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Everyone here has done a pretty good job of conveying how frats fit into the social scene at dartmouth.
You have to understand that when these people tell you there is a different frat for everyone, there really is. Houses get the reputations that they do because people like to organize themselves with people who have similar personality traits as them. There is even a frat now that prohibits alcohol in its building (Beta).
Joining a frat gives you access to a new group of people that you might not have otherwise met, but more importantly it gives you a place to go on a tuesday night if you're trying to blow off some steam. As the others have mentioned, most frat parties on weekends are open to the entire campus and no one will ever say anything to you if you go and aren't a member or even dont know any of the members; it would be really hard for them to single you out because there are so many people there.
But on the nights when frats aren't throwing campus-wide parties if you're not in a frat but you want to drink you'll find that you'll need to get one of your friends who is in a frat to help you out. As you get towards the end of your career there, playing pong on an off night with close friends is one of the more fun things to do (the campus-wide parties are dominated by the lower classes and can get annoying once the novelty of being around a ton of sexually charged kids wears off a bit towards the end). Not being in a frat makes this difficult; though not impossible since you'll have friends in frats even if you decide not to join one.
Of course this only applies to the guys out there. If you're a girl you'll have a much easier time with things. Guys in frats are much more receptive to random girls walking into their house on an off night than they are random guys for obvious reasons. So if you don't join a sorority and still want to play some pong that won't be an issue.
Also, if you do join a sorority its much more like just joining some other kind of group since from what i heard pledge term doesnt involve any hazing, and unless you join KDE you generally dont throw campus wide parties. Which means you'll be going to the frats to drink and socialize anyways. The nice thing about being in a sorority is that youll have a big group of girls to hang out with, without the pressures to drink that you get in a frat.
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