The Michigan fraternities were on a study trip to boost their GPA. They only destroyed the ski resorts for research purposes.
As others have said many Greek orgs have higher GPAs because of requirements. At my school one of the orgs has a 3.0 GPA requirement when you cross and many have required weekly hours.
The council (IFC, panhellenic, nalfo etc) also play a role I what’s seen as important, typically cultural and black org member have higher GPA because their processes are significantly more difficult and scholarship and academics are highly emphasized
MIT’s pan-hellenic Greek organizations are an exception for the most part.
Many students who otherwise would not have joined them did so because there was a lack of decent nearby housing options for students past the first year or two. Most friends/acquaintances who did stated as much.
Also, MIT’s academic culture and workload is such slackers tend to fall by the wayside pretty quickly.
We had test banks. They were tests that profs had handed back. The profs knew that these tests might “make the rounds” for future students to study from - whether that was within Greek systems or just among friends (“hey, I know you’re taking Econ 201 next quarter, I’ll save my notes and tests for you”). I don’t see the issue, personally. We were still STUDYING from these tests. Cheating would be breaking into a system and getting a test that hadn’t yet been administered or that the prof didn’t hand back.
Whether this constitutes cheating depends on the rules of a given college.
For instance, showing someone an old exam to someone who is currently taking the course can be considered an academic honor violation at my college as demonstrated when one student was punished by the honor board at my LAC for doing precisely that. Worse, it didn’t matter that the board conceded she did it unwittingly.
While her punishment consisted of writing an essay, she was also placed on judicial probation for the rest of her time there. This meant another honors violation would mean a suspension at the very least.
While I personally felt this case was unreasonably extreme, it does illustrate what may not be a big deal by some colleges/individuals might actually be to others.
^^ My sorority had the same type of test banks as well as older sisters who may have already taken a particular class and who could help younger girls prepare for exams. There is absolutely nothing dishonest or unethical about that. We also gave awards each term to the members and pledges who had attained the highest gpa, as did all the other Greek organizations on campus. In addition, the university IFC and Panhellenic organizations published lists each term (and still do) of each GLO’s current gpa, ranked from the top to the bottom. There was significant status attached to the groups appearing at the top of the lists.
So sorry, Cobrat. Your “theories” about how the Greek’s higher average gpa is somehow invalid, don’t hold water.
Holding water or not, the entire debate about higher GPA is just a bunch of baloney that shines with irrelevance.
Unless one wants to show that purportedly smarter kids are capable of even dumber behavior. The romantic views of Greek life are laughable.
Statistics from the North American Interfraternity Conference
Community Service Hours: 3.8 million hours last year
Philanthropic Dollars Raised: $20.3 million last year
All-Fraternity GPA: 2.912 versus All-Male GPA: 2.892
http://www.nicindy.org/fraternity-statistics.html
http://www.nicindy.org/uploads/2/6/7/5/26758262/nicf_gallup_research_infographic_hr.pdf
There apparently are some backward-thinking colleges, departments, or faculty members who believe that old tests and test questions should be kept “secret”, so that they can be reused. They may consider using old tests and test questions as study tools to be cheating. But that may not prevent the existence of unauthorized test banks in fraternities and elsewhere, or other “leaks” of old tests and test questions.
This problem is not limited to colleges. It happens in high schools as well. A recent high profile case involved the radiology board exams.
Some colleges, departments, and faculty members make old tests and their solutions public, ensuring that there is no unequal access to them.
The instructors at your school reused old tests?
[QUOTE=""]
Philanthropic Dollars Raised: $20.3 million last year All-Fraternity GPA: 2.912 versus All-Male GPA: 2.892<<<
[/QUOTE]
So what? Care to speculate about how that philanthropy compares to the damages caused by the Greeks?
Again, those arguments are just nonsensical.
In terms of GPA, it’s 2.9 whether one is in a fraternity or not (.02 is NOT a statistically significant difference :p, nothing to be proud of, nothing to be ashamed of). Since some fraternities require a 3.0 it means some fraternities don’t, and since “all male” includes athletes, same thing.
