or two to pick with Cal Poly SLO, the school that after a revisit my daughter described as looking like a junior college( my Brooklyn wife added, “in a cow field”). Professors at SLO so consistently spread misinformation about their UC competition that they must actually believe it. For example:
- They say classes are at UCs are taught by TAs and not professors (100% of engineering classes at UCB are taught by professors)
- They claim that SLO has the only cleanrooms that give access to undergraduates) (UCB has several cleanrooms and materials labs begin using them as early as freshman year)
- They state that it is nearly impossible to graduate in 4 years from UCs (UCB has guaranteed classes for engineering majors)
Maybe we need another thread for lies that colleges told us?
@NCMOM24 I have heard Cary referred to as the “Yankee Containment Zone” many times B-)
I am going to ding Notre Dame one more time, as I so wanted to love it, and have my son get a thorough rigorous liberal arts education but I just kind of found it to be Opus Dei Catholic. its a French order, nothing like Billy Clinton Georgetown U, or Santa Clara U. Jesuits with priest scholars that really are open and liberal. The initial intake meeting is in the building with the gold Mary statue and it was just sterile. The student panel seemed to be rehearsed. And it lead at least to a great discussion about sex with my son. I just cannot imagine a school where girls rat on each other for having sex. But well, there is it, Notre Dame.
And then there is Haverford College, the Quaker school with a kangeroo court for HONOR CODE! Rat out your fellow student for cheating and win points! Use cocaine whenever you feel like it, just do not CHEAT!!! They sort of remind me of each other in a sick way.
I guess what shocked me the most about Notre Dame was the feeling that even though its in the conservative midwest, drinking for BUSINESS DEALS is the way to go. Wow, I expected better out of that business college. I am sure the ethics part is good in fact at Mendoza. I just felt it was so good old boy. Like take Wall Street and transplant it to northern small town Indiana. Notre Dame is feeding the bad drinking habits of Wall Street, and I expected better. I really did. And I AM Catholic! Sorry no one got the joke about wine in 200 chapels. It was JOKE.
@Coloradomama I think there is a sentence in #789 in which you should reorder the prepositional phrases 
@ Dolemite, you must be a Notre Dame grad!
Roman Catholics do hate to be called phonies, but if one encourages 18 year olds to break the law by drinking, then I do not find that Godly. Thats how I see it, bad grammar and all. I do not mean Communion wine, I am talking about looking the other way when freshman drink. I can see that at U of Colorado, why would I spend Notre Dame prices for my son to learn that in rural Indiana?
I disliked the first couple of colleges I visited: Wesleyan, Fordham, and NYU fearing that I would not like any of the colleges I would visit. Also unexpectedly didn’t like Hamilton and Tufts that much, which had up until that point been some of my top choices. Did unexpectedly like Brandeis and Lafayette though.
When visiting University of Houston (as a back up school to Texas A&M) we found ourselves at a surprisingly nice urban campus. It was proudly proclaimed by half the people we met on our organized tour and staff visits as one of the “most ethnically diverse universities in America”. Praise the Lord and pass the non-GMO, coop grown, hand ground coffee! The tour and an advisor visit were over at lunch time. The student union grill area was PACKED. Not what we expected at a commuter school. And this highly diverse campus in all it’s glorious “#3 in the USA” ethnic diversity glory was the MOST SEGREGATED group of diversity I have EVER encountered. My 2 Anglo teens who are minorities in their Texas public high school were STUNNED. We grabbed a table in the middle of the seating area just to take it all in. All the Muslim girls over there, Muslim boys the other way, blacks in one area, hispanics in another, etc. Is it too much trouble for just a couple of kids to sit with someone outside their group? I’ve lived in diverse areas like San Francisco so I know what “real” diversity looks like and THAT was not it. UofH’s student center segregation totally undercut a surprisingly good pitch from a department advisor and a much nicer than expected campus setting. My kids both said, nope, not even as a backup school. Epic fail. Learn to play cafeteria musical chairs UofH.
Colomom, is it ok if even one school in the country would prefer if dorm life looks more like happy hour at the VFW hall (a few beers and conversation) and less like a Roman orgy?
Whether you like it or not, alcohol will be at virtually every social occasion and every business outing these kids will ever attend. Maybe the folks at ND think it would be good to develop an understanding of demon rum so that they won’t make rookie mistakes at their first office party.
And there is a difference between being illegal & being immoral. If you understand that, you will not be so perplexed by how they could think drinking is not morally reprehensible even though it’s illegal (and how they might think abortion is immoral even if it’s legal).
“If you understand that, you will not be so perplexed by how they could think drinking is not morally reprehensible even though it’s illegal (and how they might think abortion is immoral even if it’s legal).”
And how about premarital sex? Is that immoral, too? 
(but it happens anyway, even at ND X_X 
)
In ND’s defense, South Bend is not rural – it had been an aging industrial city though is enjoying a renaissance under the leadership of Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a thirty-something, openly gay, progressive Democrat.
I’m not sure why this thread has turned into “I was unexpectedly surprised when highly ranked and well respected schools attempt to impose the beliefs of their founders on those of us who might want to attend based on reputation”.
“I was surprised that Catholics don’t agree with premarital sex when they have such a pretty campus and a football team I so wanted to cheer for”. It’s one thing to be surprised by the neighborhood or the admissions session…but Catholics being Catholic or Quakers acting Quaker is a bit pointless.
To borrow the punchline from an old joke, “only if you’re doing it right.”
Btw, as regards shower sex, I wasn’t usually a proponent of saving water that way, but once was talked into it. It was a very private shower, so I wasn’t forcing anyone to overhear my experience. At the point in the festivities where my friend was experiencing a peak moment, she jerked in such a way that I was challenged to retain my footing, and the thought flying through my mind was “dang! is this what happened to John Glenn?” I have not done it since.
And now we can return to this strange little thread. Can I repeat that my wife and son hated Harvard?
Hated Amherst the first time I visited it on an overnight. The snooty index was sky high from the moment the adcom finished his presentation. That was nearly a half-century ago and my understanding is that the info sessions have not changed that much.