When Chris O'Connell '13 invited his friend for Winter Carnival last year, his friend who spoke on the condition of anonymity and is now a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania said she saw the "wild side" of the College in an e-mail to The Dartmouth. But while Winter Carnival is an opportunity for students to enjoy the New England winter with visitors, College policies regarding underage drinking do not apply to student visitors, Director of Safety and Security and College Proctor Harry Kinne said.
"It's a great weekend to have visitors and friends come," O'Connell, who hosted two of his friends from high school last Winter Carnival, said. "Winter Carnival in particular is unique we have the resources and facilities to make winter something to actually celebrate."
O'Connell said he attended many "traditional" Winter Carnival events with his guests.
"[My guests and I] went to a lot of the traditional Winter Carnival things," O'Connell said. "We went to the [Carnival] Classic, the Skiway, went out to the frats and the Occom Pond party."
Carnival traditions such as the 99-cent Dartmouth Skiway day and the Polar Bear Swim are events that students said they wanted to share with their friends from other schools.
"There's the Winter Ball this year, which should be fun," Alex Yerukhimov '14 said. Yerukhimov is hosting Kateryna Brezitska, who he met during Dimensions and who now attends the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.
Whitney FitzPatrick '13 said she is excited to share the Winter Carnival experience with her sister, who is visiting for this year's festivities, in an e-mail to The Dartmouth.
"I hope this weekend is nice so maybe we can go skiing," FitzPatrick said.
While visitors from other schools often enjoy the nightlife during Winter Carnival, the Good Samaritan Policy does not apply to visitors. The Good Samaritan Policy is designed specifically for Dartmouth students, and the College does not have mechanisms in place to assist dangerously intoxicated visitors, Kinne said.
"In most cases, when [medical assistance is required], we involve Hanover Police because we don't have any ties or options for that person," Kinne said. "They can't go to Dick's House, so they may have to go to DHMC."
Kinne said that past Carnivals did not usually see large numbers arrests for students from other schools.
"It's not a huge number by any means," Kinne said. "We regularly have people that are visiting. I would say it's certainly much less than one percent of all the people that we deal with."
Students interviewed by the Dartmouth said having visitors during big weekends can emphasize differences between Dartmouth's social scene and that of other colleges.
"We lack a downtown public scene," O'Connell said. "Most of the other schools I've visited have the options of going to bars or clubs, so that's a key difference."
FitzPatrick said she looks forward to introducing her sister to the College's social scene.
"My sister's school doesn't have frats so their social scene is more like bars and house parties," FitzPatrick wrote in the e-mail. "I think it's nice that we have these big weekends because there will definitely be something fun to do."
O'Connell's friend called Carnival "a little crazy."
O'Connell's friend's Winter Carnival visit doubled as her college visit to Dartmouth, she wrote in the e-mail.
"I would definitely say Penn has more diverse options," she wrote. "The whole frat scene is big here too, but because we're so close to the city we can also go downtown. We also don't play pong the Dartmouth way!"
Brezitska wrote that Dartmouth's small size and on-campus party culture appealed to her in an e-mail to The Dartmouth.
"A lot of students here either go downtown or to the frats, which aren't on campus, for a party," Brezitska said. "I'm excited not to walk a mile back and forth between dorms and nightlife."
O'Connell attributed Dartmouth's relatively open fraternity culture to its small size.
"A lot of the time [at bigger schools], if you don't know someone, you can't even get in through the door," he said. "My friends were really impressed by [Dartmouth's fraternities]."
O'Connell's friend wrote that she had the opportunity to see Dartmouth students in a different capacity.
"It was kind of hard to imagine these kids going to class on Monday morning," she wrote in the e-mail.
O'Connell is a former member of The Dartmouth business staff.
