Many of the dancers were psyched yet nervous. “I’ve never stayed up for 30 hours before,” said McCormick junior Zachary Sersland, who is dancing in his first DM this year. Communication freshman Rebecca Montag, had more to worry about. Her partner dropped out a week before, and she had been paired with someone she did not even know. “So far I’ve been floating around dancing with different people. I’m scared for tomorrow, but right now, it’s awesome!”

Jamba Juice representatives shook things up by entering the tent dressed in banana costumes and dancing on stage to the tune of “Sweet Home Alabama.” Project Kindle founder Eva Payne made a typical feel-good speech, talking about the history and development of Project Kindle, about how many lives it has impacted, etc. The dancers were quiet for the most part, but there was still some chatter for Payne to talk over. Then she started talking about one of the ambassadors to DM from Project Kindle. “Imagine being told that your dad purposefully infected you with HIV.” The dancers fell silent.

Payne ended her speech on a high note. “Together, we are lighting the fire of change,” she exclaimed. She then led the dancers in the chorus of a supposed campfire song that went, “From east to west, Northwestern is the best…” The music started up again, and one of the children brought to the event started dancing enthusiastically. Dancers gathered around and applauded him.

In Norris, a dancer is sitting down already with an ice pack on his knee. Presumably this is the first of many similar images to be seen throughout the night.

If you have a working set of eyes, you also know that no one takes the Freeze seriously: Practically the only people in fraternities Fall Quarter are freshmen. McCormick freshman Scott Kellert called it a “futile effort to stop freshmen from drinking.” Fraternities throw off-campus events during the Freeze that are well-attended by freshmen, which are made all the more enticing by being against the rules.

Granted, the university’s intentions (at least the whole let-them-adjust-first shtick) are solid, and I do believe that the Freeze theoretically makes sense: Who better to recruit than impressionable, homesick freshmen looking for a family away from home? But with the Freeze, instead of having freshmen sucked into the Greek system too soon, the fraternities and sororities would hypothetically wait a few months and welcome in more well-rounded, secure candidates with a broader view of the campus.

But keeping freshmen out of frats doesn’t work, and both the freshmen and the fraternities are the cause. “Greek life is too major an element of campus life to be hidden away for a month,” said Mike Haas, chapter president of Northwestern’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon. “Social freshmen looking for a place to go out at night will naturally gravitate towards the fraternity quads.”

Plus, fraternity recruitment is a competition: if one chapter defects from the Freeze and recruits heavily during the fall, and the rest play by the rules, that one chapter will get a major advantage during recruitment — and the rest will be screwed. “It’s essentially a prisoner’s dilemma situation,” said Peter Koelsch, president of the Interfraternity Council. “Chapters have to trust one another not to violate the policy or else they are [tempted] to violate it in order to keep up in what becomes something of a recruitment arms race.” So everyone defects, and no one plays by the rules.

Even if Freeze prevents a handful of students that would normally seek fraternity life from doing so, freshmen have no trouble finding alternative places to get boozy. “The dorm parties I’ve been to so far have been crazier [than frat parties],” Kellert says. And while he doesn’t have a fake ID himself, Kellert’s friends frequent bars like The 1800 Club and The Keg.

No matter where students party, it goes without saying that the risks of alcohol extend far beyond the Greek world. Matthew Sunshine, the SESP freshman who died in June from alcohol poisoning after attending a party in Foster House, continues to serve as a reminder of how easy it is to get in trouble with alcohol, regardless of where you are and how heavily the area is supervised.

So the Freeze is ineffective, and needs to be changed. But there are good reasons not to abolish it altogether.

“The Freshman Freeze at least provides an incentive for Greek organizations to be extremely careful if they are going to invite freshmen to their houses, for fear of being caught,” said Haas. “The significant drop in hospitalizations during [Wildcat Welcome] this year . . . is evidence that Greeks have taken the administration’s crackdown on violations of Freshman Freeze seriously, and freshmen are safer because of that.”

