<p>Can anybody please explain what are fraternities and what are they all about?
(any specific example from penn?)</p>
<p>bump…</p>
<p>Fraternities and sororities are “Greek” organizations. These organizations were founded decades ago (realistically, most were founded in the 19th Century) in the days when universities were attended only by the very wealthy, and they were almost exclusively secretive. Many universities discouraged social organizations during the mid-19th Century, and so students began these organizations, utilizing Greek letters as a way of identifying themselves (since all university students studied Latin and Greek). The organizations quickly gained popularity and branched out from their original campuses, but as this happened, since they had to be secret, each fraternity needed to find a way to subtly identify its members. Most fraternities adopted a handshake (the grip) which could be applied in such a way that a non-member would not realize it was intentional, but such that a member would identify it and be able to return a separate grip. They also adopted certain codes used to identify themselves.</p>
<p>In order to prove to existing members that they could be trusted, those interested in joining fraternities had to go through a probationary period, during which they pledged their commitment to the fraternity. During this period, they could identify with the fraternity to a certain extent, but they would not know the secrets associated with it. As years went by, this pledging process became more and more formal, and many fraternities began to abuse the process. By the late 20th Century, pledging had taken on a very different meaning from its original intention; Greek letter organizations no longer needed to be secret, but the pledges somehow had to go through ridiculous processes in order to gain entry into the full ranks of fraternities.</p>
<p>Today, all fraternities have some sort of pledging process, but many have adopted policies that prohibit hazing. Some actually pay attention to that policy; most don’t, realistically. </p>
<p>There are 30ish fraternities (off the top of my head, I can think of Phi Gamma Delta, Beta Theta Pi, Kappa Alpha, Zeta Beta Tau, Delta Upsilon, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Alpha Tau Omega, Sigma Chi, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Zeta Tau, Sigma Alpha Mu… just an idea of what fraternities’ names look like) on Penn’s campus, to go along with seven sororities (Chi Omega, Alpha Chi Omega, Sigma Kappa, Alpha Phi, Kappa Alpha Theta, Delta Delta Delta and Sigma Delta Tau). There are also service fraternities (for example, Alpha Phi Omega), professional fraternities, ethnic fraternities… basically everything.</p>
<p>One stigma associated with Greek life is that it is “buying” friends. Although that is certainly reasonable, the other side of that coin is that Greek life offers you the opportunity to meet people you otherwise would have never met. For example, I am friends with people on the track team, in student government, in random performing arts groups… all sorts of people … before I joined my fraternity, I never knew any of these people and wouldn’t have crossed paths with them otherwise.</p>
<p>^thanks a lot…!!</p>
<p>Can someone tell me more about DKE at Penn? My friend is about to pledge and I’m curious what kinda frat it is and how its perceived</p>
<p>It is a VERY small fraternity at Penn. Their house is gorgeous, but as of last year they only had twelve or so brothers, most of whom were juniors and seniors. There was a lot of talk about letting the chapter fold after this year, but if they can bring in a healthy pledge class, they’ll be just fine. The guys I know in DKE are pretty cool.</p>
<p>what are some of the best frats in your opinion? that are actually somewhat prestigious (not known to just party) yet still have fun parties?</p>
<p>don’t worry about frats now it won’t even matter until second semester. by that point you’d have had time to go to most frats’ parties and see for yourself.</p>
<p>I really think frats are the toughest thing for a lot of new freshman. Everybody thinks Penn is going to be this intellectual nirvana where everyone is a nerd and everyone is accepted. Not really. Getting into a top frat will require one or more of the following superficial qualities: being rich(and Penn’s standard of rich exceeds just about any other standard), being very good looking, being on a sports team(preferably a cool one like crew/lax/squash/football/basketball), being a graduate of a top prep school, and being white. </p>
<p>These places find most of their pledges in the Fall before official rush actually starts. The typical “Chance me for Penn!!” poster on CC would never even have a shot. As a graduate of a top boarding school, I was getting handwritten notes slipped under my door every week. </p>
<p>It’s a reality check for a lot of kids. They realize they are part of a world based on image and status. That culture certainly isn’t unique to Penn, but don’t expect Penn to be an escape from it.</p>
<p>that sounds wierd, only white?</p>
<p>every frat makes sure to have minorities, but it’s pretty superficial. there might be 2 black kids in the whole frat. there are more diverse frats with a lot of asians and other minorities, but these are not the frats that will confer any social prestige. </p>
<p>with 30 frats, there is a frat for everyone, but most are pretty unknown and not well respected</p>
<p>I would really disagree with that, JR. First of all, after freshman year, fraternity “prestige” doesn’t matter anymore. If you join a fraternity, it should be because you enjoy hanging out with the brothers of the fraternity, not because you think it is a “cool” fraternity. </p>
<p>Also, if you look at Castle or Zetes, half of their membership is international, so the “rich white boy” stereotype doesn’t really hold up for all of the fraternities. Sure, there are fraternities that have a lot of a specific type of person, but with so many, is there anything wrong with that? If every fraternity was equally diverse racially and socioeconomically, what would make them unique?</p>
<p>You might be surprised when you rush to find that that the “lame” fraternity seems a lot cooler once you get to know the brothers.</p>
<p>+1 to everything chris said. to say the “good” fraternities are all white is completely false.</p>
<p>chrisw I am fairly sure that you are in DU so you are incredibly biased with regard to frats. I am unaffiliated but was invited to dirty rush most top frats back in the day. Castle and Zetes are their own animals and are a little distinct in that they are mostly international, but they don’t do much to help your point. they work pretty much the same way as the best American frats. just swap out Andover and Exeter for Eton and Harrow. they’re still mostly white, and they’re so incredibly exclusive that their “open rush” events are often scheduled for the early morning so that nobody they haven’t pre-screened has a shot at joining.</p>
<p>lol, not in DU, though I gotta say, for the first three weeks of fall 2007, DU threw some SICK parties. It was a shame that their social chair blew through the entire social budget for the semester by the end of September, since the parties were actually crazy fun. Haven’t heard of anything relevant out of DU since then. That said, I’m sure that the brothers of DU are very happy that they are brothers, and it frankly doesn’t matter what other people think of them. If the brotherhood is strong, there is nothing wrong with the fraternity.</p>
<p>I personally didn’t rush freshman year… kinda just fell into a fraternity sophomore year after getting to know the guys. It seemed like it could be fun and rewarding, and it’s been exactly what I wanted; I got out of it exactly what I put in, and the brothers who did more for the fraternity got more out of it.</p>
<p>As for the rich white stereotype, just using my friends as a sample set, I have two Indian friends in SAE, one in Sig Ep, an Asian friend in PhiPsi as well as ZBT (yes, the “all Jewish” in ZBT is false), a couple white guys of modest backgrounds in KA, a couple guys of modest backgrounds in Skulls (no, they had nothing to do with the… ehh… problems… Skulls has been having). Need I go on? More than half of the Greeks I know only rushed to get free food, and they never considered actually going Greek until they realized that there were some damn cool people around.</p>
<p>But seriously, to make a blanket judgment without even being affiliated with any Greek organizations… seems a bit ignorant to me.</p>
<p>I dirty rushed all of the top of Greek organizations, I am not exactly an outsider here. I just wanted to focus on academics, that’s it.</p>