Sex & Scandal at Duke

''I always say going out should be, like, a fifth class,'' says a raven-haired young woman I'll call Allison, a junior from New York. ''It's exhausting.'' She looks at her friends Kasey and Sarah -- the latter being the woman who took me to the foam party -- who nod in appreciation. It's four o'clock on a Thursday afternoon, the day after classes have let out for the semester, and the girls, all twenty-one-year-old juniors, have met me for lunch at the Washington Duke Hotel and Golf Club. The ''WaDuke,'' as they call it, is the most elegant and expensive hotel in Durham. It's also, like the Nasher Museum, on the Duke campus, and as such serves as sort of an upscale cafeteria for students who are allowed to use their meal points to order anything on the menu. ''We come here every day of our lives, pretty much, and order ten-dollar martinis,'' says Allison, nibbling a cheeseburger.

The social scene on campus, as one Duke professor describes it, is part of ''Night Duke.'' Then there's ''Day Duke,'' by which students get up, get dressed, go to class and work insanely to ace all of their papers and tests. This afternoon will be a precursor to what, for the girls, will be a serious ''Day Duke'' attempt at studying for finals, which begin in a few days. This is a deadly serious activity at Duke, which is ranked the fifth-most-competitive college in the country by U.S. News and World Report.

Like Naomi and Anna, Allison and her friends are formidable young women. All were straight-A students in high school who played one, if not three, sports. All are stylish and popular. And all have impressive goals: Sarah, a talented writer, hopes to be a journalist and has already been published in national magazines; Kasey, who like many of her classmates was considering investment banking, has changed her focus to consulting. Allison, poised, focused and meticulously well-groomed, wants to work in law. She'd be a shoo-in for a stint on The Apprentice.

Right now, though, these girls -- like Naomi and Anna -- are members of the most social segment of the Duke population. Known collectively as the ''Duke 500,'' it's made up of members of the top four fraternities, the Core Four, and the lacrosse team, which comports itself as sort of an unofficial frat. There are also a few ''independents,'' like Sarah, who exude self-confidence and thus, just naturally, seem to fit in.

Members of this social clique hang out at a variety of Durham bars -- a necessity, says Sarah, given that there's no real on-campus social scene, thanks to Duke's rules against alcohol on campus. ''Personally speaking, I have no problem with throwing down plastic and opening up a tab -- I open them up pretty much everywhere I go,'' she says, yawning. The girls have just woken up. They're also, they admit, a little sheepishly, deeply hung over.

The girls partied late last night, as they do every weekend -- and most nights during the week as well. ''There are times when I'm so tired, I've gotten, like, three hours of sleep,'' says Sarah.

''We do a shitload of work,'' says Allison, who usually doesn't leave the library until almost 11 p.m. and is a double major -- psychology and German. Having double or even triple academic focuses is typical at Duke, where students study roughly four hours per day, on top of their classes. Kasey, an econ major with a psychology minor and a ''markets and management'' certificate, brings her books to the gym. ''And a highlighter,'' she says. ''Not that I can actually read this small print on the treadmill, but it's just the fact that it's sitting there and that I brought it and the effort's there.''

''Reading on the treadmill with the highlighter -- see, that's Duke in a nutshell,'' says Allison. ''You've got to do everything at once, and you've got to do it well.''

Or at least girls do. Boys at Duke don't seem to feel that pressure. ''The guys are always hanging out, playing video games -- why don't girls do that?'' Kasey looks at her friends. The others shrug. ''Girls will either be at the gym or doing something productive. They work so much harder -- spending two hours at the gym trying to look good, and eating salmon.''

Allison adds, ''If there's ever a time when I just sit around, I get horrible anxiety.''

In 2003, Duke launched a yearlong study, known as the ''Duke Women's Initiative,'' to look at the social attitudes and concerns of women on campus. What they found was alarming, says Donna Lisker, director of Duke University's women's center. The kind of hyperactivity Allison describes is typical among female undergraduates, whom, Lisker says, feel tremendous pressure ''to excel both academically -- get the right grades, the right internships, move your life in the right path -- but then you also need to excel physically, if you will,'' with perfect hair, skin, clothes, makeup and a size-four body. Women interviewed for the study spoke of the immense effort they had to put in to create this illusion of ''effortless perfection.''

That phrase resonates with Allison and her friends, who tell me the Duke ''ideal'' is to be smart, studious, goal-oriented -- and also cute, toned, fashionably dressed, dedicated to the gym ''and fun,'' as Allison notes.

''You have to be up,'' Kasey agrees.

''Because, like, if you're a 'terrible' '' -- they use the word as a noun -- ''no one will talk to you,'' Sarah says.

The women laugh. But it's part of an overall trend that worries professors like Lisker. ''Our undergraduate women at Duke are the best of the best,'' she says. ''They're so smart, so driven, top of their class, student-government presidents, lettered in every sport.'' But when it comes to their personal lives, men set the social rules. ''They throw the parties, they create the expectations, they create the standards, and these women -- these incredibly smart women -- on some level, being accepted by their peers is so important that they put aside their own values and standards. They dumb it down.''

Allison confesses, ''I have done things that are completely inconsistent with the type of person I am, and what I value.'' She hooked up with a guy in a high-profile fraternity for more than a year, a guy who was ''very traditional'' -- meaning that ''he could go to a party with all of his friends and do whatever he wanted, but God forbid I ever went anywhere without him.''

She went along with it, she says, out of ''a constant fear of losing.'' She explains: ''When you're in a relationship with somebody, especially with somebody in the frat scene, you're lucky to be with him.'' It's never the other way around, she says -- no matter how smart or attractive the girl.

Which is upsetting, she adds, because she and her friends tend to look down upon the boys at Duke. ''I'll see this beautiful model-type girl walking with this little scrunchy five-foot-two guy, and it's like, 'Oh, she's so lucky that she got him,'' says Kasey.

''I found myself falling into this thing,'' says Allison. ''It made me very uncomfortable and unhappy, because it's not a way to live. But if I didn't do these things and he broke up with me for some reason, two days from now he'd have somebody else. That's just how it works.''

''You're just scared,'' says Kasey.

Allison looks at her friends. ''If my mother ever knew,'' she says, ''I mean, she would smack me across the face. I was not brought up in that kind of environment.''