Instead of revoking the policy altogether — which is too lofty a goal, let’s admit it — the administration should consider revising it. For example, if fraternities could invite an entire dorm to take part in an event, it would take some of the edge off underground recruitment tactics, and allow the freshmen to bond with each other as well as get to know the organization.

Drinking is so integral to college culture that a single rule like the Freeze probably isn’t going to have a huge impact on it, regardless of how it tries to create change. The administration should not view the Freeze as a tool to curb drinking, but instead as a way to keep freshmen from being prematurely influenced — as it claims to, but really doesn’t.

Kellert, who plans on rushing, said, “I think [the administration has] the right idea, trying to get the freshmen adjusted to college life before starting at fraternities. I just don’t think they’re going about it the right way.”

The Northwestern study-abroad brochure begins with a quote by Colin Powell. He speaks about how it’s “important for American students to learn other languages, experience foreign cultures, and develop a broad understanding of global issues.”

For years, this has been how American students justify the thousands of dollars they dole out every year to learn in other countries. However, papers such as USA Today have recently questioned study abroad and how seriously students take the experience, and New York’s attorney general is investigating the merit of programs selected by Northwestern and other schools.

Many of the 200,000 American students who go abroad every year stay well within their comfort zone, often spending only a semester or a quarter out of the country. Many visit Western countries, such as England: In 2005, Congress reported that about 67 percent of study-abroad students went to Europe, while only one percent ventured to the Middle East. Often, they stay in international dorms with other English-speaking students. This kind of attitude inhibits any hope of cultural immersion, and defeats the purpose of a trip abroad. Perhaps the most questionable study-abroad programs, however, are those that offer semesters on cruise lines that occasionally stop off for a quick tour of a passing country.

Some students at Northwestern acknowledge that parts of their experiences haven’t been the most immersive.

Jesse Sleamaker recalls meeting his friends in Prague. “They were all staying together, and none of them knew a word of Czech,” the Weinberg junior says.

Heidi Dessecker remembers how it was revealed at a study-abroad reunion dinner that “many kids’ ‘cultural experiences’ were basically partying in the international dorm.” As an international relations major, Dessecker is considering studying abroad again, but fear of ending up in an international dorm gives her second thoughts about applying.

But an equal number of students seem to have avoided the temptation to exploit study abroad, and instead fulfill its intended purpose.

Sleamaker himself spent six months in Italy learning the language. “To me, language and culture are inseparable,” he said, explaining how he used Italian to familiarize himself with the local culture. By the time he left, he was practically fluent. Sleamaker added that he learned a great deal about himself and his priorities. While he conceded “the [classroom] workload was a joke,” the real-life experiences he had in Italy — and the Czech Republic, France, Switzerland and Slovenia, which he visited in his spare time — more than made up for it.

Amy Danks was just accepted to a program in Bolivia, and is prepared for a rigorous experience. She says, “I’m certainly not expecting to go on vacation.”

The Weinberg sophomore will live with an indigenous family, meet top government and economic leaders, and participate in a six-week research project. “The program director doesn’t even know English, so it’s not going to be easy,” she says with an anticipating smile.

Dessecker, who spent the summer in Uganda, studied hard to prepare for her trip. While she was there, she worked on readings and other assignments by herself. “We essentially had to teach ourselves everything,” she says. She also had an internship on the weekdays.

So a lot of what is advertised in Northwestern brochures (the opportunity to “Develop New Perspectives on Academic Subjects and Real-World Issues, Experience Personal Growth,” etc.) isn’t BS. Students actually can learn something from these experiences that they wouldn’t while taking the usual classes on campus.

Undeniably, some students essentially twist the idea of study abroad into “party abroad.” However, there are also students here who try to get as much out of being in a foreign land as they possibly can.

Does Northwestern need to re-examine its study-abroad program? Not exactly. Could we be more stringent when accepting credits from study abroad? Sure. Because really, how different is taking a semester of joke classes while living in an international party dorm different from taking a semester of joke classes while living in Bobb? Some standards must be held.

The study-abroad program at Northwestern is neither broken nor perfect, but there’s no need to worry about its decline. It’s up to each study-abroad student to decide whether or not to take the opportunity seriously.

