Most students who live in Butterfield, the College's lone substance-free affinity house, say it differs only slightly from other residence halls at Dartmouth.
The students said Butterfield has a quieter, cleaner and a more open social atmosphere.
Butterfield-Russel Sage Area Coordinator Pieter Ott '98 said Butterfield's activities are just like those of other dorms, although Asgard, a student-run organization that plans non-alcoholic events, holds its meetings there.
The majority of students who live in Butterfield do not drink heavily and choose to live there because of the environment created by the lack of alcohol, cigarettes and other substances in the residence hall, Ott said.
Erik Assadourian '00, an undergraduate advisor in Butterfield, said the students in his group chose to live in the residence hall for a "huge range" of reasons.
Terrence Wong '01 said his parents prompted him to choose Butterfield his freshman year, but the dorm's "friendly environment" convinced him to apply to live there next year as well.
"It's a particularly small dorm, so you get to know everyone else very well," he said.
David Tatkow '01 said he chose to live in Butterfield because he thought it would provide a situation that would be more conducive to studying.
"I'm not particularly opposed to some of the things that Butterfield disallows in its own premises, but with my own personal living preference, I just wouldn't want to be with it," he said.
Tatkow said many of the people who live in Butterfield drink outside of the dorm, but they are "slightly more reserved about alcohol."
"Almost all the freshmen I knew had a pretty open attitude about it in the beginning," he said. "A lot of them just shared the idea that I did -- that they just didn't want to live with that type of influence."
Tatkow said students tend to leave their doors open and often socialize when they are in the dorm.
"I think it's more social, maybe due to the fact that many of the rooms are singles," Tatkow said.
Jessica Lacson '98 said she has lived in Butterfield for the past three years, because it is clean, quiet and located in a convenient area.
But she said the substance-free aspect has also been important, "because I definitely then wouldn't have to worry about damage and stuff like that from drunk folk coming home."
Director of Housing Services Lynn Rosenblum said Butterfield is usually a more popular option for first-year students than it is for upperclassmen.
She said around 80 freshmen usually apply for the 21 spots reserved for first-year students in Butterfield, but fewer upperclassmen apply for rooms in the residence hall.
"With the entering class, I suspect that perhaps parents are a little bit more involved in that particular application, and when students get here, they realize that this is a very small campus, and most of the residence halls are pretty much the same," Rosenblum said.
She said the entering class tends to request any special housing options the College offers, including Butterfield and the East Wheelock program.
Although it is difficult to secure a spot in Butterfield as a first-year student, Rosenblum said the demand for upperclass housing there is not great enough for the College to consider increasing the number of substance-free affinity halls.
Students who apply for Butterfield are chosen at random, unless they have some special medical needs, such as severe allergies to cigarette smoke.
Rosenblum said she is not "generally aware" of recovering alcoholic students who want to live in Butterfield, because they contact the Office of Residential Life through their physicians.
But she said recovering alcoholics "don't automatically get to live there."
Ott said students who live in Butterfield are allowed to drink or smoke outside of the dorm, but agree on their housing applications to not bring substances into the residence hall.
"It's understood that people will respect that," Ott said. "It's more a question of what to do when we find out that people have not, and to be honest, that seems fairly rare."
Rosenblum said she does not remember any students who moved out of Butterfield because they violated the substance-free rule.
Although everybody else who spoke with The Dartmouth said students do not normally bring substances into Butterfield, Lacson said sometimes they have alcohol in their rooms during big weekends.
While she has enjoyed living there, she said there is one thing that bothers her: "I don't like the fact that the frat boys use the washers downstairs, because we're the closest to frat row."
"I just see these random frat boys walk by, and they're just walking out with big bags of clothes," she added.