Is It Better To Be On A Wet Or Dry Campus?

WJ Cope8 years ago

Today, we’re going to discuss the pros and cons of attending a wet campus versus a dry one. At first glance, it seems like a no-brainer that you’d want to be at a wet university, but each have their own pros and cons upon a closer examination. There are several factors at work here, such as the size of your school and Greek life, noise and alcohol ordinances, and whether or not you local law enforcement officials would make the Gestapo seem like a kindly crossing guard.

Doctor Franzia

Wet campus. Dry campus has better, riskier parties because breaking the rules is cool, but it’s too much effort. Plus you will never know the glory of the rent-a-fenced day rager.

ArrowZeppelin

Wet campus, and it’s not even a discussion. I couldn’t even fathom the thought of living on a dry campus. I would absolutely not want to live in the equivalent of the fucking Footloose town from ages of 18-23. The allure of “breaking the rules” would get real old, real fast, when you have to jump through hoops just to pick up a 30 rack for you and your bros on an NFL Sunday.

Also, no BCS school should be a dry campus. There’s no reason for that and opens you up to much-deserved mockery from everyone. Police are pricks everywhere but if you can not act like a total asshole about partying (Although being in a fraternity puts an unfair target on your back) you really should never run into any problems with cops.

El Taco

Dry campus; being a fraternity and having alcohol makes you a golden goose. Rules suck, but if you can skirt them you’re gold.

Kramer Smash

I’ve been on wet campuses. I’ve been on dry campuses. All that matters is you have rain boots.

WJ Cope

I currently attend a dry university, and it isn’t so bad. To the unfamiliar, the idea of a campus being “dry” sounds pretty terrible, but it’s not like people just don’t drink. As long as you’re pretty cautious and a little creative, you’re not going to have too many problems. When I lived on campus, the cops obviously knew that people were drinking underage and partying in houses, but would only get up in your face if you were being excessively loud or causing harm to others.

My school is a top-25, Division I team, and university officials don’t really bother trying to stifle the fun on Saturdays. I was able to walk around with open containers without a problem most of the time, and it was a piece of cake to smuggle bottles into the stadium. I’d love to experience some of the crazier parties that a wet campus can offer, but I’ve heard that the police at wet campuses are much more prone to enter into homes and hand out citations.

Hit us up in the comments with your own experiences with wet and try campuses. Keep it nice and wholesome, though, as this is a family website.

Rob Fox

Wet campus is better, but there are some annoying caveats that can go along with it. When I was at Mizzou it was a “dry” campus. I can’t put quotes around “dry” hard enough. Almost every fraternity house was a waterfall of liquor from the top floor to the basement, especially on the weekends. What the “dry campus” rule mainly affected was that we couldn’t openly drink on our front lawn (oh no, put the booze in nondescript cups and don’t pee on the sidewalk!) and that we’d have to be somewhat, slightly stealthy about bringing booze into the house. Basically, take it in the back door and don’t do it in front of a cop. Problem solved. The “dry campus” rules didn’t really affect tailgating at all.

And that was pretty much it. Since everything was already “against the rules” we could do whatever we wanted, since we were already breaking the rules no matter what we did. It was liberating, in a way. Nowadays Mizzou is a wet campus. Based on my own tailgating experience this past year, it’s probably better. Greek Town looked like Mardi Gras on Homecoming.

Still, there are annoying oversight compromises the fraternities and sororities had to make when the school went back to wet. Ones that aren’t unique to Mizzou but, rather, were modeled after other schools that have also made these compromises. (I actually recall some houses and alumni being against going back to a wet campus because they thought the oversight was too invasive.)

Now there are “auditors” who can come into fraternity houses to make sure there isn’t any communal liquor and that no other rules are being broken. (No drugs, I guess? I’m not really sure). And, if your house is on probation, NO BOOZE. Again, this can be checked on by an auditor. When the campus was dry, no one ever came into your house to make sure everything was kosher. They just assumed we were following the super strict rules. Idiots. There was zero oversight or enforcement of the “dry” campus.

Granted, from what I’ve been told, dealing with these auditors tends to be pretty easy. Some are chill and don’t really care. I think they might just be conning the school out of a paycheck, which I deeply respect. And the asshole auditors are easy enough to trick. There are a lot of limits to what they can and cannot do seeing as they, like the people who employ them (the Greek Life office, I think) have little to no real world authority. I believe there is (was?) a rule that they can’t open a closed door, and that you don’t have to unlock any room doors for them. Basically that means some poor JI bastard is going to have the “communal booze” in his room. If an auditor shows up, lock the door and say, “Gee whiz I don’t know why everyone smells like rubbing alcohol.”

Wet is better, but with the way things are trending on campuses, dry definitely had its charms..

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