I feel like Greeklife influence declines after sophomore year because house parties at places like C-mont become more popular. The first 2 years, definitely so.
Workload: Yes, it may be that way in the business school where many classes are based on quizzes and exams and maybe group projects (and at worst, like 1/3 of students are granted A’s), but in sciences with labs and/or difficult exams or social science courses with high reading and writing load (IE, lots of independent work), then it gets intense. B-school classes may sometimes be hard depending on the primary area depth I guess. The workload shouldn’t really be discussed because it pretty much varies from person to person and varies a lot by department. Some students may more often end up needing to spend a weekend in the library and forgo going out. But Emory is like most other elites. You can find pathways to coasting to accommodate whatever, though you would be wasting your money.
*Also, may I add that as a freshman, maybe shouldn’t comment on the b-school workload as even a GBS scholar would not have a representative class schedule that they would have if in the b-school. The workload for pre-business freshman and sophomores is indeed usually MUCH easier than when they are fully enrolled in it because most are simply just padding their transcripts and resumes until they are admitted, so you basically take your b-school pre-reqs (which you may have gotten AP credit in) such as econ (intro. econ at Emory is a joke…Business econ. is apparently harder, but still isn’t particularly challenging), calc (joke at Emory), fin. accounting (many won’t take till sophomore year and it honestly doesn’t look as hard as students claim it is) and DSci (may or may not be challenging depending on teacher) on top of what are usually the easiest GER courses possible. The actual b-school courses are typically a bit more stressful even if only because they make students take 5 courses/semester. Most of my pre-business friends pretty much coaster their first two years through Emory and then had to start working harder to do remotely as well. Many pulled it off, some not so much.
School pride is definitely not traditional D-1 type of pride. It’s more about events affiliated with clubs and various orgs.(especially multicultural ones) and what folks are doing (projects, intellectual endeavors) on their own time. It isn’t unified by a sports fervor so go elsewhere if you feel you’d be missing out without it.