If it’s a restricted country club, what they are paying for is the “privilege” of not having to socialize with “less desirable” members of society. Which, BTW is exactly what fraternity members are doing.
worst…advice…ever.
Why subject yourself again to a degrading process where a bunch of 20 and 21-years-olds sit in judgement of the “acceptability” of a bunch of 18 and 19-year-olds?
Better advice: Simply don’t participate in this asinine process and pat yourself on the back and be proud that you’re above all this nonsense.
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I agree: do not bother to pledge. It’s silly “lord of the flies” nonsense. Get thee to a school (or group of friends) that doens’t acknowledge frats or sororities. have the shivers just thinking about frats and sororities.
@ucbalumnus A lot of colleges have rush at the start of the year. The idea is for guys to pledge a house where they like the guys, not based on who can arrange to have parties with the best sororities. As part of this process some rushees are invited to Spring parties their senior year in high school and then to a few parties in the summer. But the idea is to meet a lot of new people, not to attend a bunch of parties that one chapter has and become “one of the guys.”
This is generally followed by formal rush at the start of school or some time during the first semester, which consists of a variation of a 30-minute open house visiting every chapter, reinvitations to a second round of five to seven hour parties, followed by a final round of three or four parties, after which the kids will go home and the bids will be extended the next day, folling many hours of bickering by the chapter members. A lot of times kids will be assured of a bid during the final party, and they might even encourage him to skip any remaining parties.
It sounds to me like, from @Mommission 's story, that her son was attending the final party when he was taken to the basement and told that he did not have a bid. Her son interpreted this as an act of cruelty, and maybe it was. But I can see how someone might think they were doing him a favor by letting him know where he stood so he could make the most of his other options.
Once the bidding and assignment process is over, snap bids will often be given out. These are given to kids who end up not getting a bid, or not accepting a bid. Sometimes a kid who has narrowed it down to four highly selective fraternities will be cut out. Sometimes these bids are from fairly weak chapters, but sometimes they are from solid fraternities that just had a bad rush with poor yields. Perhaps a chapter gave out 100 bids in hopes of getting 75 pledges and instead only got 35, so they give out a couple of dozen snap bids.
I should note that the people giving out these bids have a little back story on the rushee. They are all in a room, and if they see a guy who was cut on the last round they may be able to ask the IFC reps from that chapter what the story is. The snap bids are not given at random.
If Mommission’s son had gone into rush with a reasonably open mind, perhaps starting with a list of eight or 10 chapters of interest, but keeping options open for at least three until the end of rush, then in all likelihood he would have found a good placement. I should note that there is a danger of being too chummy with a house full of guys over the summer. If you get to know them too well, a few guys might not like you or you might say the wrong thing. Rushees should not try to play the role of Jr. Active in the chapter to which they would like to join. They are a prospective member, and only that, and should not expect any more.
I see no reason to ban fraternities because a few people who go against every bit of advice that has ever been given about rush have a bad experience.
I agree. There are many, many excellent reasons for banning fraternities. This is not one of them.
So you are taking Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Tuffs, MIT, Stanford, UMich (any major public) off your list because they have fraternities and sororities?
Someone not interested in fraternities and sororities may do fine at many schools where they are present, but not the dominant aspect of the social scene. However, such a student may find some schools like Dartmouth, Washington & Lee, Bucknell, and DePauw more problematic due to the fraternities and sororities apparently being the center of the social scenes, with the majority of students joining.
“I should note that there is a danger of being too chummy with a house full of guys over the summer. If you get to know them too well, a few guys might not like you or you might say the wrong thing.” I think this says it all. Social organizations where it’s inadvisable to let them get to actually know you before they pick you as their bff.
Harvard: Does not recognize fraternities or permit them on campus.
There are also dozens and dozens of top schools (e.g. Oberlin, Brandeis, Amherst, Notre Dame, etc.) that don’t allow them.
Harvard may not recognize them, but they are there (as are the other secret clubs). I think there are now 4 sororities off campus. They have to work together to hold Rush, plan activities, find meeting spaces. There must have been a desire by someone to organize these houses, find a national organization, take the steps to be a formal group. Amherst has had frats on and off for years. Again, not always on campus and recognized, but there.