It’s the harsh reality: We are a second-choice school to most Ivies. And, honestly, that’s what we deserve to be. There are reasons why schools like Harvard, Yale and Princeton are all better-known and more well-respected than we are. After all, our acceptance rate is 26 percent – about 15 percent more than most Ivies.

Harvard’s list of notable alumni for its law school alone is about as long as Northwestern’s list for its entire undergraduate and all of its graduate schools combined. And these schools have more than triple the money we have because their alumni make and donate more back to the school than ours do (compare Princeton’s 60 percent alumni giving rate donating graduates to NU’s 29 percent.) Northwesterners just haven’t built the same legacy for their school as these other students and alumni have.

Our ratings also aren’t nearly as impressive as theirs. We’re ranked 14th in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, well behind Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford, the top four. And U.S. News was being nice: We’re 42nd on the list for Washington Monthly.

Yes, NU certainly isn’t anywhere close to No. 1 in the country, and it probably won’t be any time soon. Contrary to what the administration says, the recent surge of freshmen applicants, up 54 percent in the last three years, isn’t necessarily an indicator of a reputation boost. It’s probably actually more due to the switch to the Common Application and the growing trend among high school seniors to apply to ten or more schools at once than an improved reputation.

And we aren’t the only ones experiencing an application surge. Compare Northwestern’s 12 percent increase in freshman apps in the past year to Appalachian State’s 25 percent. Appalachian State. Ever heard of them? They have a football team.

Nevertheless, when I say NU is a second-choice school, I mean that it is second-choice to only the best colleges in the country. Northwestern may not be a household name, but nor are any of the more than 4,100 other schools in the country. In fact, of those thousands of colleges, Northwestern comes closer to matching the Ivys’ reputation as any. Northwestern might have 13 colleges before it on the U.S. News report, but there are also 116 that follow it. Despite Northwestern’s relatively low yield of admitted students compared to the top Ivies, it still has the 46th highest yield in the country. And although NU is 42nd in Washington Monthly’s survey, the school that follows us is Princeton.

When you look at the big picture, NU’s reputation is fine. If you’re denied a job after college, it won’t be because you didn’t go to a prestigious enough university.

The biggest reason for this, of course, is the price tag. The tuition currently stands at $35,064 per year and promises to grow quickly. Of the few who can pay out, an even smaller fraction is actually willing to do so. The result is a campus filled by the upper-middle class.

These circumstances aren’t only unfortunate for the people who can’t afford to come here; they’re also discouraging to the current students who expected a sense of reality out of the college experience. (For public high school graduates, it may actually be a step backward.) If you’ve ever noticed the strong Northwestern tradition of complaining about anything and everything in sight (“I can’t believe that test. Who does that professor think he is?”), chances are you’ve picked up on the sense of entitlement that almost all NU students carry with themselves. Pretty annoying, isn’t it?

Other colleges may not have the resources to lower their tuition costs, but Northwestern does – and why isn’t that reason enough? While the university doles out a seemingly respectable $213.2 million in financial aid every year, this is much less impressive when put in context. Northwestern offers aid to 42 percent of its students, but consider that Cornell University, which has a smaller endowment and almost 5,000 more students, offers aid to 48 percent.

NU could also easily stop the steady rise in tuition. According to the Congressional Research Service, a tiny 0.7% endowment payout could end tuition increases at the 20 schools with the largest endowments. Apparently, no one is listening: Northwestern – No. 12 on the list – actually watched its tuition go up 4.96 percent this academic year.

What NU needs now is a cue from its peers. Harvard made a splash earlier this month for eliminating tuition paid by students from families making under $60,000 a year, and for greatly reducing tuition for families making up to $180,000 a year. (Hey, in this market, even the somewhat well-to-do could use a break.)

Though Harvard holds an endowment five times the size of ours, NU could still apply the same policy or some variant on it. According to the Harvard Crimson, the plan costs the Ivy about $22 million a year. If Northwestern implemented a similar program just using the money received from its Lyrica rights deal, the university could sustain it for 31 years. By then maybe the students will have bigger problems to complain about.