<p>Frats are a big part of the Dartmouth scene. There are a number of non-frat related groups that one can find that can serve as your primary “circle” throughout college, but it’s a lot easier if you are in a frat. The administration has claimed to want to change this for years, but they are so epically, massively, cosmically incompetent that they haven’t come up with a single constructive idea despite ten years of trying. Like, if college administrations were parts of space, Dartmouth’s would be the gigantic black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Frankly, their incompetence is as much as, if not more of, a problem than the pernicious elements of the fraternity culture. Ultimately, I wouldn’t let the presence of the frats be a deciding factor in choosing whether or not to attend Dartmouth because it’s not that hard to find a frat with a decent group of guys that’ll become your best friends (as long as you search a little bit), but if your son is the kind of person that knows right off the bat that he doesn’t want to be in a fraternity, I would think long and hard about coming to Dartmouth.</p>