I believe that when the schools do recognize the groups, they are better controlled. University of Colorado recognizes sororities and PanHel as a student group, doesn’t recognize fraternities. Guess which group is better behaved? The school has no say whatsoever over the fraternities and doesn’t really even have a liaison to ask them to change a party date or help out with a school event. If the frat wants to do anything on campus (float for homecoming, sell something for a fundraiser), it has to team with a sorority and the sorority has to get permission. If the school owns the Greek housing, even more control. In Boulder, it does not own the housing. At both my girls’ schools, the schools own the housing so they have lots of control over the parties, types of parties, attendance at the parties, who lives in the housing.
But that’s fine. You can choose the schools that don’t have Greeks, I’m just saying most of the big schools do so you are eliminating a lot of top schools if you have ‘no Greeks’ as a line item when choosing schools.
@Mommission - I’m sorry your son went through this. However you have put some information out here such as that you are friends with a women governor. There are only 6 states with women governors right now. Plus you have written some other things that well if someone really wanted to they could try and at least narrow down what college you are talking about and since you have said that you don’t want to say anything while your son is in school I would be careful what other identifying information you put out here. I am not saying anyone on here would do that but you have to remember that this is a public forum.
Recent story about the CU Boulder situation: http://www.dailycamera.com/cu-news/ci_28972482/cu-boulder-moves-reestablish-formal-ties-fraternities
However, sororities are generally better behaved than fraternities when it comes to alcohol-related trouble.
This is just one more story of many that make me glad D1 doesn’t attend a university with sororities/fraternities and D2 wants one with little or no Greek presence. There’s so much ridiculousness associated with them that they’re not worth the little good they may do, IMO.
They “de-recognized” them in the 80s but after the issues you point out with that option, specifically “sexual misconduct” issues, they decided in 2014 to ban students from joining them completely. Other schools have taken this approach - Middlebury is one.
I will never understand the parents or kids who so intensely hate greek life that they are opposed to their very existence at any institution they attend. There are schools where there are higher percentages of students who participate in greek life and schools where the percentage is lower but I’ve never heard of one where the majority of students participate and where student life is totally dominated by fraternities and sororities. Even the University of Alabama where so many say that greek life “dominates” only has 26% of the students joining a fraternity (this is a school with 520 registered student organizations).
How narrow-minded do you have to be that your hostility to particular social organizations is so intense that you can’t even stand to know that other students participate on your campus? Trust me, they aren’t going to conscript you and I simply don’t believe that any non-greek student can’t have friends and an excellent social life at any one of the 2K colleges and universities in the US without joining a fraternity or sorority. What is wrong with people who can’t live with others who make different choices in how they conduct their lives?
Washington and Lee, DePauw, Bucknell, and Dartmouth apparently have a majority of eligible students participating in fraternities and sororities.
However, it is true that such schools are exceptions among thousands of colleges in the US.
Agree @joblue. Didn’t join any fraternity at UGA but still had a grand social life as an indy.
“How narrow-minded do you have to be that your hostility to particular social organizations is so intense that you can’t even stand to know that other students participate on your campus?”
It’s a matter of educational philosophy. Some folks prefer a school where the administration and the other students are on the same page as to whether Greek life is good or bad for the community. I think it’s closed-minded to say that this preference is illegitimate. You’re not allowing these folks their different strokes.
^These schools/people aren’t choosing “different strokes”… rather, homogeneity of thought. Close-minded in its own right.
Similar idea to a school like Occidental but on a different topic. I’m a life-long Democrat, but the homogeneity of political thought at Oxy when I toured with D was off-putting.
“These schools/people aren’t choosing “different strokes”… rather, homogeneity of thought. Close-minded in its own right.”
Why can’t a school express a value set without inspiring your contempt? What’s your data set for concluding that there’s “homogeneity of thought” at wildly different schools like Brandeis, Notre Dame, St. Olaf, Caltech, Rice, Boston College, Haverford, etc.? Certainly not any more homogeneity than you’ll find at peer institutions that recognize small Greek systems. These schools just have a shared belief in a different kind of social structure.
Smith and Wellesley have a ton of similarities and cross-admits, but Wellesley has local sororities and Smith does not; no one who knows these campuses well would say this reflects some contrast in “homogeneity of thought.” They’re both overwhelmingly liberal and feminist.