Your guide to academic families and successfully adopting children

It’s September in St Andrews, which means the start of a new academic year and soaking up the last few days of sunshine. For many, September also means that academic family season has begun. As Scotland’s oldest university, it’s no secret that St Andrews is a university filled with some strange traditions—some of which are definitely very unique to St Andrews. One of these traditions is academic families. While this is one of the more well-known traditions in St Andrews, people new to St Andrews are unfamiliar with it. In this article, I’m going to briefly explain what academic families are before giving you some tips on how to adopt academic children.

WTF are academic families and what do you do in them?

As mentioned earlier, academic families are one of the more well-known traditions in St Andrews. In a nutshell, academic families are when third—and sometimes fourth years—adopt first years, also known as freshers, (and the occasional second year). The older students then become academic ‘parents,’ while the first years become the ‘children.’ Academic families are one of the main ways that St Andrews encourages cross-year mixing, while giving first years a support system (of sorts) and somewhere to ask for more unfiltered advice on various aspects of university life in the bubble. While most academic families have two parents and children, academic families can become more broad and/or complex, with some families having academic aunts, uncles, grandparents and more. It’s also important to note that while many people do adopt academic children or join academic families, it’s not compulsory to do so if you don’t want to.

The main—and most important—event that academic families partake in is Raisin. This happens in the weekend before Independent Learning Week in Semester 1. On the Sunday of Raisin Weekend (also known as Raisin Sunday), academic families will normally spend the whole day together. Some of the more common activities on Raisin Sunday includes breakfast, playing games together (which normally involves alcohol) and going on a scavenger hunt around town. While Raisin Sunday does have drinking involved, it is important to state that drinking is not compulsory. In fact, academic families are generally extremely accommodating towards people who don’t drink and will provide non-alcoholic alternatives such as squash, vinegar and hot sauce. 

On the next day (also known as Raisin Monday), academic families will participate in what’s known as Foam Fight. This is when academic parents dress their kids up in silly costumes—think High School Musical Wildcats, Minions, Teletubbies, beer bottles—and send them off to Lower College Hall (just in front of St Salvator’s Hall) with a can of shaving foam each. Around 11 am that day, all the children congregate in the quad and spray each other with shaving foam. Episode 7 of The Crown’s sixth season gives a pretty good depiction on what Foam Fight is like.

Having explained what Raisin Weekend is, I’ll now give some tried and tested tips on how to adopt academic children.

Tip #1: Society events, society events, society events

One of the biggest tips for freshers at university to make friends is to go to society events. As much as one could make fun of how widely used this tip is, the reality is that to an extent, it does work. St Andrews is home to 150+ societies, ranging from sports societies, arts societies, pre-professional societies, cultural societies, academic societies, interests societies and more niche societies (which has included Hole Digging Society and Frog Society, among others). In a close-knit town like St Andrews, societies make it easy for people with common interests to meet, meaning there’s a fairly high chance that you can meet (and subsequently adopt) children who share common interests (or in some cases, common background(s)) with you. Having these shared common interests and/or backgrounds can make it easier to break the ice. Most societies host free events and give-it-a-gos in Freshers’ and first week, which makes it super easy for anyone who’s interested to attend. Bonus points if you’re in the committee of a society (or societies), as it’s likely you’ll be more visible in the event. Between an event I hosted as a Student Officer and attending events for another society I was on committee for, I was able to adopt all of my children. 

Tip #2: The power of nights out

With 601 (affectionately known as six-oh-fun) open, there is (arguably) no better time than to adopt children on a night out, as students across various year groups swarm 601 for its first two weeks. While I have personally not been brave enough to do this, I have a few friends who have adopted their children on a night out, whether that’s in 601, Main Bar, the Vic, the Union or at Shawarma House. I guess there’s something about dim lights and having to shout over the music that can lead to successful academic adoption. Despite St Andrews’s night life getting less than stellar reviews across the board, it doesn’t mean that you can’t find academic kids through it. Same thing goes for finding children at bars and pubs, as I know someone who adopted six kids in one swoop at a bar. 

Tip #3: Carpe diem

The adoption process can be nerve wracking (for both prospective parents and children), but at the end of the day, you do have to just go for it. While things like society events and nights out can make it a little easier for nervous prospective parents to approach prospective children, you can make your own opportunities to adopt children. If you see someone that you think could be a great prospective kid at a café, what’s stopping you from asking them whether they want to be adopted? You can also ask your friends whether they have siblings or know freshers attending St Andrews this year too. Having talked to some of my academic children and reflected on first year, it can be easy to forget that while you may be worried you won’t have academic children, many first years are worried that they won’t be adopted in time. In my first year, I jumped around seven academic families (my sincere apologies to all of them), as I wasn’t sure which family I wanted to join, before panic joining my eventual academic family the week before Raisin Weekend. Regardless of whether you’re an academic child or parent, everything will work out! 

At the end of the day, academic families are a very fun and wholesome tradition designed to encourage cross-year mixing and friendships. In most cases, they are a great way to meet people that you otherwise wouldn’t have met and in some cases, you can find some lifelong friends through them. In many ways, academic families represent the best of St Andrews—slightly culty and unique, but also evidences our tight knit and warm student community. 

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• tradition