If instructors use the same tests year after year, while those are kept in test banks, then yes it’s cheating. On the other hand, instructors who do that are kind of asking for it… I realize that in some cases it’s because TAs are given the textbook’s exams and use those, not realizing there are test banks, but still not okay for the students to do (taking a test where one has been provided the questions ahead of time is cheating.)
I totally agree that using old tests as a way to prepare better for a new test is not cheating.
The best way to avoid this type of cheating is to create new tests each semester but of course it’s labor-intensive so some instructors may not want to/not have time to do it/may not be allowed to do it (TAs, or as per course provider/textbook specification if purchased in a university-specific bundle.)
Some young men will choose a university based on whether there are universities and how good/wild their parties are. Films tend to popularize college as “party time”, too (think of the film “bad neighbors”, with a 30-something couple in a residential neigborhood where a fraternity moves in - for high school kids, that’s what “fraternities” mean, creating a loop of bad beavior even if some/most fraternities don’t behave like in films. It’s like watching Friend from abroad and thinking it depicts life in NYC, you know, lots of friends, friendly neighborhood coffee shop, large airy apartments, very little rain or snow…). How many people watched “American Pie” vs. “Liberal Arts”? probably the same ratio as the number of students attending ASU and Kenyon. 
My sons are/were Greek in college. The older son became his fraternity’s president and also served as a student director on its national board. During the time he was in his fraternity, the average GPA was 3.5. There are mandatory study hall hours. He graduated debt-free and is now at UVA Law on a full scholarship. The younger son just finished his pledge time at his school. Not only did he have mandatory study hall hours with his fraternity but also with his athletic team. He made the Dean’s List his first semester in college. He said that some of the other pledges were dropped because of grades or the lack of. He also serves as his pledge class’s community service chair, and boy, did he pulled in volunteer hours that first semester.
Doresearch is right. Every fraternity/chapter is different. Some take GPA/community involvement more seriously than others do. My oldest son has made some lifelong friends from his fraternity experience. In fact, he just spent the weekend with several as his university received its charter, and the current president invited all the past presidents to attend the banquet. My younger son has been grateful for his fraternity brothers, because they often give him a ride when needed – like to the the emergency room a week ago and the airport for Christmas break. He will buy them dinner or gas as a thank you.
- correcting sentence above:" based on whether there are fraternities" (not "universities"), ...which they equate to parties (whether or not fraternities volunteer, require mandatory study halls, etc, wouldn't factor into the decision for these juniors/seniors.) This is a conversation I have every year with boys and the #1 factor they mention is not community involvement. For some, it's the opportunity to party, for some it's the fear the university's too big and they'll have an automatic group of like-minded friends (both are not mutually exclusive). Some also think of "professional access" or like the idea of being in a select society.
A relatives of mine struggled mostly throughout high school but in college( he is a freshman). He joined a frat and so far his grades have never been better. As previously stated it really just depends on the specific chapter
Note that, even in the absence of unauthorized test banks, some students may have seen the tests before. For example, consider someone got a D or F in the course the first time and is repeating it.
“If instructors use the same tests year after year, while those are kept in test banks, then yes it’s cheating.”
If an instructor releases a graded / corrected test back “into the wild,” there is no possible way I can see studying off of that test as cheating, unless there’s a big red stamp to that effect on top of the handed-back test or the college explicitly prohibits that in an honor code.
This is a really thin article…reading it, it appears that the only source of greek growth is from the association of greek groups…so umm… 
but more telling is the sentence at the beginning of the article that then isn’t looked at again: “Why is membership going up? Why? Well, an increasing number of students are going to college.”
This is getting a bit OT but in the situation I was mentioning (using same test year after year), it was final exams and there was a complex tracking system to make sure neither questions nor any document could leave the room.
It is still an undesirable situation for instructors to reuse the same tests year after year. Too many opportunities for cheating, and the possibility of accidental cheating by someone who uses an old test as a study tool, not knowing that it was not supposed to be released or that it would be reused.