Williams vs Dartmouth

Gogreen19
Mon, 27 Apr 2020 08:23:39 +0000

Right, so I’m gonna tackle your concerns. I’m a current Dartmouth student, and an asian (though south asian) so I think I can help you here.

Firstly in response to the rolling stone article, please see: https://www.wsj.com/articles/book-review-confessions-of-an-ivy-league-frat-boy-by-andrew-lohse-1408742685

The info in the article above is consistent with what I know about the frats here and people in them.

@gotham_mom it is easy to judge, but I have heard that many of these kids return because they have nowhere else to go. Think, if these kids were able to stay in a stable home environment for the duration of the epidemic, then they would. Or their families would ensure they would. These people are not doing it to rebel or out of spite, this is their only option.

Now, below is a long response I gave to someone else concerned about the frat scene. Feel free to ask me any other Dartmouth-related questions.

Firstly, the greek spaces, unlike at most other schools are very inclusive. For almost every event at a greek house, you only need an id to get in. This discourages (well, largely) the typical rich white kid greek life common at other schools. As an Indian, I felt very comfortable there.

As to binge drinking, it is present, but it is not what everyone does. There are always a few people at a party who go too far and hop around, but most people, in my opinion drink responsibly. In fact, they tackled this in our orientation. All the freshman were in a room, and they had us fill out anonymously on a sheet of paper how much we drank at an event on average, the had us throw them around such that we each got someone else’s. They then called on us to stand up if our new paper read a certain number, going in order. The vast majority stood up for between 0 and 3 drinks.

This is consistent with polling data in our college. The Animal House thing (BTW the frat Animal House was based on was closed down permanently) gave us a reputation that in my opinion, isn’t really deserved. I suppose you could say we party more on campus, but that’s because it is a very campus-based existence we live as opposed to city existence. Rather than going clubbing, we go fratting. I, and I believe most of my peers prefer it that way, since I think you are less likely to run into harmful characters on your campus.

As to the need to take part in greek life – I don’t know who said that but that is demonstrably untrue. It is true that at least half of people you know here will end up taking part. But for most people, its a chill commitment. You can make of it what you want. It’s likely to be a smaller part of your Dartmouth experience rather than a dominating thing. Furthermore, the frats are diverse — only a few (I can provide names) are the party hard conventional frats. There is one, for example, that runs frequent milk and cookie nights, sundae nights and plays board games most of the time. Others play video games, are oriented on social justice etc.

There is so much more to the Dartmouth experience than greek life or drinking. Our sense of community, which you touched on in our post; outdoorsiness; the fact that all of us are super interested and passionate about something, and love conversing about these things. There are many avenues for whatever social life you want here. I plan not to rush – and I am not scared of that at all. All the parties are open to me anyways if I want to, and I do go friday nights. But I spend my saturdays chilling, talking to friends, and playing board games. Plus there are student societies like the Dartmouth Outing Club, and the theater and improv groups, that are a social sphere all their own.

Furthermore, I did not really drink before coming to Darty. And I didn’t the first few times I went out. There was no pressure to drink, and there were always a few others who planned to stay completely or mostly sober as well. I still don’t go all out — getting a little tipsy is enough for me. And I think that’s the same for most of peers.

Feel free to message me about any more concerns.