When Culpo won Miss Rhode Island in 2012, she was a freshman at Boston University. As it turns out, she wasn't a huge fan of her college days. In an interview with Haute Living, she explained that she would often drive home to her parents' house in Rhode Island on weekends or spend Friday nights studying in her dorm room, and not just because she wanted good grades. 

She said, "I really didn't like it. My parents never made me feel guilty about going to college and how expensive it was because they're the best, but it made me feel weird, knowing that it was so expensive [and the students around me were wasting their parents' money by partying]." She added, though, that she did put a lot of her pressure on herself to do well, which gave her an excuse not to go to parties. She said, "I loved learning in college, but the other aspects I didn't love. I was always itching to get out."