<p>My daughter is a junior at Colgate. She “kind of” thought about joining one of the three sororities when she was a sophomore, but realized she wasn’t really all that interested. This year she is very happily living in a college apartment with four roommates. </p>
<p>As a former Colgate fraternity member, myself, I’ll defend fraternities to those who have only an “Animal House” view of them. Often, you make your best friends there and sometimes you really do grow from the experiences you go through. Of course, that could happen just as easily in a dorm or apartment, and in fact in my junior year I dropped out of my fraternity because it seemed a little silly and chose, instead, to live in an apartment for a year, then a year in a rented house with five others near campus. So, I’d say my experience (and this was decades ago!) was that fraternities were fun and useful for me, but that I soon tired of them.</p>
<p>It’s most common at Colgate not to join a fraternity or sorority, but either way will be fine. They serve a purpose at colleges like Colgate which are a bit isolated (getting a ride somewhere, advice about which courses to take, cheap meals, some social life, etc.),but I’d just as soon see Colgate eliminate them. And I’m pretty pleased my daughter got over her “sorority moment” and chose to live in an apartment.</p>