CAL POLY - Cal Poly will stick with a campaign to curb binge drinking even though a recently released Harvard study indicates such efforts don't work.

For about three years, Cal Poly has used posters, newspaper advertisements and notepads handed to new students to trumpet the message that most students drink in moderation.

The college uses this approach, known as "social norms," along with other methods, to discourage excessive drinking.

But a campus survey has found that from 1996 to 2002, binge drinking among Cal Poly students increased significantly -- by up to 26 percentage points in one category.

Preston Allen, the assistant vice president of student affairs, said teenagers are drinking earlier and come to college with their drinking behavior more established.

He added that while social norms may not reach the majority of students, there are some who are "reached and touched by that."

"For the life of one student, I think it would be well worth the expense," he said.

Some students and recent graduates, however, said they aren't influenced by the approach at all.

Having taken a statistics class, recent graduate Katy Theumer said she knows how easy it is to "skew numbers to make it worse than it really is."

A skit that she saw during Week Of Welcome showing a drunken driver dying affected her more.

"Things like that really hit home," she said.

What bothers her the most is when she reads about college students dying in alcohol-related incidents.

"That's when people pay attention," she said.

The Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study, which surveyed drinking patterns at 98 campuses, found no improvement in the 37 schools that used the social norms approach.

It's unclear if Cal Poly was included in the survey because a spokeswoman for the Harvard study said that the names of schools involved are confidential. Allen was not sure if Cal Poly was included.

The study measured alcohol abuse in seven different ways, such as having 20 or more drinks in the past month and drinking 10 or more times in the past month.

Henry Wechsler, the study's director, said students are more influenced by pressure from a small group than large marketing campaigns.

However, H. Wesley Perkins, the sociology professor at Hobart and William Smith colleges in Geneva, N.Y., credited with starting the social norms movement in the 1980s, took exception to Wechsler's findings.

"The case studies we've seen are finding a 20 percent reduction in the high-risk college drinking rate" over two year periods, he said.

Allen of Cal Poly believes "the jury is still out on the most effective approach."

Social norms is only one approach that Cal Poly uses to discourage heavy drinking, he said. Other strategies include counseling and education programs.

In fact, the number of on-campus housing alcohol violations dipped by 30 percent to 40 percent from 1999 to 2000, Allen said. He attributed that to increased attention paid to students by staff, more education and organization of alcohol-free activities.

Cuesta College has never been involved with the social norms program because only a small percentage of its students are considered high risk, said Gil Stork, the vice president of student services.

Out of a student population of 11,000, he said only 1,500 freshmen each year fall into the high-risk category of being away from home for the first time.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.