However, the success of IM sports in the context of H, Y, and ND are likely the result of characteristics that are not present at the majority of colleges. At these schools, a high percentage of students live on campus all four years, so organizing IM competitions by residence can have the desired effect. Where most students live off campus or commute from their parents’ houses, IM teams may not be mainly by randomly assigned on-campus residence, but may form due to other social networks (including off-campus residence like fraternities and sororities) which may be more segregated (indeed, sororities are often much more highly segregated than the campuses that they are associated with, and fraternities are only slightly better than sororities in many cases).
In addition, H and Y have extra-good financial aid for the few lower SES students whom they do admit, so that even those from lower SES backgrounds may not have as high work hours as they would at most other colleges. So such students may be less excluded from IM sports due to work hour commitments compared to those at most other colleges.