A prospective student watches as her tour guide rattles on about the wonderful academic opportunities at DePauw University, but all she is thinking about is which fraternity party her host is going to take her to that night.
Whether or not prospective students should be exposed to fraternity parties before they are a student at that campus is an ongoing debate on several college campuses nationwide. This debate is particularly pertinent at a school like DePauw where most students are affiliated with a greek chapter and the alcohol consumption levels are high.
While the university has no specific policy regarding prospective students in the greek houses, Tiger Ambassadors, first-years that host prospective students over night, are specifically instructed not to expose their prospective students to areas in which alcohol is consumed.
Dan Meyer, vice president of admission and financial aid, makes a point to stress that there can be major consequences for prospective students should they have any drunken run-ins with Public Safety.
"We've actually had about three students who we've actually revoked their acceptance," said Meyer, adding that revoking an acceptance is a "worst case scenario."
In most cases, explains Director of Public Safety Angela Nally, if the prospective student is under the age of 18, Public Safety will call the prospective student's parents instead of revoking admission. The parents will then have to come pick up their child.
"We feel pretty strongly that we don't want to have anyone who is under the age of 18 and who is intoxicated on campus," Nally said.
Most of the blame is targeted at the student host if their prospective student is found intoxicated while underage. Not only will the student, should they be underage, need to face Community Standards for their own charges, but they will also lose their position in whichever program set them up with the prospective student, should that be Tiger Ambassadors, tour guides or anything of the sort.
"We put the burden back on our student hosts by saying that you're actually responsible for your prospective student," Meyer said.
The student host is still responsible for the prospective student, even if the two are not at the party together.
Although Nally recognizes there is more to fraternal life than the Friday and Saturday night social scene, she sees benefits to prospective students being able to engage in the social scene at DePauw.
"I would think it might be important for students to have some kind of exposure to what it might be like to be a part of a greek system," Nally said. "If there's a fraternity that is having some kind of event and it is managed well, then I think that's a different animal than going to a party where no one is monitoring who is drinking and how much they're drinking."
With the admitted student open house Monday, there is some concern among the staff members regarding the influx of prospective students on campus. Many staff members are wary that the prospective students will use the weekend to drink with their hosts and attend fraternity parties.
Meyer describes this uneasiness as a "heightened concern."
"We're always concerned on any weekend because there's liability issues," he said. "This weekend brings [our concern] to the forefront because we have more underage students on campus."
One female prospective student, who will be identified as "Jane," visited DePauw this past fall. She claims that her exposure to the party scene helped her to distinguish DePauw from similar liberal arts schools.
"It's kind of hard to tell one school apart from another, especially when you're looking at similar schools," Jane said. "I think you definitely need to be there [at the party]. Every college campus is a different feel, and you won't know until you see it for yourself."
First-year Oliver Mauk said that he sees extreme safety risks for a high school student in that type of setting, after a prospective student of his attended a fraternity party.
"All the members of the house love getting [prospective students] drunk, and it's just not safe," Mauk said. "They're not used to it. They're high school students. They come here to learn about the school and the education, and the social life comes later."
Contrary to Mauk's view, another prospective student, who will be identified as "John," found that while he felt nervous about going to a fraternity party beforehand, once there he felt safe in the environment that he was in.
"I didn't know if I was going to be walking into a 'Project X' party," John said. "I felt at home there. I really enjoyed it, I liked everything about it and it just seemed like a fun and exciting place."
Jane agreed, and added that the media makes fraternity parties out to be a lot more dangerous than she found her experience to be.
While the drinking and sexual behavior was definitely present at the party she went to, Jane explained, she did not find that she was over-pressured to do anything that she was not comfortable with like she expected to be.
"There's a lot of bad stories about sexual abuse on college campuses and people putting stuff in your drinks or whatever," she said. "People kept offering me drinks, not out of pressure but they were just trying to be nice, but... they understood that that's not what I wanted."
While this may be the case for Jane, sophomore Grant Walters explains that, as a tour guide, it is important for prospective students to like DePauw for its academics, not for its social scene.
"I feel like the best way for students to experience DePauw is to look at it strictly through an academic lens," Walters said. "Obviously that's the primary reason why we're coming [to DePauw]. Prospective students would be swayed by their social experiences at DePauw if they went to a fraternity party and chose not to come for academic reasons but for the 'sweet party.'"
While there are certainly risks when it comes to having prospective students at fraternity parties during their overnight visits, the struggle over if the risks outweigh the benefits is still up for debate.